Buying an EPOS software system on Finance

EPOS software systems are very expensive purchases for any retailer. Significant investment is required in till systems, stock control, retail management and integrated Ecommerce systems to fully benefit from technology. Whilst some retailers have enough cash to pay for an EPOS system themselves, taking out a finance agreement to spread the costs over a couple of years is becoming increasingly popular.

Using Finance to pay for an EPOS system makes a lot of sense. The main point of an EPOS system is to increase profitability. A decent EPOS system can generate additional cashflow which can be used to purchase more stock and so on. However, the increase in cashflow from an EPOS system can also be used to pay the installments on a finance agreement which is used to pay for the EPOS software system in the first place! The EPOS system really does pay for itself!

One of the tricky parts of using finance to pay for EPOS systems is the different types of cost involved, and the relative willingness of a finance company to cover those costs. Whilst a finance company likes to pay for material things (like a cash register) they are less inclined to pay for time from an trainer or consultant from the EPOS software company, and for obvious reasons.

Finance companies like helping you buy EPOS hardware like tills and printers etc. If you get the correct specialist company, they are ok funding software was well. But they are less inclined to fund time from consultants. Therefore sometimes it is required that you work with your chosen EPOS provider to manipulate the bill to hide some of the time costs in the software cost. In turn, you can hide the software costs inside the hardware costs.

Ultimately your invoice for the retail system might be 4 till computers, and each one costs £2000, which is made up of a hardware, software and time element.

It depends on the Finance company. Some of them have a brain and understand that a successful EPOS installation requires paying consultants and trainers to get the most value - without that element, the whole thing will collapse.

Software license costs are another issue. Finance companies are very reluctant to cover the annual license costs often associated with EPOS and retail management software - so make sure you budget this in, or get the EPOS software company to include the first few years of license cost inside the initial software costs.

It is likely that your EPOS software provider has worked with various finance companies before and will be happy to recommend a suitable company who knows how to work in this sector.

Along the way, we try to point out many of the pitfalls you are likely to encounter, and what to do to prevent large and unexpected bills from your retail software solution provider. Even simple things like a barcode printer can be more complicated than they first appear - we aim to help you, the retailer, learn from the mistakes of others!