POS system for Ohio businesses

Ohio sales tax at a glance

Ohio's state sales tax rate is 5.75% as of 2026, administered by the Ohio Department of Taxation. Every county adds a permissive county rate, and some areas add a transit authority levy, so combined rates commonly run from about 6.5% to 8%. Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati each sit in a different county with a different total.

Grocery food for home use is exempt, while prepared food and restaurant meals are taxable. Rates are set by county, so check the Ohio Department of Taxation's rate finder for your address, and confirm before you open. County rates do change, usually at the start of a quarter, after a local vote or commissioners' decision.

Building your tax group in SeroPOS

In the back office go to Settings, then Tax Rates, and add the state rate of 5.75%. Then add each local rate that applies at your address, such as your county's permissive rate and any transit levy, ticking "for tax group only" so they can't be picked alone. In the SeroPOS app the same screens are under Admin, then Taxes.

Open Tax Groups and combine the rates into one group named after the place and the total, for example "Franklin County". Make it the default tax so new products pick it up, and add a 0% rate for exempt items. If you sell in two counties, create a group for each and assign each location's products accordingly.

Restaurants, bakeries and delis

An Ohio bakery sells whole loaves and pastries to take home, which may be exempt as food for home use, and coffee and sandwiches to eat in, which are taxable. In SeroPOS the tax sits on each product, so set the take-home bakery items to 0% and prepared items to your county group. A mixed order is then taxed line by line.

Where the same product can be taxable or not depending on how it is sold, such as eat-in or to go, consider setting up two products, one for each case, with the right tax on each. Service types such as Dine In and Take Away also help you see the split in the reports. Check the Department of Taxation's guidance on food.

Card terminals that talk to the till

In Ohio, as almost everywhere, most customers pay by card or tap, so the terminal matters as much as the till. SeroPOS works with Global Payments, through Global Pay Cloud or on the T650P handheld with Terminal Plus, and with Gravity Payments terminals set up in Gravity Pay Settings.

Each till can have its own terminal, set under Card Terminal for This Till, so the front counter and the bar charge on separate devices. Tips typed on the terminal print on the receipt, Close Batch prints a day-end summary, and Check on Terminal reads the batch when you're not sure whether a card went through.

Already have a merchant account? Keep it if your processor is supported. If you want to compare costs, send us a recent statement and we'll quote a rate. Card processing is arranged separately from your SeroPOS plan. Tell us your monthly card volume and the terminals you use today, and we can say which setup fits your counter before you commit.

Tax reports and QuickBooks Desktop

The Tax Report in the back office shows tax collected on sales, tax paid on purchases and tax on expenses, with an overall figure and the invoices behind each number, filtered by location and date range. Run it for your filing period, and use the Product Taxes section of the daily sales summary to see which products the tax came from.

On the Pro plan SeroPOS sends sales, payments, customers and items to QuickBooks Desktop, US edition 2021 or later (Pro, Premier or Enterprise on Windows), through the Web Connector. It can build your sales tax items, groups and tax agency in QuickBooks for you, matched by rate rather than by name. The QuickBooks Online connection is set up for Canadian companies today.