POS for seasonal businesses

Swap the menu, not the system

POS menus let one catalogue show different faces. Create a Summer menu mapped to the categories you sell in summer, and a Winter one for the rest, and set the one you are using as the default. When two or more menus exist, menu pills appear on the till so staff can switch, which also suits a business that adds a holiday range for a few weeks.

Categories can be set to Hide in POS when they are out of season, and products can be deactivated, singly or in bulk. Inactive products keep their sales history and stock records, so reports for last season still show them. When the season comes back, activate them again with any new prices.

• Several POS menus, one default
• Menu pills on the till
• Hide categories from the POS
• Deactivate products, keep history

Last year's numbers for this year's plan

Opening day goes better when you know what sold last time. Every report runs for any date range, so pick last season's dates and look at Trending Products, the Product Sell Report and Profit / Loss by day, product or category. The Product Sell Report can filter by time range too, which shows your busiest hours.

Use those figures to set alert quantities and reorder amounts before you open, so the first hot weekend doesn't empty the freezer. Purchases record what you bought last year and from which supplier, and supplier ledgers show what you paid. If prices have changed over the winter, Bulk Edit or a spreadsheet import updates the whole range in one go, and the Stock Report shows the value of anything left over from last year.

Seasonal staff

Each staff member gets their own login and a role. Create a Seasonal role with the till actions they need and none they don't, such as refunds or price changes; when they try a locked action, a manager's password approves it once. Users can be marked inactive at the end of the season rather than deleted, so their sales stay attributed to them.

Standard includes three users and Pro five, and packs of three more users are $10 a month for the busy months. The Sales Representative Report shows each person's sales over the season, and the Register Report shows every cash session they opened and closed, with cash, card slips and notes.

Customers who come back every year

Customer profiles, their purchase history and their reward point balances stay in the back office between seasons, so a regular's points are still there when you reopen. Set an expiry period on points long enough to cover the off-season, such as twelve months, so customers don't lose them over the winter.

With the CRM on Pro, campaigns can email or text customers who bought from you last season, with filters for customers who have or haven't bought in a number of days. Use it to announce opening day, a new flavour or the end-of-season sale. Birthdays on the CRM dashboard give you another reason to get in touch during the season.