September 26, 2016 at 4:15 PM

 

Ever bought something, noticed a serious limitation, and kicked yourself for not asking about it beforehand? These are the questions you absolutely need to ask about floral POS.

 

Almost all of us have purchased something, then experienced a kind of buyers remorse when we realized that there is something wrong or something missing... something we should have thought to ask about.

Sometimes it's because it simply never occurred to us. Other times it's because we just assumed – because something is so obviously necessary to someone running a flower show we take for granted it would be included in software that claims to be designed for flower shops.

A great example involves multiple orders. In the flower business customers often want to place more than one order at the same time. A father wants to order Mother's Day flowers for his mother, his wife and her mother. A real estate agent wants to order holiday gifts for multiple clients. An HR manager wants to order flowers for several employees having birthdays that month. A player wants to order Valentine's Day flowers for multiple paramours. A hopeless romantic wants flowers delivered to the person of their dreams every day for a week.

There are lots of possibilities but the idea is the same – multiple orders (one or more recipients at one or more places on one or more dates/times) that are part of a single sale. They don't want to have to present each order as a separate sale, with a separate payment, a separate receipt, etc.... and you don't either – it would be the most cumbersome possible way of doing things.

But, incredibly, most systems that claim to be designed for the flower business don't offer this. They'll try and convince you it doesn't matter, and suggest terrible workarounds like entering each sale separately and then "merging" them after the fact but that just isn't good enough. It's not what the customer wants and it's not what a real florist needs.

But all too often florists never think to ask. It seems like such an obvious requirement that surely any POS system for florists would have to be able to do it, but most don't (FloristWare does of course offer this). They don't realize this huge shortcoming until such time as they try and enter multiple orders, at which point they realize they have made a huge mistake.

To help florists we have assembled a list of the top twelve questions you need to ask a potential floral POS provider. It will help you avoid the situation above, and many others that are just as bad.

While you are still here there is one more to consider, something most florists never think about until it is too late. Security.

A POS system stores a lot of valuable information. It needs serious security. What is referred to as "granular" security in that it gives you very fine-grained control over who has access to what tasks and information.

For example – you probably don't want your employees to be able to look up what their co-workers are getting paid. Or having complete access to all your financial records. Or exporting a list of all your customers before they go and join another shop or strike out on their own.

This is another of the kind of question included in our top twelve. You need to make sure that you understand the security limitations before your employees are fighting over pay or poaching your customers.