Since 2005 my team has installed and supported POS systems in Lahore's department stores, supermarkets, pharmacies and wholesale shops. The software that succeeds is rarely the one with the longest feature list. It is the one that keeps billing fast on a busy Saturday, survives a power cut, and tells the owner the truth about stock and cash at the end of the day.
Before you buy any POS, these are the ten questions I would ask on your behalf.
1. Does billing keep working when the internet goes down?
In Pakistan, connectivity and electricity both fail at the worst moments. A cloud-only POS that stops billing when the internet drops will cost you sales and customer patience. Look for offline-first billing: counters keep selling locally and sync automatically when the connection returns.
2. How fast is a bill at the counter?
Ask for a live demo with barcode scanning, quantity changes, a return and a split payment (cash plus card or wallet). Time it. Every extra second per customer becomes a queue during rush hours.
3. Can it handle khata (customer credit) properly?
Many Pakistani businesses run on trusted credit. Your POS should keep customer ledgers, credit limits, partial payments and clean statements you can send on WhatsApp, not a separate notebook beside the till.
4. Is it FBR-ready if you are a Tier-1 retailer?
If your business falls under FBR's Tier-1 retailer rules, your POS must be integrated with FBR's system so that invoices are reported. Confirm the vendor has done this integration before, for businesses like yours, and that invoices print correctly.
5. Will it control stock across branches and the warehouse?
Once you have more than one counter or branch, the real value is in stock control: transfers, purchase orders, reorder levels, expiry dates for pharmacy and grocery items, and stock counts that reconcile. Ask how a transfer between two branches is recorded, and who approves it.
6. Does it stop leakage, or just record it?
Voids, discounts, returns and price changes should need the right permission and leave an audit trail. Day-close and shift reports should show cash expected versus cash counted, per cashier.
7. What reports will the owner actually read?
You do not need 200 reports. You need a handful you trust: sales by day and hour, margin by category, slow and dead stock, supplier balances and customer credit. Ask to see them on a phone, not only on a desktop.
8. Who supports you at 9 p.m. on Chaand Raat?
Support matters more than software. Ask where the support team is, what hours they work during Eid and sale seasons, and how quickly they respond. Talk to two existing customers.
9. Can it grow with you, including into the Gulf?
If you plan to open in the UAE or Saudi Arabia, your POS will need VAT invoicing and, in Saudi Arabia, ZATCA e-invoicing. It is far cheaper to choose a system that already supports multi-currency and multi-country tax than to migrate later.
10. Is your data yours?
Make sure you can export your products, customers and transactions at any time, and that backups run automatically. Your sales history is one of your most valuable business assets.
Tell me how many counters and branches you run, and what is going wrong today. I'll tell you honestly what to look for, even if the answer is not one of our products.
Book a consultationA simple way to decide
Shortlist two or three systems. Run the same live test on each: bill ten items, process a return, take credit, transfer stock and close the day. Then call their existing customers. The right choice is usually obvious by the end of that exercise.