There are countless point of sale (POS) solutions on the market, but they are far from equal. Because of this, it’s crucial to ensure you do an adequate amount of research before deciding on the best POS systems for your business.
Future POS is a relatively popular system, but an initial glance suggests that it could be a little outdated and difficult to use. In the rest of this evaluation, we aim to analyze the company’s main features, prices, user interface, and more to determine whether or not this is really the case.
- Our guide to the best POS systems
Plans and pricing
Unfortunately, Future POS provides absolutely no information about how much its services cost. There isn’t even a quote form or an attempt at a pricing page that allows you to reach out to the sales team for more information.
Ultimately, it appears that you will simply have to get in contact via the company’s online contact form if you would like to find out more about how much its solutions will cost for you and your business. This is likely because much of Future POS’s business is largely done through third-party dealers, who sell the product license as part of their own packages.
How it works
Once again, Future POS provides very little information about the way it works and how to get started. But then again, it claims to have been an industry-leading provider for more than 20 years, which suggests that it must be doing something right.
The small amount of info that we could gather from the company website, past customer reviews, and correspondence with the service team suggests that it provides cloud-based POS solutions targeted at medium-to-large hospitality businesses. It’s available on a range of operating systems, including Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, which is great for those who require flexibility or who already have a large IT system in place.
Disappointingly, the Future POS front-end interface is quite clunky and a little confusing. Unlike more modern competitors, which are designed with ease of use and efficiency as a main focus, this looks like it has hardly changed since the company’s creation in 1998. In saying that, it does do everything it needs to, which is the most important thing.
Features and services
Future POS does boast some impressive features that stand out as particularly notable.
One thing we love about Future POS is its compatibility with virtually any device. For mobile POS tools, you can either purchase a native Future POS device or turn any mobile device into a ready-made terminal.
You can also advertise your main meals, drinks, deals, or anything else with Future POS’s advanced digital signage tools. This comes with every package, and allows you to schedule ads, display menus, and much, much more.
With the Future POS custom report writer, you can create fully personalized reports based on any of a range of data. You can either start from scratch or base your report on an existing template, and you will even have access to customizable graphs and charts.
Accessing information and customizing your system can be done from anywhere with an internet connection due to the cloud-based back office system Future POS uses. Basically, this means that you can control your business from anywhere in the world, solving problems with the system as soon as they pop up.
Support and customer care
Like it does in most other categories we’ve evaluated, Future POS falls down severely on the support and post-sales customer care fronts. The only live support options appear to be a local US phone number and an online contact form, although the company is active on various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. On top of this, there isn’t any support or help center, and the only information we could find was via the company’s blog. But this has only been updated once since the start of 2020.
What’s more, Future POS receives quite average ratings across the web. For example, its rating of 3.6/5 stars on Capterra (from 19 reviews) is well below average for high-quality POS service providers. And on top of this, its customer service gets an even lower rating of 3.5/5 stars.
The competition
A great modern alternative to Future POS is Upserve, which provides powerful solutions designed specifically for the hospitality industry. It’s relatively affordable, backed by a suite of great features, and, most importantly, has great ratings across the board from past customers.
Square is another great option, especially if you’re looking for a program designed for retail or e-commerce. The software itself is 100% free, forever, although you will have to pay 2.6% + 10c fees on every transaction.
Final verdict
At the end of the day, we just can’t recommend using the Future POS system. From the first time we laid eyes on the company’s website, things appeared outdated and clunky. Sure, there are plenty of advanced features on offer, but these just don’t offer enough to outweigh the seemingly 1990s interface, poor customer service, and lack of pricing information.
The bottom line: Look elsewhere if you want a high-quality, reputable POS system that you can rely on.
Further reading
- Read our guide to the best POS systems
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