What Is A Flower Shop Management System Compared To a Floral POS?

Terms like "floral pos system", "flower shop point-of-sale", "florist pos system" and "floral management system" get used almost interchangeably in the floral business but there are some key differences:

• Floral POS features help a florist at the “point of sale”, enabling them to take an order in the most efficient and profitable manner possible.
• A Floral Management System is much larger, a comprehensive and complete set of features and tools designed to help manage a flower shop more efficiently. Florist point of sale features are just one such set of features in a true floral management system.

Every floral management system includes point-of-sale features, but not not every florist POS system has the features to help run an entire flower shop.

FloristWare is a true shop management system, with the florist-specific features that help run a florist business efficiently and profitably.

POS Software Technology Comes To Retail

In the 80's most retailers, including florists, were still using cash registers, and many – maybe even most – did not even have a computer on the premises.

That changed with the introduction of POS or point-of-sale software. The name came from the fact that it replaced the cash register at the "point of sale", the place and time where the cashier totalled the sale and collected payment for the retail customer.

For most retailers the advantage of POS technology was in inventory management and pricing. They were generally dealing with hundreds if not thousands of products and having to price each individual item by hand. The introduction of bar codes and scanners, connected to a point of sale software system, meant that they could put the price guns aside forever and streamline operations. Real time credit card processing was another benefit.

Retail POS Comes To Florists & Evolves Into Florist POS Software

The appeal of point-of-sale solutions in the floral industry was different. Florists didn't have to manage as many individual products as a grocery store, but they dealt with much more information. The typical retailer just needed a POS system that would give them a total and let them collect payment.

The typical florist needed that too, but also so much more. A true florist point of sale system would need things like:

Contact/Customer Relationship Management Software

Typical retailers didn't need to track the names, addresses and contact information for their customers. During order entry florists needed all that, plus all the recipient details, to arrange a flower delivery.

Before florist POS all that information gathering was done manually, with order pads. And no matter how many times the same customer might call to send flowers to the same recipient the florist still had to collect all that information again.

The first floral systems were able to streamline this by introducing what are generally known as contact management or customer relationship management features. This allowed a floral business to easily manage a database of all their customers and their recipients and handle their repeat business and multiple orders without having to ask for the same information over and over.

Enclosure Cards

Another unique aspect of retail floral is that pretty much every single order involves an enclosure card. Early examples of a florist pos system streamlined this by introducing "tickets". The florist would enter all the information into the software, which would then print a multi-part form that included everything they needed from that point on:

• a work ticket, for the designers to use when preparing the arrangement
• a delivery slip, for the delivery driver
• an enclosure card
• a receipt/invoice to go to the customer.

Receivable (A/R) Features

At the time most florists still had a lot of "house accounts", meaning they would let customers place an order and then write up and send an invoice.

This was a time-consuming process that the first floral point of sale systems were able to streamline. As soon as an order was entered the invoice would print out.

Flower Shop Network Integration

As more and more florists sought to distance themselves from traditional wire services they wanted a florist point of sale system that would integrate with and make it easy to receive orders (both florist to florist and web orders) from Flower Shop Network.

It was features like these that defined the first generation of florist POS software, and they all had one thing in common: they were all about making that "point of sale" moment – when the florist was actually taking the order and making the sale – more efficient.

But the next generation of innovation would change all that.

Florist POS Becomes Flower Shop Management Software

Once order-taking had been made more efficient the evolution of these floral point of sale systems continued, with new features being added. Some of the most important included:

Time Tracking

Instead of using a punch clock or time sheets owners and managers could use time tracking features in their POS systems to capture the hours worked by their employees, and generate productivity reports that showed how much they sold and/or arranged during each shift.

Website Integration

As more people began buying online florists needed a way to get their web orders into their florist POS system systems for reporting, production and real time delivery confirmations.

Delivery Charges

As delivery became more expensive (increased fuel and labor costs) everyone in the floral business realized they needed to be more strategic about how they calculated delivery charges, and sought out new options like charging by city/town, ZIP/Postal code, zone or per mile/kilometer - all calculated in real time.

Flower Delivery Management/Route Optimization

As fuel prices and wages continued to climb florists needed to make sure that they were able to route their flower deliveries for maximum efficiency, squeezing the most out of every drop of gasoline and every hour of labor.

Mobile Delivery App

Once they left the shop mobile flower delivery apps helped drivers save time, be more efficient, and improved customer satisfaction by offering things like real time delivery confirmations with signature capture, photos and video. The best part is that it works on their existing mobile device without having to install any apps. It's one click – the driver gets a link by text message, clicks that, and they are ready to go. 

Consignment Sales

Many florists realized the upside of consignment sales. By selling artwork, gifts, pottery, furniture and more on consignment they could add a new source of revenue – and redecorate their stores with consignment items on a regular basis – without tying up money in inventory. Tracking consignment sales is tricky, it's not like regular inventory management, but could be simplified through new features and mean more sales.

Tip Recording, Allocation & Disbursement

During covid everyone started asking for tips and florists were no exception. The problem was that accounting for tips, allocating them fairly and tracking their disbursement quickly became a major headache. FloristWare includes features to help easily manage tips in less time.

Marketing Tools

As competition in the floral business grew more intense and order gatherers became less scrupulous real florists came to need marketing tools that would help them acquire new customers and generate more sales and more repeat business.

Credit Card Processing

Florists needed a point of sale system that could save time by handling the credit card processing requirements that are unique to the flower business... phone orders, web orders, cash and carry sales. And this credit card processing had to be done in real time, without having to carry totals over to a seperate payment terminal.

Credit Card Processing

Florists also realized that a point of sale system alone was not enough. They also needed access to a support team that had experience in the the flower business and truly understood their needs.

Features like these became essential, the kind of things that really defined a florist POS system and made it attractive to retail florists.

But the term "point of sale" didn't really apply to any of these features. The most valuable and important features in a florist POS system no longer had nothing to do with what was originally meant by "point of sale".

Floral POS Becomes A Feature In Floral Management Systems

In a true floral management system point of sale features are just one set of features among the many others that assist in the efficient and profitable running of a florist shop.

For example – in the early days you would almost never see a computer running floral point of sale software on the desk of an owner or manager because they generally weren't the ones entering orders and, if they were, they weren't doing it at their desk.

FloristWare is muchy more than just a point of sale system. It is a true shop management system, backed by a dedicated full time support team, with industry-specific features and powerful tools that help run a florist business efficiently and profitably.