The good folks at the coffee shop Joe are using an iPad-based cash register at their location in Grand Central Terminal, New York. As seen in this video, it’s compact, fast, and efficient:
Shopkeep.com is the company behind the iPad register, and provides the software and hardware to make your iPad into a cash register. Designed specifically for coffee shops, bakeries, or specialty shops with fewer than 150 items, the iPad POS prints receipts and even pops the cash drawer, but takes up very little space. A simple cash drawer, receipt printer, and stand for the iPad starts at $850, with add ons for credit card scanning and barcode scanning available. They also provide BackOffice, a web-based back end that syncs all the information from the register to the cloud, allowing businesses to easily keep track of daily sales, backup data, and export the information straight into QuickBooks.
Touch screen cash registers are nothing new, but this is the first to integrate a consumer tablet device into the system. Of course, if you don’t need a cash drawer, receipts and back-end monitoring, something simple like Square allows you to accept credit cards and issue email receipts from an iPad or iPhone.
The iPad is not included, and monthly fees for ShopKeep start a $49/mo.