Choosing a POS for cash & carry in 2026

A cash & carry counter is not a corner shop with bigger boxes. You sell by the case and by the unit. Some customers pay trade prices and some pay retail. Some pay at the till and some take goods on account. The queue on a Saturday morning is long, and the people in it are running their own businesses.

Most point-of-sale systems are built for one kind of customer. A cash & carry needs a system that handles both without the cashier having to think about it.

We have run a wholesale business in London since 2014 and today process more than 900 orders a month. This checklist is what we would ask any POS vendor, including ourselves. It is written to be useful whichever system you choose.

1. Scanner speed and search

The till's first job is to find the product. At a busy counter that means a barcode scan, every time, without waiting.

What to ask:

• Does a barcode lookup depend on the internet, or is the catalogue held on the device?
• How large a catalogue has the system been tested with?
• Does the cursor stay in the scan field after each scan, or does the cashier have to tap back into it?
• Is there fast search by name and category for items without barcodes?

Why it matters: if every scan is a round trip to a server, a slow connection slows the whole queue. A local catalogue removes that dependency.

How PalletPOS answers it: the native app keeps a local SQLite catalogue on the till, so barcode lookups never wait on the internet. It has been tested with 50,000 products. Checkout is scanner-first, with product search and categories for everything else. See the retail POS page for details.

2. Trade and retail pricing on one till

This is where most systems fall down for cash & carry.

What to ask:

• Can one till serve a walk-in retail customer and then an approved trade customer, with the right prices applied automatically?
• What decides that a customer gets trade prices: an approved account, or a button the cashier can press?
• Can you set price tiers, and override prices for individual customers?
• Are member prices supported for regular retail customers?

Why it matters: if a cashier can switch anyone to trade prices with one tap, your margin depends on every cashier making the right call under pressure. The safer design is that wholesale pricing follows the customer's approved account.

How PalletPOS answers it: wholesale pricing is applied only to approved trade accounts, validated at the till. Pricing includes Retail Standard, Retail Member, Wholesale Standard and tier prices, plus customer-specific overrides. On the Complete plan, both modes run on one till. More on the wholesale POS page.

3. Unit, pack and case pricing

What to ask:

• Can one product be sold as a unit, a pack or a case, each with its own price?
• Does the system support quantity-break pricing (a lower price above a certain quantity)?
• Does stock adjust correctly whichever unit was sold?

Why it matters: cash & carry customers buy in cases. If the system only understands single units, staff end up keying quantities like "24" by hand and hoping the price is right.

How PalletPOS answers it: unit, pack and case pricing and quantity-break pricing are part of the wholesale POS.

4. Credit and On Account sales

What to ask:

• Can trade customers buy On Account at the till?
• Can the cashier see the customer's balance and credit position before completing the sale?
• Are balances, transaction history and statements produced from the same records, or kept separately?
• Can you take part payments against a balance?

Why it matters: credit is usually the most fragile part of a wholesale operation. For years ours lived in a spreadsheet that three people edited and nobody trusted, and statements took someone three to four hours every Monday. We have written a separate guide on managing trade credit without spreadsheets.

How PalletPOS answers it: On Account sales, customer balances and credit, statements and invoices are built in. The Back Office is ledger-driven, so statements, history and balances always agree.

5. What happens when the network drops

Every counter loses its connection eventually. We have stood at a till on a busy Saturday when the wifi went down and the screen froze. It is not a theoretical risk.

What to ask:

• If the network drops mid-sale, is the basket kept?
• Can product lookups continue?
• If you hold a sale and the app or device restarts, is the held sale still there?
• Is the till a native app or a web page in a browser?

Why it matters: a web-based till is only as reliable as the connection. A native app with local data keeps working through the interruptions that are normal in a warehouse or a busy shop.

How PalletPOS answers it: the app is native on Android and Windows, not a web wrapper. The basket is preserved if the network drops, barcode lookups run locally, and Hold Sale / Recall survives an app restart.

6. Payments

What to ask:

• Which payment methods are supported: cash, card, split, deposits, On Account?
• Are refunds handled at the till and recorded properly?
• Who handles card data, and how?
• Is there protection against a payment being taken twice?
• Are card rates published, or only available on request?

How PalletPOS answers it: payments are built in: cash, card, split, deposits and part payments, On Account, refunds, disputes, settlements and payouts. The payment ledger is append-only, there is duplicate-payment protection, and Pallet never handles raw card data. Card rates are published per country on the pricing page. See payments.

7. Statements, invoices and reporting

What to ask:

• Are invoices generated from the sale automatically?
• Can you send statements for all trade accounts in one run?
• What reports are available for stock, sales and customers?

How PalletPOS answers it: the Back Office covers customers, balances, transaction history, statements, invoices, stock and products, reporting, and users and roles.

8. Hardware

What to ask:

• Which operating systems does the till run on?
• Which scanners, receipt printers and cash drawers are supported?
• Can you use dedicated Android POS terminals as well as Windows PCs?

Why it matters: many cash & carry businesses already own Windows PCs at the counter and want to add Android handhelds or terminals. You should not have to replace everything.

How PalletPOS answers it: one codebase runs natively on Android and Windows. The download page lists system requirements and supported hardware, including scanners, receipt printers, cash drawers and SUNMI terminals.

9. The pricing model

What to ask:

• Is the price per user, per terminal or per location?
• How many tills are included, and what does each extra one cost?
• Do Back Office logins count as users you pay for?
• Is there a setup or activation fee, and what does it cover?

Why it matters: the headline monthly price is rarely what you pay. A per-user model penalises you for giving staff their own logins. A per-terminal model can make a second till expensive. We go through the maths in per-terminal vs per-location pricing.

How PalletPOS answers it: pricing is per location, with terminals included and unlimited users on every plan. The Wholesale plan includes 3 terminals and the Complete plan includes 5, with extra terminals at £15 a month each (prices shown in your local currency on the pricing page). Back Office logins and stock-take handhelds are free.

10. Security and control

What to ask:

• Is each business's data isolated from every other customer's?
• Can you set roles so cashiers cannot change prices or credit limits?
• Are rules enforced on the server, or only in the till's interface?

How PalletPOS answers it: tenant isolation, role permissions, server-side validation and duplicate-sale protection.

The short version

Take this table to every demo. If a vendor cannot answer a row clearly, ask them to show you on a till.

Next steps

If you run a trade counter or a cash & carry, the Wholesale and Complete plans are built for you. Compare what each includes and start a trial from the pricing page.

Start trialSee pricing