5 Ways to Improve Cash Flow Using Your Point-of-Sale

At one point or another, every business is going to struggle with cash flow. Sometimes, your cash flow issues might be short-term and situational. Or, they might be long-term, chronic issues. Whether short-term or long-term, any sort of cash flow issue is going to cause you stress. Simply put - financial stress is the worst. While we might not be able to eliminate it entirely, we can help you take steps to reduce the frequency and severity. Here's how:

Reduce prescriptions in will call.

At any given time, it’s likely that most of your cash is tied up in inventory. More specifically, prescription inventory. So, it’s important that you keep your will call running lean and clean. Use will call management functionality within your point-of-sale system to batch multiple prescriptions into a single bag. Not only does this streamline the checkout process and reduce errors, you won’t have prescriptions left behind, tying up money in your inventory. You’ll also be able to easily see what’s been sitting in your will call for an extended period of time and quickly return products to stock.

Increase ROI across your pharmacy.

Another place where you can have cash tied up is in your front end. Even a small front end can be wasting money, both in inventory and in inventory holding costs. Your front end needs to be turning regularly and the products that you carry need to be offering you the highest possible return on investment. This is where movement reports and the sales & profit analysis reporting capabilities of a robust point-of-sale system will come in handy. With the information in these reports you’ll see what’s selling, what’s not, and what products and departments are making you the most money. Then, you can make data-informed decisions about what to carry to improve your ROI and hopefully ease cash flow woes.

Staff more effectively.

Staffing is another place where cash flow can get tied up. Often, there’s not a ton you can do about this. Employees are your most important asset and there’s no way to run a customer-centric business without them. What you can do is use reporting to staff more effectively based on your average transaction volume for the time of day, day of the week, time of month, year etc. If you can staff more heavily during peak times and reduce staff during slower times, you might find some cost savings and cash flow improvement.

Sell more stuff!

Sure, you can be better equipped to stock the right, high-margin, profit-earning products. But what about getting more products in the basket? Point-of-sale can help you do this in several different ways. One way is to recommend supplements based on drug-induced nutrient depletion. Built-in notifications at the point-of-sale can help you make appropriate recommendations to combat nutrient depletions. Even 10 add-on sales a month can make a huge difference in your overall profitability and help improve cash flow as you continue to sell more and more supplements.

You can also sell more stuff by making sure that customers in your area know that you carry the products they're looking for. An integration from your point-of-sale to Pointy from Google will display your business and your products on Google when customers search for products & services near them.

Another option is by using advanced loyalty programs and promotions to encourage return visits and bundling of additional products.

Save on unnecessary fees.

When you pay too much for credit card processing, you’re losing out on cash in your pocket every single month. Your point-of-sale system should never lock you into paying high rates, but many of them do. Make sure your processing solution isn’t overcharging you, and that if you can find a better deal, you’re free to pursue that relationship.