Of course, the real answer is: “There is no one system that can be perfect for every use case.” But let’s think about it anyway. What do we want a point of sale (POS) system to do? Here are a few basic questions that would need to be answered before you can even start to define a good system.
Requirements questions:
What is the target market to use the POS system?
Is the target existing retail businesses or stores that are “crypto only” businesses? Existing businesses are already accepting cash, checks and credit/debit card payments using their current systems.
Should the system be a full Dash / crypto only system that includes more than just processing the Dash transaction? Does it need to be a full featured retail management software package that includes inventory and accounting?
Almost no retail business can afford to be “only Dash accepted here.” A crypto only system then requires the store to have two stand alone systems that need to be combined for all financial and store management requirements. A full featured Dash only system would also be very complex to design, build and maintain as it needs to include so many common things like calculating and reporting on state and local sales taxes and having an up to date inventory database for bar code scanning and product pricing.
Is Dash the only crypto accepted?
It would seem that adding other coins like BTC, BTH, ETH and LTC makes the system easier to get wider adoption. Dash could be the “preferred” payment by charging a higher processing fee for other coins.
Is the system a stand alone terminal that just accepts Dash / crypto payments or is it integrated into existing hardware and software systems?
All but the smallest retailers have existing systems that tie together inventory / pricing / accounting / sales taxes / cash drawer / credit card processing / report generation. They will want any payment source tied into that flow so there must be some integration method.
Is there a requirement to include Dash / crypto to fiat currency conversions and bank deposits?
Does the system only send Dash to a “store” wallet which the store needs to manage and also have their own “brokerage” account like Coinbase or Kraken to exchange to a local currency? Or does the business want any Dash they accept to automatically be converted to USD? Accountants will advise a store to immediately convert to USD so there are no tax implications from holding crypto.
Conclusion
From my perspective a system that can integrate into existing solutions is the most useful. Once you define what the system looks like you build the core functionality modules with integration points to allow data interchange between other systems. To get into the current business flow you need to “just” provide the crypto management parts and then work on integration with existing systems.
