POS Inventory/Purchase Management Features
Most POS offer only basic inventory tracking - decrementing quantity-on-hand with each purchase and that can often be enough.
Advanced Inventory management includes low stock tracking, automatic purchase order creation, vendor management, simplified receiving, and stock count tools. These features provide tremendous operational efficiencies (over manual processes) but come with steep learning curves and complex setup.
WARNING: Merchants often say they want an inventory system but most don't realize the dedication and effort required to configure and operate these solutions through time.
Rule of thumb: Restaurants under $100,000 per month, and retail stores with less than 500 items are unlikely prospects. However, because OrderCounter and Korona include many of these features in their basic SaaS, these POS can be a good fit for merchants interested in growing into advanced inventory management capabilities. Ask what their #1 priority is: sales management (POS) or inventory management.
Korona for compliance-heavy retail and ticketing,
OrderCounter for restaurant-specific inventory management needs,
Clover + Thrive for broad retail and omnichannel flexibility,
Square for low stock alerts, suggestive pricing and product mix using ManagerBot
Inventory Highlights by POS:
Korona POS leads in comprehensive retailer-focused inventory/purchasing controls and regulatory compliance.
OrderCounter POS excels in restaurant-centric inventory management, real-time sync, and flexible workflows.
Square POS (Plus and Premium SaaS) include retail inventory features, vendor management, and sell-through reporting to help convenience stores, and small grocers, and those needing item variants. Scan a barcode to auto load item description, size, and image. An iOS App - Picture Studio removes backgrounds from images for upload. Strong item-level customer marketing. A Thrive integration is also available.
Clover + Thrive significantly enhances Clover’s native inventory capabilities, adding advanced vendor management, multi-channel syncing (including Shopify, Woo, and BigCommerce), automated purchase orders, detailed inventory history, barcode-supported stock counts, and robust reporting.
NOTES:
Approximate Pricing
- OrderCounter $75/$50/$25 per month per terminal
- Korona Retail Plus $89 per month per terminal
- Square POS $49 per month per rooftop (Plus), $149 Premium
- Clover Retail Growth $84.95/$20 per month per terminal + Thrive at $279/mo
Thrive for Clover is a very capable, powerful solution which is reflected in its price. It can integrate across multiple eCommerce platforms, track sales to the ingredient level (including modifiers), enable, track, and bill wholesale accounts, warehouse distribution, and production (assembling or portioning) of ingredients into new sales items.
Sophisticated foodservice operators may opt for a third party food inventory systems that can be added to OrderCounter and Union, such as Restaurant 365, MarginEdge, etc. These are priced similar to Thrive.
Capability Table by POS
| Feature/Capability | OrderCounter POS | Korona POS | Clover POS + Thrive Inventory by Shopventory | Square POS | Best-in-Class (✔) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time inventory tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes - real-time syncing | Yes - real-time tracking | All |
| Suggested purchasing/ordering | Basic to moderate | Advanced demand forecasting | Advanced auto purchase orders with vendor assignment | AI-driven ManagerBot purchase suggestions | Korona, Thrive, Square |
| Multi-location support | Yes (restaurant focus) | Yes (retail and franchise) | Yes - multi-location and multi-channel syncing | Yes - cloud-based multi-location management | Korona, Thrive, Square |
| Compliance & regulation tools | General food/retail compliance | Advanced (liquor/vape/ticketing) | Limited native; relies on Clover ecosystem/apps | Industry-specific workflows with built-in compliance | Korona, Square |
| Supplier integration | Integrated with accounting/apps | Direct PO & vendor integration | Vendor management and purchase order creation via Thrive | Purchase order suggestion and vendor management | Korona, Thrive |
| Inventory valuation | Standard methods | FIFO, LIFO, batch tracking | Average cost calculations and detailed reporting | Supports case break and weighted item tracking | Korona, Square |
| Stock movement audit logs | Yes | Yes (more granular) | Yes - full inventory history in Thrive | Yes - detailed audit logs with shrinkage reports | Korona, Thrive, Square |
| Waste, theft, spoilage | Trackable, basic reports | Detailed loss prevention | Basic tracking, depends on apps and workflows | AI-powered shrinkage detection and alerts | Korona, Square |
| Mobile/cloud admin | Yes | Yes | Yes - cloud-based Thrive dashboard | Yes - cloud-native platform with mobile access | All |
| Custom workflows | High (restaurant-centric) | High (retail-centric) | Advanced inventory alerts, reorder levels, reporting | AI-powered ManagerBot for tasks, insights | Korona, Square |
| Integration with e-commerce | Moderate | Moderate | Strong - Clover and Shopify integration | Integrates with various platforms | Thrive, Square |
Case Study:
Maine-ly Drizzle (Kennebunkport & Perkins Cove Maine)
Mainely Drizzle receives 50 gallon drums of olive oils and vinegars from around the globe and repackages them into a variety of containers and sizes for sale at their own stores and online. Most inventory is stored in their warehouse and shipped to the stores (or customers) as needed.
They chose Thrive by Shopventory to track raw goods, bottles, and label quantities, and deplete these when they batch produce/fill different bottles and containers. Their in-store Clover POS sales deplete from store stock on-hand and online orders (Shopify) deplete from warehouse stock. Reorder reports help store shelves stay stocked, and raw ingredient levels alert them when to reorder in bulk. Before Clover/Thrive they were doing all this on clipboards and spreadsheets.
Key Take-aways: Find out from the merchant if the POS is incidental to their inventory needs or vice versa. In their case, the $279 monthly cost ($9/day) equates to less than 30 minutes labor cost, yet the solution saves them 10 hours a week of admin time for warehouse and store staff (monthly labor savings of $720).