Register vs Terminal connected to PC

[_Brandon_]

We are considering "upgrading" our Square Register by going back to the Terminal with a PC connected.  

Currently at our main location we are running the register with a tablet next to it. Half of our business is repairs and since Square doesn't have a way to track that, we are using Google Sheets to track it all in a spreadsheet.  We also do a fair amount of parts sales and since our Woocommerce based website has more details on our items it's nice to have quick access to that. Unfortunately we only have room for one mouse and keyboard and those are connected to the register to try and speed up checkout and invoice lookup for the repairs. 

My understanding is that the only downsides to the terminal with the PC is that we loose the ability to print receipts for cash and check sales, and loose appointments which we just replaced anyway. I'm hoping the PC will handle our 6000ish items better than the register can. 

Any insights before I drop another $800 on a touchscreen PC would be appreciated.

[JJ_]

Hey @_Brandon_

I would recommend experimenting with the Virtual Terminal on your Dashboard as this would be the tool you would be using day in and day out if you decide to move over to a computer. One thing I could also recommend would be, getting an iPad with a Square Stand instead as you would be able to use Google Sheets, Square Applications and nowadays you can connect a keyboard and a mouse to iPads wirelessly or wired. You can also use a browser to display your website and with the swiveling stand you are able to show the screen to the Customer.

If you'd like to go this route instead of the PC+ Connected Square Terminal let me know as I can give some additional pointers of how I've seen Sellers take advantage of the iPad + Stand convenience. 

[_Brandon_]

I appreciate the insight. If I were to go with the iPad, it would be the first apple product I had ever purchased. Based on my attempts to use other people's iphones, I don't know how well that would work.

One of the other reasons we are considering the PC option is that we are slowly transitioning away from Square to another software that contains more of what we need for our business. (Multi level Item categories, work orders, etc). That software is PC based, so it would be nice to have the PC in place when we finally make the switch. In a perfect world they would be cloud based so we could continue to use tablets and Chromebooks, or Square would fulfill some of their feature requests, but we aren't there yet!  I'll have to set up an old laptop with the "new system" and see what happens. At least I know it won't crash and need a reboot in the middle of checkout like our register seems to do more and more.

[JJ_]

Thank you for your feedback here, is very valuable.