The school store POS buying guide

Spring is when schools decide what next fall’s store runs on. If that’s you, this is the buying guide we’d want in your hands regardless of what you choose, with every question we think you should put in writing to any vendor. Including us.

A note on fairness before the list: there are good systems in this market. General-purpose platforms run millions of real businesses well. The point of these questions is fit, not gotchas: a school store has requirements (district money paths, student operators, an education mission) that most software was never asked to meet, and the only way to find the gaps is to ask precisely.

The money questions

1. Who is the merchant of record? The answer decides whose name is on the money. If the school is the merchant, funds settle to school-controlled accounts under your district’s procedures. Any other arrangement (vendor-held balances, pooled funds, payouts on the vendor’s schedule) means your money passes through someone else’s hands, and your finance office needs to underwrite that someone.

2. Where exactly does a sale settle, and when? Ask for the path in writing: reader → processor → which account, in whose name, on what timing. Vague answers here are disqualifying.

3. What does a full fee breakdown look like on a $10 sale? Processing, platform, hardware amortization, everything. Ask for it as one worked example; composite pricing hides in percentages.

4. What happens to our data and our history if we leave? You want exportable records (transactions, catalog, reports) in standard formats, stated in the agreement. A system you can’t exit with your books is a system you don’t own your books in.

The student questions

5. Can students operate it without access to things they shouldn’t touch? The real question behind it: was the system designed for a crew of student operators, or for an owner-operator who shares their login? Look for structural separation (open selling, gated refunds and settings), because “just don’t tell the kids the password” is a policy, not a control.

6. What student data do you collect, and what do you do with it? Get the answer in writing and have your counsel read it against FERPA and COPPA. The follow-up that sorts vendors quickly: “will you commit, contractually, to never selling or monetizing student data?”

7. What can a 15-year-old learn from it? A fair question for an education purchase. Does the system surface the store’s numbers where students can read them, or does reporting live in a back office designed for a manager? If the store exists to teach, the data’s audience matters as much as its accuracy.

The school-reality questions

8. What happens when the Wi-Fi drops during lunch? School networks fail at peak. Ask specifically: do cash sales continue? do card sales? what are the limits, who controls them, and what happens to queued sales when the network returns (and how are duplicates prevented)?

9. What does setup and maintenance actually require from our IT department? Count the tickets: device provisioning, app updates, network exceptions, per-device configuration. The honest answers range from “none” to “a standing relationship,” and either can be fine if you know it going in.

10. Does the reporting understand a school year? Small question, revealing answer. Fiscal quarters and trailing-twelve-months views mean your semester close happens in a spreadsheet. Calendar fit tells you who the system was built for.

The vendor questions

11. Who else runs this in a school, and can we call them? References from actual schools, not small businesses generally. A young vendor with honest, reachable school references beats a big one with none.

12. What’s on your roadmap for schools specifically? Every vendor has a roadmap; the question is whether schools are on it or along for the ride.

How to run the evaluation

Send the twelve in writing, and score the answers’ character as well as their content: specific beats smooth, “here’s the limit” beats “unlimited,” and any vendor who bristles at question 4 or 6 has answered a thirteenth question you didn’t ask.

Then demo with your actual crew: your fastest cashier, your CFO, your bookkeeper. Thirty minutes of real users beats three vendor decks.

We’ll happily answer all twelve in writing, worked fee example and exit terms included: start here. And whatever you choose, choose it with the questions answered; your store, your students, and your auditor all live downstream of this decision.