Point of sale
event where retail transaction is completed
The point of sale (POS), or point of purchase (POP), is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice for the customer (which may be a cash register printout), and indicates the options for the customer to make payment. It is also the point at which a customer makes a payment to the merchant in exchange for goods or after provision of a service. After receiving payment, the merchant may issue a receipt, as proof of transaction, which is usually printed but can also be dispensed with or sent electronically.
To calculate the amount owed by a customer, the merchant may use various devices such as weighing scales, barcode scanners, and cash registers (or the more advanced "POS cash registers", which are sometimes also called "POS systems"). To make a payment, payment terminals, touch screens, and other hardware and software options are available.
The point of sale is often referred to as the point of service because it is not just a point of sale but also a point of return or customer order. POS terminal software may also include features for additional functionality, such as inventory management, CRM, financials, or warehousing.
Businesses are increasingly adopting POS systems, and one of the most obvious and compelling reasons is that a POS system eliminates the need for price tags. Selling prices are linked to the product code of an item when adding stock, so the cashier merely scans this code to process a sale.
“Point of sale” enters the record as event where retail transaction is completed. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Point, sale and event can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Point of sale” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Point, sale and event provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q386147. The Library of Congress control number is sh85103917. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Point of sale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.