What it means
More than a card reader
A POS can combine order entry, totals, payment acceptance and receipts. Hardware terminals, mobile applications and QR-based payment requests are implementation options, not interchangeable capabilities of every system.
Connect the sale to the payment
The merchant needs a reliable link between the sale identifier and payment result. Staff must be able to distinguish pending, failed and accepted payments and understand what to do when connectivity is interrupted. Refund permissions and end-of-day reconciliation should be part of the operational design.
Related concepts
In practice
A concrete example
A café displays a payment QR code for one sale and marks that sale paid only after the matching payment is accepted.
Technical notes & boundaries
A POS label does not establish support for a particular cryptocurrency, offline payment finality or automatic synchronization across all locations.
Go to the source.
Original references used for this definition. Product details and standards can change.