Introducing Zeller POS: A Powerful Point-of-Sale App for Bigger Business, Without the Fees

Introducing Zeller POS: A Powerful Point-of-Sale App for Bigger Business, Without the Fees

Built for businesses that need more from their point-of-sale without the fees, Zeller POS is a free point-of-sale app that runs on iOS and Android tablets and smartphones, and brings together item management, order processing, payment acceptance, and POS hardware connectivity, all in one place. Running a busy coffee shop, café, bar, or retail store requires a point-of-sale system that can keep up. One that's fast enough for peak hour, flexible enough for your whole team to learn and use, and powerful enough to handle the complexity of a growing business. That's exactly what Zeller POS is built for. Today, we're excited to introduce Zeller POS: a free downloadable app, available on both iOS ( App Store ) and Android ( Google Play Store ) tablets and smartphones, that gives growing businesses a capable, easy-to-use point-of-sale solution, tightly integrated with Zeller's broader payments and financial ecosystem. Here's everything you need to know. Who is Zeller POS designed for? If your business has multiple staff, a physical counter setup, and the need for connected hardware like receipt printers and cash drawers, Zeller POS is designed for you. It's built for café owners, coffee shop operators, bar managers, and retailers who need a powerful, cloud-based point-of-sale they can depend on every day. If you're running a smaller or more mobile operation, Zeller POS Lite is likely all you need. It gives you the same core item management and payment functionality in a more lightweight format. It's built directly into Zeller Terminal , or is accessible via the Zeller App on your smartphone, which turns your phone into an EFTPOS machine using Tap to Pay . Zeller POS vs. Zeller POS Lite How much does Zeller POS cost?  Zeller POS is free to download and free to run. There are no monthly subscription fees, no software licence fees, no add-on costs to unlock special features, and no lock-in contract. The same applies to Zeller POS Lite, which comes built directly into Zeller Terminal and Zeller App. The only fee you'll pay to use Zeller POS is a flat 1.4% on every card transaction you accept, whether that's a tap, an insert, or a mobile wallet payment like Apple Pay or Google Pay. There are no separate fees for different card types, and no hidden charges for refunds or chargebacks. To run Zeller POS, you'll need to pair it with a Zeller Terminal, and you might need some other hardware depending on the needs of your business. Here's what to budget for: Zeller Terminal — required to accept card payments, available for a one-time purchase price of $199 iPad or Android tablet — if you're running Zeller POS, you'll need a compatible tablet. Zeller POS works on any modern iPad or Android tablet, so if you already own one, there's nothing extra to buy. Receipt printer — optional, but recommended for hospitality businesses that need to print customer receipts or kitchen dockets. Zeller POS supports any LAN-connected ESC-P compliant printer, including popular models like the Star Micronics TSP143III and Epson TM-m30.  Cash drawer — optional, and only relevant if you're accepting cash. A cash drawer connects to your receipt printer via a cable, so no additional connectivity is required. For a typical café or retail setup, your upfront costs are a Zeller Terminal, an iPad or Tablet, and a receipt printer, all of which are one-time purchases you own outright. After that, you're paying 1.4% per transaction and nothing else. How Zeller POS works at the counter The Zeller POS homescreen is built for speed. A category sidebar and product grid let team members browse and filter your item library quickly, while a persistent cart sits alongside the product view so orders can be built and reviewed without bouncing between screens. Search works across product names, categories, SKUs, and barcodes, so finding items is fast even with a large catalogue. The app works across tablet landscape and portrait layouts, adapting to whatever setup suits your counter. Managing pricing and discounts at the register Zeller POS gives merchants precise control over pricing at the register, with two features that address common real-world scenarios. Variable Item Pricing lets staff set a price for items with a $0.00 catalogue price — ideal for products sold by weight like deli meats, cheese, or bulk goods where the price changes with every serve, as well as donations, market-rate goods, or services priced on the spot. When enabled, a price entry modal intercepts the add-to-cart flow and requires a valid price before the item is added to the sale. Item Price Override allows authorised staff to adjust an item's stored catalogue price directly within a sale — useful for markdowns, clearance scenarios, or pricing discrepancies. PIN authentication is required to make a change, and every override is logged for audit and reporting purposes. Discounts can be applied at both the individual item level and across the entire cart, giving staff the flexibility to honour a deal on a single product or apply a blanket reduction to a customer's whole order. All three features are disabled by default and can be toggled on at the site level. Adding notes to orders and items Need to pass special instructions to the kitchen? Want to document the reason behind a price adjustment? Zeller POS supports notes at both the item level and the sale level. Staff can attach a note to any individual line item or to the overall transaction, with up to 256 characters available. Each note can be marked as internal (visible to staff only) or customer-facing, in which case it prints on the receipt. Notes are visible consistently across the Zeller ecosystem, including Zeller Terminal, App, and Dashboard. What hardware is compatible with Zeller POS? Zeller POS is built to work with the physical POS hardware that busy venues depend on. Customer receipt and kitchen order printing is supported for any LAN-connected ESC-P compliant printer on the same network, including popular models like the Star Micronics TSP143III and Epson TM-m30 . Printing can be configured to trigger automatically at the point of sale or on demand, with separate configurations for customer receipts, kitchen dockets, and customer order slips. A reprint capability covers open and recently closed orders. You can find all POS hardware compatible with Zeller POS listed here.  Cash drawer support works through the connected POS printer via a RJ12 cable (telephone cable), with no direct connection required between the tablet and the drawer. A dedicated settings screen lets merchants verify connectivity, run a test open, and toggle auto-open on cash sales and refunds. If a drawer fails to open mid-transaction, an inline banner directs staff to open it manually with the key, without affecting the completed sale record. Processing refunds with Zeller POS Full refunds can be initiated directly from the POS sales record, covering both card and cash payment types. The original sale status updates in real time, and all refund activity is recorded against the original transaction with method, amount, and timestamp, giving you a clean audit trail without any extra admin. How to manage staff access on Zeller POS Zeller POS uses a two-mode access model to keep things running smoothly when multiple staff are involved. A manager logs in with their Zeller credentials and operates in Manager Mode, with full access to settings and configuration. When they step away from the register, they can switch to General Access, a mode that keeps the device available for staff to take orders and process sales, without exposing manager-level controls. The mode persists across app restarts and device reboots, and the manager doesn't need to re-enter their credentials to step back up. General Access can also be configured to require a Site PIN before a sale can be initiated, giving managers an extra layer of control in environments where it's needed. How to get set up with Zeller POS Zeller POS is available to download for free from the Apple App and Google Play stores. Once installed, a step-by-step setup flow walks you through everything you need before your first transaction: signing in with your Zeller Account credentials, selecting your business entity, naming your device, assigning it to a site, configuring your site settings — including GST, tipping, and receipts — and pairing your Zeller Terminal. The whole process is designed to be completed once, so your device is fully configured and ready to trade before a single order is placed. If you're already using another POS system, switching to Zeller is straightforward. Simply export your item library from your existing provider as a CSV file and import it directly into your Zeller Account — your entire product catalogue, variants, and pricing will be ready to go without any manual data entry. Part of the Zeller ecosystem Like all Zeller products, Zeller POS is integrated directly into the Zeller ecosystem — and that ecosystem goes well beyond just taking payments. Sales, refunds, and item-level notes are visible across Zeller Terminal, the Zeller App, and your Zeller Dashboard in real time, so your data is always in one place whether you're at the counter or reviewing performance at the end of the day. But Zeller is also a business financial platform. Alongside your POS and payments, you can access real-time sales analytics to track revenue as it happens, create and send online invoices , manage BPAY bill payments, and open a high-interest savings account to put your funds to work. Instant debit cards and corporate cards can be issued to staff for business expenses, with spending limits and controls managed directly from the app. For business owners who want to consolidate their payments, banking, and point-of-sale under one roof — rather than juggling multiple providers and logins — Zeller is built to do exactly that.

by Team Zeller
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Special Report
Zeller Invoicing Report 2025

Zeller Invoicing Report 2025

Paper and PDF invoices persist – but why? Australians have long embraced the speed, accountability, security, and transparency that electronic payments offer, with card payments making up 76 per cent of all transactions . In striking contrast, a recent report estimated that around 90% of SMEs are still sending paper-based or PDF invoices. With digital payments so deeply entrenched, why are Aussie SMEs still sending invoices that force their customers into the arduous process of opening a banking app and copy‑pasting BSBs and account numbers? It’s a fair question – especially when online invoicing solutions are far more time-efficient and result in much faster payment. How much faster, you ask? The numbers below tell a clear story. 100,000+ invoices. Four key insights. Zeller recently analysed more than 100,000 invoices sent and paid via Zeller Invoices. The data clearly demonstrates that online invoicing not only accelerates payments but also reveals important insights around industries, payment methods, delivery channels, and payment terms. This report dives into these insights, providing a guidebook for how you can  immediately improve your business cash flow. Insight 1 Invoice payment times vary across industries. When it comes to invoice payment speed, not all industries are created equal. Zeller’s data shows that on average, invoices are paid in 7.14 days, regardless of sector. Industries such as Retail, Leisure & Entertainment, Transport, and Hospitality tend to be the slowest – on average taking longer than a week for invoices to be paid. In contrast, sectors like Travel, Health & Fitness, Professional Services, and Beauty benefit from faster invoice payments, below the 7-day Australian average. Why the difference? Payment delays can depend on industry norms and client expectations. For example, retail suppliers often wait on store owners to reconcile accounts, whereas a beauty therapist or consultant may be paid immediately after the appointment. Knowing where your industry stands helps set your expectations and plan your cash flow. If you operate in a typically slow-paying sector, it’s wise to be proactive about speeding up payments (as we’ll explore in the following sections). And if you’re in a faster-paying field, there may still be room to tighten the turnaround and get paid even sooner. Practical tips Insight 2 Invoices payable by card are paid 7 times faster. One of the report’s most striking findings is the impact on payment timing by the payment methods available to  settle an invoice. Invoices that offer customers an online credit card payment option get paid dramatically faster – on average 7 times faster than invoices that only offer payment via manual bank transfer. In fact, when customers can click a secure link and pay by card, invoices are settled in just about 2.4 days on average, versus 14.5 days when only a bank transfer is offered.   This trend holds across every sector, though the degree varies. For example, in the Beauty industry, card payments got invoices paid a whopping 15 times faster, versus about 3 times faster in Retail (which is still a huge improvement). Travel businesses saw 9x faster payments with card, Food & Drink about 8.4x, and even traditionally slower sectors like Transport saw over 4x improvement. The bottom line is that, no matter your field, offering customers the choice to pay invoices by credit or debit card greatly accelerates your cash flow. Why does card payment make such a difference? It comes down to convenience and immediacy. Paying an invoice by card is frictionless for the customer – it’s just a few clicks with no need to open a banking app or remember a BSB and account number. Customers can even pay on credit (which means they don’t need cash on hand at that moment) and can potentially earn reward points for doing so. The process is faster and all in one place, especially with digital wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay allowing for one-tap checkouts. In contrast, bank transfers introduce more steps and greater friction (opening a separate app, typing out amounts and references, ensuring funds are available), which means invoices tend to sit unpaid longer. The data illustrates this clearly. When an invoice includes a card payment link, 70% of those invoices are paid within 24 hours of being sent. With bank-transfer-only invoices, however, a mere 28% are paid on the same day – and nearly 40% of these invoices remain unpaid for over a week. That gap can be the difference between having money in your account tomorrow versus chasing customers next month. Enabling instant online payments essentially turns invoices into a quick “checkout” experience for your client, dramatically improving the odds of prompt payment. Practical tips Insight 3 Invoices sent via SMS are paid 43% faster than those issued via email. How you deliver an invoice can be almost as important as the options you provide to customers for them to make invoice payment. The data reveals that sending invoices by SMS leads to significantly faster payments than sending them by email. In fact, an invoice sent as an SMS link is paid 43% faster on average than an invoice sent via email. In other words, getting that bill directly into your customer’s phone via text message can shave substantial time off the payment turnaround. This makes sense when you consider customer behaviour. A text message is typically read within seconds, and it pops up right in front of the client – it’s hard to ignore. By contrast, an emailed invoice might sit unseen in an inbox or be deferred until “later” when the customer is at their desk. Worse, emails can get lost in spam or filtered out, meaning your client might not even see the invoice at all. With SMS, you’re putting the payment link literally in your client’s hand, on the device they check most often. It’s the most visible way to get their attention on a bill. Another important factor is mobile optimisation. If you send a text with a payment link, you can almost bet the customer will click it on their smartphone – so that invoice needs to be easy to read and pay on a small screen. A clunky or non-mobile-friendly payment page can create friction and delay payment. On the other hand, a smooth mobile checkout (think big buttons, simple form, autofilled details) encourages customers to settle the invoice immediately, perhaps even on the spot while they’re thinking about it. Zeller Invoices automatically recognises which device is being used to, meaning it works flawlessly on both mobile desktop. Timing is another factor here. The sooner the customer receives the invoice, the sooner you’re likely to get paid. Our data suggests a strong benefit to issuing the invoice as soon as a job is done or a sale is completed, rather than waiting hours or days. For instance, if you finish a service call or deliver goods, sending the invoice before you leave the client’s location can prompt immediate payment (often customers will pay while you’re still there). Prompt invoicing keeps the transaction fresh in the client’s mind and signals professionalism. Practical tips Insight 4 Longer terms don’t necessarily mean slower payment. It’s common for businesses to offer extended payment terms – such as 30 or 60 days – to valued clients or to entice new business. Intuitively, you might think giving a client two months to pay would result in getting paid closer to that 60-day deadline. Surprisingly, Zeller’s data shows that extending payment terms doesn’t significantly delay when customers actually pay. In other words, a client given 60 days isn’t guaranteed to take 60 days to pay – they often pay much sooner. In fact, invoices with 30-day terms were paid on average in about 15 days, whereas invoices with 60-day terms were paid in under 20 days on average.  What does this mean for you? First, offering extremely long terms (beyond 30 days) may not be necessary in many cases, since clients aren’t likely to fully utilise that extra time. If a customer is going to pay you in about two to three weeks regardless, then giving them two months to pay is more of a courtesy than a requirement, and it could unnecessarily strain your cash flow. Remember that when you extend long payment terms, you’re effectively extending credit to your customer and financing their operations in the meantime. That can leave you footing the bill for expenses (like goods sold or staff wages) while you wait for the money to come in. Secondly, the fact that longer terms don’t necessarily mean later payments presents an opportunity – you might be able to negotiate shorter terms without upsetting customers, especially if you’ve noticed they typically pay early anyway. For instance, if a client consistently pays your 30-day invoice in two weeks, that’s a signal that you could propose a 14-day term moving forward, formalising what’s already happening in practice. This protects your cash flow with minimal impact on the customer, who has shown they don’t really need the extra time anyway. Of course, some clients will still push right up to the deadline (and a few will be late payers regardless of terms). The key is to know your customers. Use your invoicing data or reports to identify who pays when. You might find some always pay early (or on time), while others chronically drag their feet. You can then manage each accordingly. Perhaps rewarding prompt payers with a small discount for early payment, or enforcing late fees for stragglers, as appropriate. Practical tips