INV3NTORY vs Your Till’s Built-In Stock Module
If you run Square, Zettle, or Lightspeed, your till already keeps a stock count — so a reasonable question is: why add anything? We’d be lying if we said the built-in modules were useless. They’re not. They count what sells at the till, and they do it well.
But a till’s job is taking payments, and its stock module reflects that: it counts down, and that’s roughly where it stops. It doesn’t see your deliveries arrive, your waste bin fill up, your margins drift, or your best seller about to run dry on a Friday night. INV3NTORY sits on top of your existing till — you keep it, we make its data useful.
| EPOS built-in stock | INV3NTORY | |
|---|---|---|
| Counts down when items sell | Yes | Yes — synced live from your till |
| Booking in deliveries by barcode scan | Limited or manual | Yes — scan the box, enter the quantity |
| Waste & damage tracking with reports | Rarely | Built in |
| Low-stock alerts to your email | Basic or none | Yes, with per-product minimum levels |
| Margin & profitability per product/category | Basic | Full reports — P&L, margins, dead stock |
| Daily AI briefing of what needs doing | No | Yes |
| Works across multiple shops | Varies by plan | Yes — transfers and multi-site view |
| Replaces your till | — | No — it connects to it. Keep your till. |
What built-in modules do well
Credit where due: if all you want is a rough on-hand number that falls when an item sells, the built-in module does that, included in the price. Square, Zettle, and Lightspeed have all improved their basic counts over the years.
The gap: a till only sees the till
Stock doesn’t just leave through the till. It arrives on a delivery van, gets damaged, goes out of date, gets stolen, or moves to your other shop. A till-side count quietly drifts away from reality because it only sees one of those doors. INV3NTORY tracks all of them — deliveries scanned in, waste logged with a reason, transfers between sites — so the number stays true.
And counting isn’t the same as knowing. The built-in module won’t tell you that your margin on soft drinks slipped two points, that £400 of stock hasn’t sold in 90 days, or that at current pace you’ll sell out of your top seller by Saturday. That layer — the part that actually makes you money — is the entire point of INV3NTORY.
You keep your till
This isn’t a rip-and-replace. You connect INV3NTORY to your existing Square, Zettle, Lightspeed, or EPOS Now account once, sales flow in automatically, and your staff keep using the till exactly as before. If you ever leave, your data exports to CSV.
Common questions
Do I have to stop using my till’s stock feature?
No. INV3NTORY syncs with your till’s catalogue and sales. Most owners simply stop opening the built-in module because the INV3NTORY view is fuller, but nothing breaks if you use both.
Which tills does INV3NTORY connect to?
Square, Zettle (iZettle), Lightspeed, and EPOS Now. Connection is a one-time authorisation — no hardware changes.
How fast do sales show up in INV3NTORY?
Sales arrive via webhooks from your till provider — typically within seconds of the transaction.