Self-Hosted Point of Sale Software: What CWPOS Does and Who It's For

The problem with SaaS POS systems

Point of sale software has followed the same SaaS subscription path as accounting software. Square, Lightspeed, Shopify POS, Toast — every major POS platform charges a monthly fee, takes a percentage of each transaction, or both. For a high-volume retail business these fees add up to thousands of dollars a year. For a small Caribbean business operating on tighter margins, they're a significant ongoing cost.

Beyond cost, SaaS POS systems store your sales data on their servers. Your transaction history, customer records and inventory data are all held by a third party. If the service goes down, you can't process sales. If they change their pricing or terms, you absorb it or rebuild from scratch.

What CWPOS is

CWPOS is a self-hosted PHP point of sale system. You purchase it once, install it on your own web hosting, and run it permanently with no subscription. It is browser-based — meaning it works on any device with a browser, from a dedicated POS terminal to a tablet or laptop on the counter.

It is built as part of the CWShop product suite alongside CWFMS (accounting and wealth management) and Folio (HR and payroll). Like all CWShop products, it runs on standard cPanel shared hosting with PHP 7.4+, requires no database server, and comes with full unobfuscated source code.

What CWPOS covers

Who CWPOS is built for

CWPOS is designed for small retail businesses in the Caribbean that need a proper point of sale system without the ongoing cost of a SaaS platform. It's the right fit if you:

• Run a small retail shop, pharmacy, hardware store, boutique or food service business
• Already have a website or hosting account — if you have cPanel hosting, CWPOS can run on it
• Want your sales data on your own server, not a third-party cloud
• Are currently using a spreadsheet or manual cash book for sales tracking
• Also use CWFMS for accounting — the integration means your sales feed into your books automatically

It may not be right if you:

• Need integrated payment terminal hardware (card reader SDK integration) — CWPOS records card payments but doesn't integrate with physical terminal hardware
• Need a fully offline system — CWPOS is browser-based and requires an internet connection to your hosting server
• Run a franchise with dozens of locations requiring centralised cloud POS management

How CWPOS compares to alternatives

Deployment and hosting requirements

CWPOS deploys the same way as all CWShop products — upload, configure, done. The requirements are minimal:

• PHP 7.4+ — available on any modern cPanel shared hosting
• cURL and JSON extensions — enabled by default on virtually all hosting
• No database server required — CWPOS uses flat-file storage
• Any modern browser — on the device you use as your POS terminal

You can run CWPOS on the same hosting as your website, CWFMS, and Folio — there's no conflict. Many small businesses run the entire CWShop suite on a single shared hosting plan they already pay for.

Integration with CWFMS

For businesses that run both CWPOS and CWFMS, the integration removes manual data entry entirely. At the end of each trading day, CWPOS can push the day's total sales to CWFMS as a business income entry — categorised correctly, dated correctly, and reconciled to the payment method split (cash vs card). Your accounting system reflects your actual sales without you having to enter them twice.

This integration is opt-in and configurable. Both systems work independently without each other if you only purchase one.

Related: CWBooks — double-entry accounting for small business · Self-hosted accounting software guide · GCT accounting for Jamaican businesses