Who writes the "best POS in Uganda" lists?
Usually a POS company. In August 2026 we read five articles ranking the best point of sale software in Uganda or Africa. Four of them were published by companies that sell their own POS product, and in each of those four the publisher's own product was ranked first. Not one of the four mentioned anywhere on the page that the publisher was a vendor. The fifth was not a competitor list at all: it ranked large international accounting systems and its publisher sold none of them.
None of this means those products are bad, and this page says nothing about how well any of them works. A vendor writing about its own strengths is ordinary marketing. It only becomes a problem when it is presented as a neutral comparison, because a buyer reads a ranking and a sales page very differently.
How do I check a "best POS" list myself?
Four questions, and you can usually finish them in about a minute on the page you are already looking at.
- Does whoever published this sell a POS? Look at the site's own menu, footer or About page. If there is a Pricing or Demo link for their own product, you are reading a vendor.
- Where does their own product sit in their own list? First place, in a list written by its own maker, tells you how the list was built.
- Does the page say the publisher is a vendor? An honest one discloses it near the top. Absence is the answer.
- Is there a stated method? If products are scored, look for what was measured and how it was weighted. If a method is given, check whether the heaviest weighting happens to be the thing the publisher is best at.
A list can fail all four and still contain useful information. The point is not to discard it. The point is to read it as a sales page, which is what it is, and to weigh it accordingly.
What should I actually compare between POS systems?
Ask every vendor the same questions and make them demonstrate, not describe. Answers you can watch happen are worth more than any ranking.
- Turn the internet off and sell. Ask them to do it in front of you, then reconnect and show you where that sale went. Nearly every POS in Uganda advertises offline working; far fewer will demonstrate the reconnection.
- Ask what it does not do. A vendor who cannot name a single limitation is either not listening or not telling you.
- Ask for the price in shillings, in writing. If the price only arrives after a phone call, you cannot compare it with anything.
- Ask about EFRIS specifically. Ask whether it transmits to URA today, and to show you a fiscalised receipt if they say yes. This is the claim most worth checking, because it is the one most often stated loosely.
- Ask who owns your data and how you get it out. A shop that cannot export its own sales history is locked in.
- Ask what happens when you outgrow the plan. Find out what the next tier costs before you depend on the current one.
How does Stem answer its own checklist?
The same four questions, turned on us, and then the comparison questions above.
| Question | Stem |
|---|---|
| Does the publisher sell a POS? | Yes. Stem is a POS vendor and this page is marketing. |
| Where does Stem rank itself? | Nowhere. There is no ranking on this page. |
| Is that disclosed? | In the opening paragraph, the summary and this table. |
| Is there a method? | No products are scored, so there is nothing to weight in our favour. |
| Does it sell offline? | Yes, on every plan including the free one, and we will turn the internet off and show you. |
| Is the price published? | Yes, in shillings: free, then USh 20,000, USh 55,000 or USh 100,000 a month. See the pricing page. |
| Does it file EFRIS today? | No. The settings exist, submission to URA does not. Do not rely on Stem for EFRIS compliance. |
| What does it not do? | No payroll, no chart of accounts, no formal financial statements. The full boundary is set out here. |
Two of those answers are the kind most vendors leave out, which is the reason they are in the table. If EFRIS filing is what your business needs this quarter, Stem does not do it today and you should choose something that does.
If you want to judge the product rather than the marketing, the free plan runs a real shop with no expiry date and no card, which is a better test than any list including this one.