Ask most business owners what a point of sale is, and they'll describe a till. Something bolted to the counter. Something expensive and complicated. It’s the thing they'll get "one day, when the business is much much bigger."

Ask them what a card machine is, and the answer is even shorter: it takes the payment.

We think both answers are out of date. 

What happened when POS became something you could hold

A few years ago, Yoco set out to test that idea with the original Khumo: a card machine that’s also a full point of sale (POS). All on the same device with no extra hardware and no software subscription bolted on afterward. For a lot of business owners, it was the first time a proper POS was actually within reach.

The response spoke for itself. More than 100,000 Khumo devices have found their way into independent businesses across the country since launch. Retail and Food & Beverage led the adoption curve. Many of these were the exact businesses who'd never have justified the cost or the counter space of a traditional till. 

It turns out the barrier was never really about whether small businesses wanted a proper point of sale. The solution was introducing a product that put it within reach. 

So we built something meaningfully better

When a first product does that well, a successor has to earn its place. But, a slight spec bump or a new colour won’t cut it. If we were going to ask businesses to move on from a device that had already changed how tens of thousands of them traded, it had to be a real leap forward.

Meet Khumo 2.

Speed is the first thing you'll feel

Your machine can’t afford to lag when the queue is six deep on a Saturday morning. The Khumo 2 takes a payment in 1.55 seconds: nearly twice as fast as the Khumo it replaces, thanks to a quad-core 2.2GHz chip in Khumo 2, and eight cores with 3GB of memory in Khumo Print 2.

Whichever way your customers want to pay, you're covered: tap, chip, swipe, every major debit and credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, AMEX, or SASSA cards. You can even record cash on the machine, so your cash-up still balances at the end of the day.

One device, two jobs

The card machine was never the whole story. It's the same device that runs the business behind it. Your products, prices, stock and sales history live on the machine itself. No extra software cost, no second screen. 

Tips, split bills, refunds and staff profiles are all handled right there, and today's insights are on your phone wherever you are. On the Yoco App, you can pull an instant report, compare last week against this week, and know what's selling before you reorder based on your Khumo’s sales history.

From there, the decision is simple: digital only or print. 

• Khumo 2: R699 once-off. A bright 5.5-inch HD touchscreen with digital receipts.

• Khumo Print 2: R1,499 once-off. A 6.5-inch screen, with itemised bills, order slips and printed receipts built in. It’s everything Khumo 2 does, with no second device taking up counter space.

Both machines run the same software and take the same payments. The choice comes down to whether your customers want a receipt in their hand or their inbox (email or SMS). 

It works where you work

A point of sale is only as good as the place it actually has to survive. For the businesses Khumo 2 is built for, that's rarely a quiet shop counter.

It's a sit-down restaurant where the machine moves table to table all night. It's the stall at a weekend market, changing hands in the wind between a card and a cash box. It's the cocktail bar on a Friday night, where a spilled drink on the counter is certain to happen. 

The Khumo 2 doesn't ask you to work around it, or away from it. It’s built to go where you do. 

Built for the hazards of the job and not just the payment

That's also why it's water and dust resistant. A reliable point of sale needs to go beyond making sure a payment goes through.  For many independent businesses, it's about whether the device is still working after the steam from the espresso machine, the dust off the market stall, the rain that started twenty minutes into service. 

It's not bulky, and it doesn't need babying through a shift either. It’s got up to 18 hours of battery on one charge, enough for a full market day or a double shift without hunting for a plug at four o'clock. 

Its built-in multi-network SIM doesn't sit on one network; it uses whichever is actually working where you are, and hops onto Wi-Fi when that's better. You don’t need a phone to keep it online.

One more thing worth mentioning: pre-set tipping prompts lift tips by 12% on average. To date, Khumo devices have put over R730 million straight into staff members' pockets.

A POS system that grows when you do

Khumo 2 is built to be your starting point. When your customers aren't walking through the door, you can send a payment link straight from the Yoco App. About 89% of those get paid the same day. 

And if the coffee shop becomes a restaurant with a full front-of-house, your Khumo 2 adapts to your new setup. 

For restaurants running Table Management on Yoco Counter, Khumo 2 allows for tableside ordering: a waiter opens the table directly on the device, adds items, and charges the guest right there, without walking back to a till.

Payouts land in 1 to 2 business days into the bank account you already use. If cash flow can’t wait, you can draw them sooner with instant payouts. And the more you sell, the less you pay. Rates start at 2.3% (excl. VAT) and come down to 1.2% as you transact more.

Getting started

Setting up takes five minutes, entirely online. No branch visit, no paperwork, no waiting on a call back. Delivery is free within three days, or you can walk into any of over 300 retail stores and leave with one today. Go from out of the box to your first payment  in under a minute. No training required.

And if it's not right for you, every machine comes with a one-year warranty and a 30-day money-back guarantee. That's the deal.

"For too long, small business owners have been told a proper point of sale is something you graduate into — expensive, complex, bolted to a counter. Khumo 2 ends that. It's the most powerful handheld POS we've ever built: the payment, the products, the stock, the staff and the numbers, in one device that fits in your palm and costs R699. That's not a card machine with extras. That's your whole business, in your hand." — Lungisa Matshobai, Yoco co-founder

Over 200,000 small businesses already sell with Yoco. Khumo 2 is how the next one starts.

Take your first payment today and let's grow. Choose your Khumo 2.