It started at the counter
SeroPOS came first. We built it for restaurants and retail counters: fast order entry, modifiers, split bills, kitchen tickets, inventory, and the reports an owner reads at the end of the night. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and Mac because the businesses we work with already own a mix of devices and should not have to replace them.
As SeroPOS grew, we kept seeing the same pattern after close. The owner or bookkeeper would take the day’s sales from the POS and type them into an accounting system. Then they would take hours from a timesheet and type them into payroll. Then payroll totals went back into accounting. The POS knew the sales, the stock and the hours, but none of that knowledge travelled.
Why accounting came next
SeroPOS already synced with QuickBooks and Xero, and it still does. But syncing summaries into someone else’s ledger has limits. Inventory lives in two places with two different counts. Card fees, tips and sales tax have to be mapped by hand. When something does not match, you are reconciling two systems built by two companies with two different ideas about what a sale is.
SeroBooks grew out of SeroPOS so the till, the shelf and the ledger could be one system. It is a full double-entry accounting product for Canada and the United States, with invoicing, purchasing, inventory, banking, sales tax and year-end. It also stands on its own, and many SeroBooks customers, such as wholesalers, Amazon sellers and professional services firms, have never used a POS at all.
Payroll was built inside the books
Payroll was the third piece, and we built it inside SeroBooks first. A pay run touches the general ledger more directly than almost anything else: wages, employer contributions, liabilities to the CRA, net pay. Building payroll on the same ledger meant a pay run could reach the books exactly once, with no export, import or second entry.
Then we noticed that many Canadian businesses wanted excellent payroll without changing their accounting system. So we released it on its own as SeroPayroll: Canadian payroll for all thirteen provinces and territories, starting at $25 USD a month for up to ten employees. US payroll stays inside SeroBooks Pro, which covers both countries.
One platform, three products you can buy separately
We could have bundled everything into a single subscription. We chose not to. A café may only need a POS. A distributor may only need accounting. An accounting firm may only need payroll for its clients. Forcing all three on everyone would make each one worse and more expensive.
So the three products are sold separately, each with its own plans and a 14-day free trial. What they share is the platform underneath: the same login across SeroBooks and SeroPayroll, the same infrastructure on Microsoft Azure, the same approach to permissions and audit trails, and data that moves between them without retyping when you use more than one.
- SeroPOS: point of sale for restaurants and retail
- SeroBooks: accounting that runs the whole business, Canada and US
- SeroPayroll: Canadian payroll for every province and territory
- Maya: an AI employee inside SeroBooks
What one platform changes day to day
The practical difference shows up in small moments. A sale at the counter reduces stock that the accounting system values. A purchase order received in the back office updates what the POS can sell. Labour cost from payroll lands on the same P&L as sales, so labour as a percentage of revenue is a report, not a spreadsheet.
It also changes how problems get solved. When something looks wrong, there is one audit trail to read and one company to call. That is the part owners tell us they value most, more than any individual feature.
What we deliberately did not do
We did not build a single app that tries to be everything on one screen. A cashier ringing in a coffee order and a bookkeeper closing the month need very different tools. SeroPOS is designed for speed at the counter, with large buttons, drag-and-drop layouts and offline mode. SeroBooks is designed for depth, with a desktop-style workspace, 160+ reports and permissions down to individual actions. SeroPayroll is designed around the pay run and the statutes behind it.
We also did not remove the exits. Your data can leave in standard formats, SeroPOS still syncs with QuickBooks Online and Xero, and SeroBooks can produce penny-verified exports for QuickBooks Desktop. A platform that only works because leaving is hard is not one we would want to use ourselves.
And we did not stop at software for one country. Canadian businesses sell into the United States, and US businesses hire in Canada. SeroBooks handles Canadian and US sales tax and payroll in one ledger, because that is how many of our customers actually operate.
What this means for how we build
Building on one platform keeps us honest about trade-offs. Every feature has to work for someone who uses only one product and for someone who uses all three. We keep integrations with QuickBooks Online, Xero and others because many customers rely on them, and we would rather earn a move than force one.
We are a Canadian company, building for Canadian and US businesses. If you want to see how the pieces fit for your business, book a demo or start a trial of whichever product you need first.