POS Software

How A Web Based Point Of Sale System Can Help Increase Your Restaurant's Efficiency

2008-05-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

Having the right types of restaurant operation equipment can significantly increase
your restaurant's efficiency by allowing you to do more in less time. Don't waste
your valuable time troubleshooting your clunky computers or fixing your cash register
that continues to break down. Investing in a POS (point of sale) system can help
you save time and money, allowing you to focus on what's important: your customers!

Also, a well implemented POS system can give you a new level of control over
your operations, increase efficiencies, boost profits and help you fine-tune your
business model. In addition to efficiency gains over your cash register, quality
POS software provides information and reports that can help you make more informed
business decisions.

And the best part is that Point of Sale is always changing and adapting to help
restaurateurs be more successful and efficient. The last couple of years have seen
the emergence of web-based point of sale. This new take on point of sale is starting
to gain momentum as people realize the benefits and security of the web.

With a traditional point of sale system, a back-office computer is required to
run your entire POS operation and to store your data. With this model, you run the
risks of losing all your data in the event of a natural disaster such as a flood,
fire, or earthquake; theft, and there's a chance of your hard drive crashing. As
well, it is your responsibility to back up and maintain your data - a very time-consuming
task that takes away from you running your business. You are also required to update
your system regularly when new versions become available. If that is not frustrating
enough, you also need to be at each specific location to access individual location
data and make changes to your menu prices, add discounts, and view revenue reports.
This is a huge misuse of your valuable time!

A web based POS system eliminates all the above problems by taking care of all
your data and storing it offsite. The internet is used to collect data from your
terminals and transfers it to a safe and secure place. Even in the event of an internet
outage, you can continue to keep your store operations running and the data will
be available when the power is restored. Investing in a POS system can help you
save time and money, allowing you to focus on what's important: your customers!
If you are a restaurateur with multiple locations, you should definitely consider
a web based POS system.

The first thing to do is find the right vendor: there are many of companies out
there selling web based POS systems that all claim to offer the best service. Do
your homework! Researching for the right dealer is a time consuming, yet necessary
task! Do not take any shortcuts on this extremely vital step - you will thank yourself
down the road. Make sure the company is experienced and has a reputable name. Ask
questions - do not leave anything uncertain. Ensure the company will be there for
you after the sale with ongoing customer support. Keep in mind that you are entering
in a long term relationship with this company, and it is important to know their
support system. As well, request a demonstration to see if this type of product
is a right fit for you. Lastly, do not hesitate to ask for references - you can
learn a lot from current users.

Some vendors can also customize software configurations to your specific restaurant
as well as provide seamless upgrades with no disruptions to your business. They
also back up your data on a daily basis so you can focus all your attention on making
your customers happy!

After making this very smart investment, you will realize what you have been
missing all this time! A web based POS allows you to access important reports and
data in real time. It enables you to run the POS system from any location with internet
access. You can download the latest sales reports and know what your top seller
is in a given time period. This means that you can work from home, on the road,
or if you really can't help yourself, on vacation! It will also allow you to view
reports for multiple locations, allowing you to see how each store is performing
and where/how your marketing dollars should be spent.

In the end, you will be able to access your store operations in real time and
manage multiple locations from the comfort of one location. If you are tired of
spending time managing your servers and compiling multiple reports into one, then
a web based POS system can be the thing to remedy your IT headaches.

Dan Mitchell works with Halo
Web Based
Point of Sale to provide high-quality, cost-effective
POS Restaurant systems.
Feel free to contact Halo to find out how your restaurant can be more profitable

Point Of Sale Display

2008-05-02T01:58:00.000-07:00

Point of sale services mean advertisement services that an agency offers at
various points of sale like: shops, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, motels,
inns and casinos. This may refer to any kind of an establishment that deals in
retailing or even wholesaling. It may also be a counter of a shopping outlet or
other areas or points of sale or purchase.

These services are also offered by advertising agencies who seek to promote
their client by putting up stickers that have a logo or a sign of their company.
This also includes a message that has to be communicated to the audience. These
stickers or labels have a huge branding capability as they carry a message and
are concise. Moreover they can be easily lifted and used for a future reference
by the customers gathered at a single point of sale. They are small yet handy
and convenient at times. Woblers are used by stationery companies, companies
selling chocolates and candies and other things of beauty and value.

These woblers and labels contain graphic signage that is intended to promote
your company through information about an upcoming sale or an upcoming brand.
They can contain special and attractive offers, discounts, scratch and win
cards, etc. Thus point of sale techniques and tactics are a beautiful way to
convey the message to the customer and get imprinted in the mind of a potential
consumer. In order to be clear and lucid in the eyes of a new customer a new
brand has to be effective in its introductory offer and it becomes critical for
the brand to present its message clearly to the customers so that they decipher
the role and the product segment of the company without any qualms of
complexities.

Signarama can tailor the needs of a client and offer the best possible solution
to them for their marketing and branding needs. It also deals with traffic sign
posts and directional pots that are presented in a lucid manner so as to be
clearly decipherable. Traffic signs, direction tellers, illuminated signposts
are the top priorities on the lists of services demanded.

Table top advertising display and pop stands are also available in the
plethora of services offered by Signarama. Point of sale hotels and restaurants
use the table top advertising. Illuminated window signs add ambience to the
restaurant or hotel in hand and also present a great medium to showcase your
brand like an atrium. This offers instant brand recognition and patronization.
Interior hotel signs and graphics apart from table top display graphics are a
part of point of sale advertising display strategy. These bare a youthful,
attractive and a sinful resemblance and are used in casinos and bars.

Ted Turner is experienced brand development strategist using Toronto Signs
like Graphic Design - Storefront and Retail Signage -

Exhibits and Displays - Promotional Signage - Interior Signage -

Point of Sale - POS Materials to build brand awareness

Five Considerations for Point of Sale Hardware and Software

2008-05-01T04:03:00.000-07:00

Whether you own an apparel boutique, gift shop, sporting goods store, or any other consumer merchandise outlet, deciding upon a point of sale (POS) system implementation can become a crucial factor that affects whether you store succeeds or fails. Here are five elements to consider before you buy:

1. Getting the Right Implementation Team

Out-of-the-box solutions may work for some enterprises, but most will benefit from a professional analysis and implementation. Companies that are experienced in, for example, Microsoft point of sale implementations can help guide you toward selecting the right hardware, as well as installing the underlying network and customizing the software.

2. Choosing the Software that Fits Your Needs

If you own a boutique, your software needs are different from those of a restaurant owner. Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (also known as Microsoft RMS or Microsoft Dynamics-RMS), for example, is tailored to small- to medium-sized retailers. It can automate inventory, automate purchasing management, and streamline transaction processing, while being scalable to meet your needs as your business grows.

3. Minimizing Disruptions

Implementing new hardware and software necessitates a certain level of disruption, but you should choose a solution that is specifically designed for easy implementation and adoption. In other words, your store should stay open for business and your employees should be able to quickly learn the system. Microsoft POS solutions, for example, utilize build-in wizards and intuitive user interfaces to make learning the system quick and painless.

4. Integrating with Other Software Solutions

Even if the software you select streamlines POS transactions, unless it's integrated with your other systems you won't get the most out of your investment. Ideally, your point of sale software should connect to your business information and processes and be able to communicate with, for example, Microsoft Office programs like Word and Excel.

5. Enhancing Marketing Efforts

The best point of sale software can become an important component of your marketing toolkit. Thanks to tracking features, POS software can enable you to launch highly targeted marketing to select customers, such as those who have purchased certain items in the past or those who have indicated a preference for certain merchandise. In addition, it should allow you to set up promotions and discounts, as well as suggest up-sells at the register so your employees can talk about the products to your customers.

Keep in mind that, when you select a point of sale software solution, you should be able to get all of the features you need. For example, you may want to quickly add new items to your database, or enable a matrix that allows you to differentiate between similar items (such as the same dress style) by attribute (such as size and color). Likewise, you may wish to print out customized labels for your price tags. Perhaps you need software that will work for multiple stores, or maybe customized reporting and metrics are critical to your business. The bottom line is that, with the right implementation team, point of sale software and hardware can catapult your retail business to the heights of growth and success.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Point of Sale Hardware and Software or Majon's Business and Entrepreneurs directory

5 Reasons Why the Right Point of Sale Equipment Increases Profits

2008-05-01T04:02:00.000-07:00

Whether you own a restaurant or a retail outlet, the right point of sale (POS) hardware and software can increase your bottom line. Here are five reasons why:

1. Return on Investment. While there are POS systems at many different price points, there are inexpensive software solutions that have great functionality, work with a wide variety of types of hardware, and can integrate with other business software. For example, if you are looking for pizza shop software, Point of Success is a low-priced restaurant POS software package that has a wide range of features. Similarly, Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (also known as Microsoft RMS) is a cost-effective solution for a clothing boutique.

2. Enhance Customer Service. If you're a restaurateur or a retailer, your relationships with your customers are paramount. POS equipment can ensure that your employees can spend more time interacting with customers and less time entering information into equipment. Restaurant POS software, for example, allows employees to enter and track orders, so mistakes are minimized and customers aren't kept waiting. Similarly, retail point of sale software can give your staff immediate access to availability, prices, and the location of inventory. This means that your customers can get a high level of service, increasing the likelihood of repeat business.

3. Increase Efficiency. If you can increase the efficiency of your restaurant or retail store, you'll soon see increased profits through a decrease in staffing costs, losses due to errors, and improved accountability. Microsoft POS, for example, allows your employees to quickly and efficiently check out customer purchases with built-in credit and debit card processing. It also enables you to do everything from tracking work hours with a time clock to tracking cashier tasks. This kind of transparency enables you to make informed decisions about policies and procedures, as well as to track problems back to their source.

4. Lower Training Costs. With point of sale software and hardware, you have a standardized training approach for your employees. By customizing the software to correspond to your menu items, for example, a trainee can quickly and easily enter orders. That same software can print preparation tickets or display orders on a kitchen monitor. With pizza shop software, you can easily train delivery drivers to pick up delivery dispatches and note their availability when they return from deliveries.

5. Improved Reporting. One of the primary benefits of point of sale software is its reporting capability. Better reporting gives you the information you need to do everything from making buying decisions to preparing your tax returns. Reporting capabilities vary from software package to software package, and the type of business you have will most likely dictate the type of software you need. For example, Microsoft POS and Microsoft RMS both allow you to manage and track inventory, generate purchase orders, track customer purchase histories, and track employee hours. Microsoft RMS offers even more reporting options, including customized reports, the ability to track backorders and layaways, and the capability to manage account receivables of customers.

The importance of point of sale equipment and software can't be overstated. It may seem like a significant investment, but it will more than pay for itself with increased sales, efficiency, and reporting.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Point of Sale Equipment or Majon's Business and Entrepreneurs directory

Point of Sale Software Means Big Profits

2008-04-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

Today, most financial transactions use invisible or electronic money. Cash still has its place, of course, but most merchants do a huge portion of their daily transactions through a point of sale device. Point of sale devices, or point of sale terminals, connect a merchant to a financial network that can process electronic transactions. Each point of sale terminal runs a piece of point of sale software that holds the transactions and gives the merchant various options for tracking sales, inventory, profit, and other information. Because POS software is so important to a modern business, picking the piece of point of sale software that is right for the business is important.

When a merchant does much business, it can be difficult to keep track of profits, sales, and inventory. For example, in a restaurant it can take much time, and therefore money, to run totals and hand count items left in stock. Using point of sale menu software you can keep accurate records of business done each day. When you sell a certain item, the software can automatically subtract it from inventory. Even if you do not directly tie your specific system into your inventory, it can at least keep a running total of the each product sold. So you can take off that amount from your inventory without having to count the remaining stock. The time you save by not having to count manually inventory can make the cost of the software worth it all by itself.

Business software has to keep up with the ever-changing nature of modern business, finances, and merchant needs. You may be happy with your current point of sale software, but upgrading to something newer and more current can be a money-saving decision instead of a cost. Think of it like an investment that makes a return every time you make a sale.

Point of sale software has to be written by someone, which is why the cost to buy the most current software can be high. Software programmers and designers have to be creative to design the features that merchants need and will use. There is no need t pay for a bunch of seemingly neat features that you will either never use, or will use but will not save you time or money. You should buy the software that is right for your business and specific needs. This may mean buying a more basic piece of software instead of the high-end example. However, you should be sure the software still meets all of your needs and is designed with a small business in mind. You should also be sure the software will be able to grow with your business so you do not have to replace it right away.

Marvin Cains owns and operates http://www.pos-software-results.com Pos Software

Are Point Of Sale Systems Worthwhile

2008-04-10T04:35:00.000-07:00

The vigorous entrepreneur is thriving and kicking in the US as numerous folks are drawing on their expertise and enthusiasm, and sinking their hands into their nest egg, as they decide to venture into the world of small business. In 2005, it has been projected that there were roughly 24.7 million small businesses in the United States. These small businesses have provided an projected 60-80 percent of the new jobs in this country over the last decade.

When deciding to open a retail business, bearing in mind leasing a space, getting a business plan drawn up and purchasing stock, you might choose to spend some time doing a spot of research on the actual benefits of a point of sale system. There are quite a few versions these days, although the most easy to use one may very well be from Microsoft. This individual point of sales system utilizes the Windows set-up that millions of us are not merely comfortable with, but have virtually grown-up on.

A retail point of sale system, more frequently referred to as a POS system, will aid equally small and big business owners simplify their day to day actions, as well as make huge projects countless times more manageable. Such a system like this allows the business proprietor to set up wide-ranging databases in numerous ways in order to assist the business in the best feasible way. The days have now long gone of the large 10-digit registers, plug-in calculators and carbon copy credit card receipts.

The point of sale system at the moment looks more like a desktop computer, with every function just like using a computer, and to a large extent even more. These modernized and integrated systems actually let the user ring up transactions, process payments, manage stock & even print out the reports. Sales can be viewed all the way through the day, by merchandise, by cashier and by the hour. Price tags for products are quickly and easily made , labels for shelves can be printed and all purchases can be tracked. There are consumer databases, department databases, item databases, and seller databases. Systems are easily networked, messages can be forwarded on. Staff can clock themselves in and out, sales tax can be set and merchandise prices can be quickly adjusted. Receipts, labels and calendars can be designed. Summary sales reports, comprehensive sales reports and regional sales reports can be printed all at the touch of a couple of buttons.

A point of sale system can do so much for your business, it is hard to imagine what we did without them. There is no doubt that loads of of us scorn paperwork, and have a tradition of letting the heap in the in-box grow forever taller. Remember work takes time, and time is essentially money; whether your a single store owner, ten store owner, or even a one hundred store owner, you simply cannot afford to not have a point of sale system.

Mitch Hampson is a successful Webmaster and publisher of availablehere

so if you would like more information on this subject please checkout his website at availablehere.

Retail Point of Sale Systems

2008-04-10T04:34:00.000-07:00

Point of sale systems are very important commodities to have to successfully run a business in which sales are your specialty. This is especially true for businesses that specialize in retail. The success of this type of business relies heavily on making sure you have an accurate count of your inventory, recording which products are the ones that see the most within your business, and which ones do not sell. Being able to make credit card transactions is also an important part of being able to stay in business as a retail store.

Inventory

Knowing which products in retail stores sells and the products which do not sell is an important knowledge to have when running this type of business. This is important because a business owner will not want to order more of the items that his customers are not buying. At the same time, the items that are really popular with your customers need to be identified so that you will be able to carry more of them in your store.

The point of sale system will help you do this by keeping track of your inventory and recording every sale you make. It will then tell you which products you will need to order and which ones are just taking up shelf space in your store. The key to running a successful business is efficiency. You will be able to accomplish this by implementing a point of sale system.

Credit Card Transactions

Being able to accept credit cards as a way of payment in a retail store is another important part of being able to stay in business. Studies have shown that businesses that do not accept credit cards have about 60 percent less business than those that have the capability of processing credit card transactions. For new and small business owners you cannot afford to lose customers due to your inability to accept credit cards. With a point of sale system you will be able to process those types of transactions, and in the process gain more customers.

Point Of Sale Systems provides detailed information on Point Of Sale Systems, Restaurant Point Of Sale Systems, Affordable Point Of Sale Systems, Retail Point Of Sale Systems and more. Point Of Sale Systems is affiliated with Point Of Sale Hardware

Restaurant Point of Sale Systems

2008-03-31T01:37:00.001-07:00

One of the most important items a restaurant owner must have to successfully run a business is a way to accurately record transactions, as well as keep track of their food inventory. The best way to accomplish this task is to have a reliable point of sale system in place.

What is a point of sale system?

A point of sale system is a computer of specialized terminal that are combined with other products to record sales, transactions, and process non-cash purchases. The more sophisticated point of sale systems are usually connected online with a main central computer. These types of systems can instantaneously record and check credit card balances as well as record all purchases made by your customer in order to keep accurate account of your inventory. With a point of sale system you will no longer need to make inventory checks again. The system will automatically subtract from your list any recorded purchases, then warn you if you when it is time to reorder.

Why are they Important for Restaurants?

When running a restaurant you will need to always know how much food you have in storage. With a large inventory, sometimes it can be unfeasible to manually keep track of every piece of food you have on the premises. With a point of sale system you will be able record everything and the system will keep track of when the food items spoil or get consumed and need to be reordered.

Restaurant owners, especially those with expensive restaurants also need to have a way to process credit card payments. Very few people will be carrying large amounts of cash to pay for an expensive meal. Without a way to process these types of payment the restaurant will be limiting the amount of business they will be able to access. With the current trend of frequent use of credit/debit cards, you will not stay in business long if your business is incapable of processing credit card transactions.

Point of Sale Systems

2008-03-31T01:36:00.000-07:00

A point of sale system is a type of computer or specialized terminal that is used to instantly record a transaction. This system uses computers and combines it with the necessary software, cash registers, barcode readers, optical scanners, and magnetic strip readers.

Types of Point of Sale Systems

There are two main types of point of sale systems available. The first one is an online type of system that is connected to a central computer for credit checking and inventory updating. The other type of point of sale system is called a stand-alone machine. This type of machine will store information concerning sales, credit card information, as well as keeping track of your inventory. At the end of the day this information must be delivered or manually transmitted to the main central computer. These two types of systems work in a similar manner, with the only difference being the way and how fast the information gets delivered to the main central computer.

Uses for Point of Sale Systems

A point of sale system could significantly help a business owner in keeping a business run smoothly and efficiently. The most important use of this system to a business owner is its ability to allow your business to process credit card payments. Consumers today tend to prefer paying with a credit card rather than using cash. Majority of the consumers do not even carry cash in their person most of the time. It has been proven that businesses that do not accept credit cards for purchases will have at least 60% less sales than similar business that accept credit cards.

Cost

The cost of point of sale systems will depend on how sophisticated of a system you wish to implement. There are some systems available that cost over $1500, while some can cost as little as $65. The type of system you will need to buy will depend on the needs of your business, and the amount of transaction you will need to process at any given business day.

Affordable Point of Sale Systems

2008-03-29T02:10:00.001-07:00

A very good point of sale system can be very expensive. A new business owner may not want to spend too much money on an expensive system right away. Even though a point of sale system is a very important part of a successful business you do not want to buy one you cannot afford as of yet. You should purchase and implement a system that is affordable for you business at this moment, and later on when your business becomes successful you could upgrade to a more expensive system.

Expensive Point of Sale Systems

The cost of a point of sale system will depend on the features you want included in the package, as well as its ability to make online connections with the main central computer.

The most advanced and sophisticated point of sale system can cost over $1,500. These systems will usually have online capability and instantaneously connect to the central main computer to update inventory as well as check the credit balance for credit card purchases. A system such as this one will include everything you will need to have an efficient and successful point of sale system. Included in the price of this type of system will include the necessary software, a printer, cash drawer, magnetic card swipe, and barcode scanner.

Stand-alone Systems

A new or small business owner will likely not need a very advanced system. They often just need a simple system that can record transactions and track inventory. These types of systems do not need to have online connections to the central computer. Purchasing a stand-alone system which stores all transactions and keep track of inventory is all they need to have. These stand-alone systems will store all necessary information for the purpose of delivering or transmitting the information to the central computer at a later time for processing.

These systems are considerable less expensive and much more affordable for the small and new business owner. These can cost as little as $65, with the better packages costing as little as $175.

Jumping on the Linux POS (Point of Sale) Bandwagon - Finally a Choice for Retail & Hospitality

2008-03-28T01:32:00.000-07:00

For many retail & hospitality operators, having a choice in operating systems is key

In a never ending battle to ease costs, many businesses today are looking at Linux as a server operating system. Issues such as cost and flexibility make Linux an attractive choice. However, just as many operators may be asking, “what exactly is Linux anyway?”

Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds. Developed under the GNU General Public License , the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone. According to IBM, Linux is currently the fastest growing server operating system.

Once businesses have chosen their operating system, the next task is usually sourcing out a POS (point of sale) system. At the best of times, sourcing out a POS system for your business operation can be a confusing, time consuming and arduous task. Throw in the added obstacle of having to select point of sale software that can actually run on your operating system, and it’s easy to see why business owners shy away from this difficult and often expensive task.

Research has shown that the number of POS terminals running Linux in North America has increased 80% since 2002. The reason why is simple; Linux, as an operating system, is more cost effective, flexible, and allows for greater freedom of choice in software than more mainstream operating systems. Linux is also very cost effective in regards to licensing, installation, administrative and support costs. Linux can offer all these features without sacrificing functionality. For retailers and restaurant/hospitality operators alike, cost and ease of use are king, and reasons such as these can make the difference between a business that succeeds and a business that fails.

POS software providers have been slow, however, to jump on the Linux bandwagon. Currently, there are few well-known or enterprise-wide POS software packages available for Linux. One company, however, has seen a niche in the market and has embraced it head on. Volanté POS Systems, of Toronto, Canada and Hong Kong, offers a POS solution that has been developed entirely in Java. Java is cross platform compatible and operates in multiple environments – this gives the user freedom to choose Linux, Windows 2000/XP, or Windows and Linux. For many operators, having a choice is key.

Not only does Java provide cross platform compatibility, but like Linux, using Java POS solutions can be cost effective as well, as Java allows users the opportunity to save on additional Windows license fees, as an example. Java’s open standard architecture allows the entire system to be compatible with third party industrial applications. Users are free to choose their operating environment and are not bound to costly proprietary restrictions.

Volanté also offers integration with Windows-based back office applications. This flexibility is rare in the POS industry. For more information on Volanté’s Linux & Java POS solutions, visit their website at http://www.volantesystems.com or in Asia, at http://www.volantehk.com, or simply email them at sales@volantesystems.com.

From a retail perspective, Linux is definitely catching on. Burlington Coat Factory, for instance, has already rolled out Linux in all of their locations, both as a desktop and POS system. Other retailers/restauranteurs currently using Linux in their stores include: Papa John’s, Garden Fresh, Mark’s Work Wearhouse, Home Depot, and Gap, to name a few.

The push for Linux isn’t just in North America, either. Asian governments are looking closely at Linux, hoping it will lead to the development of a domestic software industry that isn’t hostage to foreign licenses. According to Linux Insider International, “Asia is emerging as a key battleground for the open-source movement. The Japan-China-Korea (JCK) partnership, announced last month in Osaka, is the latest in a string of initiatives to promote Linux. Two weeks earlier, Singapore hosted the second annual Asia Open Source Symposium, where 20 Asian countries discussed closer collaboration in standardization, localization and interoperability of Linux software.”

So, when choosing an operating system and subsequent point of sale system, consider Linux. Discover for yourself why Linux is the fastest growing server operating system.

Derek Meade is a writer, webmaster, and owner of Meade Internet Services in Ottawa Canada, an internet marketing, website promotion and website design company. http://www.meadeinternet.com

The Top 10 Reasons You Need A Computer Point of Sale System For Your Business

2008-03-28T01:31:00.000-07:00

10. If you have employees, you need a point of sale system.

If you have employees you are open to theft, sweet-hearting and careless mistakes. You need a point of sale system to manage your employees, enforce your policies and insure that your money gets to you.

Of all distressing situations that can occur in a workplace, none is as likely to trigger emotions more consistently than an incident of theft, fraud or embezzlement. The 2003 National Retail Security Survey discovered that nearly half of all losses can be attributed to employee theft, adding up to billions of dollars annually. Some small business owners regard the pilfering of notepads, pens, paperclips, and even coworker lunches as minor incidents, unworthy of disciplinary action. Consequently, if an employee feels invincible, they may raise the stakes and steal something of greater value, believing they will not be threatened with termination or prosecution.

The best defense is careful supervision and security solutions that remove easy opportunities. Human resource experts recommend having more than one person doing inventory and bookkeeping so no single employee has too much authority. Shifting responsibilities from one person to another, i.e., rotating opening and closing, enables employees to check each other's work for accuracy and suspicious activities. It also makes collusion between employees, or between an employee and an outside source, such as a distributor, considerably less likely

Small business owners should emphasize that there is no such thing as an "acceptable amount" of employee crime, and that none at all will be tolerated. The Small Business Administration recommends that all violators be disciplined, regardless of how important the person or how small the infraction.

Though employee theft is a real threat, the National Federation of Independent Businesses advises against becoming hyper-vigilant - that may antagonize your honest employees and lower morale. Proper security measures and a set of common sense procedures are the best ways to protect your small business.

Examples of employee theft include:

Forging receipts: Salespersons can charge a customer one sum, ring up a receipt for less, and pocket the difference.

Hiding receipts: When bookkeeping has little supervision, employees can keep cash and receipts without raising an eyebrow.

Stealing merchandise: Purchased goods may never even make it to the shelves.

Fraud: Employees can declare themselves suppliers of nonexistent goods, and subsequently reimburse themselves handsomely.

9. To reduce or eliminate pricing and math errors, you need a point of sale system.

It is still amazing how many businesses still use a calculator and hand written tickets. According to studies done by various institutions you are open to math and pricing mistakes totaling in excess of 1% of your annual volume. In a business doing as little as $1,300 per day that would add up to $4,700 per year. To eliminate pricing and math errors you need a point of sale system.

8. If you want to control your payroll, you need a point of sale system.

Employee payroll is one of the most overlooked and most easily managed portions of your profit and loss statement. If you have 12 employees and each of them clocks in 5 minutes early a day, that equates to 1 hour per day of extra payroll. Even with minimum wage plus benefits this could add up to $6 - $8 per day or over $2,900 per year. This figure doesn't take into account the total man-hours it takes to compute time cards and then report on the hours worked for each employee. This is time that you could be spending elsewhere. If you have a few as 5 employees you need a point of sale system.

Most point of sale systems have a built in time clock feature. Some time clocks are specifically designed for specific industry needs. Features designed to control your employees and conform to the strict regulations imposed upon your business. For instance, restaurants have far more restrictions placed on them than a retail operation.

Managing employees and a time clock can be difficult with some systems. When looking at different point of sale systems make sure the one you chose has the features needed by your specific industry requirements.

Taking advantage of the built-in time clock feature can bring big results. Additional profits can quickly be the result of this easy to use feature.

7. If you want to reduce employee theft in your business, you need a point of sale system.

This is the original reason for the invention of the cash register back in the late 1800's. Even when most of the businesses were family owned and run there was a need for a cash register to reduce theft. In today's world of hiring employees to help staff and manage your store there is even greater need for this type of control. For years we have known about the tendencies of people with regard to theft. 10% of the people wouldn't steal if giving the opportunity. 10 % of the people are going to steal no matter what safeguards are in place. 80% of the people will steal if given the opportunity. Point of sale systems are put in place to guard against the 80% and make it more difficult for them to steal from you.

Frequently used schemes

Having an elementary understanding of the more common forms of employee theft can help business owners formulate a strategy for subverting them.

Pocketing loose change. Small sums of money, such as fees or petty cash, may not be missed at all.

Knowing how much an item is with tax and making change from an open drawer without ringing up the item.

Accepting coupons for items not rung up. This is known as coupon stuffing.

Fictitious payroll. Personnel managers authorize salary for fictitious workers, then keep it for themselves.

6. If you want to speed up service, you need a point of sale system.

In a restaurant there is only 1 thing we can think of that will drive customers away faster than bad food and that is slow service. When a customer places their order their own internal clock is running in overdrive. No matter how long they took to look over the menu and to place their order, once they have given your server or cashier their order their hunger clock is speeding along faster than a fan on high! You need a fast, reliable way to get orders into your system. This should mean a terminal that is fast, easy to understand and quick to respond to the touch of the server, cashier or bar tender. The system should also distribute the order properly to the kitchen prep station or bar. Your point of sale system should also measure your speed of service and report on how you are doing. Reducing the time it takes to get your customer's their food is critical and can even make up for less quality. For proof I give you some of the major fast food chains. Is their popularity based upon the best tasting, best dressed and best served burger or speed of service?

Speed of service is critical to every business, not just restaurants. If you want to speed up your customer service you need a point of sale system.

5. If you want to know more about your business through enhanced reporting, you need a point of sale system.

What is the use of having a computer and not taking advantage of the power? If all you need is to have a total amount of cash in the drawer that sometimes matches to the amount of sales shown you probably don't need a point of sale system. However, if you want more detail and information to help manage your operation and make it more profitable then you need a point of sale system. It used to be that having a good product was enough to get you by. Now it takes a lot more information in order to compete with all the other restaurants in your market that are all looking for the same customer you have seated in your restaurant. You need to understand the buying habits of your customers. What are they ordering? When are they ordering it? What is your most profitable item? How many of it did you sell? What items on your menu are not selling? If you cannot answer all of these questions with total confidence in your answers then you need a point of sale system. If you hesitate to correctly answer (without guessing) any of these questions you need a point of sale system.

4. If you want to share data with other software systems, you need a point of sale system.

Even most small businesses today have some form of electronic accounting in place either in their operation or through an accounting service. In addition, most businesses have an electronic payroll service or software that creates payroll. Point of sale systems capture critical data for you and then export this data in formats that automatically put this information into accounting and payroll packages, eliminating hours of tedious manual input that often leads to mistakes and human error. If you have an electronic accounting or payroll service/software or even if you want to track your sales in Excel, you need a point of sale system.

3. If you want to securely take credit/debit cards as forms of payment you need a point of sale system.

If you are not currently taking credit cards as a form of payment you need to start today. Never mind the fees. The loss of business that you are suffering in today's plastic minded economy will more than compensate for the fees charged. If you are currently taking credit cards through a stand-alone terminal you could be being charged exorbitant fees for the terminal when you could be processing through your point of sale system. In some cases, the elimination of the terminal rental will pay for the credit card interface in less than a year. With integrated credit card processing you are assured that the amount of the sale will match the amount charged on the credit card, eliminating the need to go back and match individual sales when the credit card batch does not match credit card sales. When high-speed Internet connections are used to process credit cards we receive approvals in less than 2 seconds. No longer is slower speed of service an excuse not to take credit cards. If you want to quickly, accurately and smoothly process credit cards you need a point of sale system.

2. If you want to better and more competitively market your business you need a point of sale system.

Frequent Diner Modules. Who are your customers? What do they buy? How often do they visit? Of your frequent visitors, who hasn't been in to see you during the past month? Of your frequent visitors, who has a special day coming up this month? These are questions that you should have the answer to. All the major chains and all of your competitors are after the people who come to your restaurant. They want to take them for themselves. How are you going to compete with the billions of dollars being spent to draw your customer away? By marketing your operation and your menu. Your point of sale system should be able to manage your customer base, keep up with their buying habits, how often they visit, when was their last visit and what special occasions they have coming up. Your point of sale system then should be able to sort these into groups that should be sent mailers, coupons, invitations to special events or simply told that they are appreciated and asked to visit you again. If you have competition you need a point of sale system.

Gift cards have become the norm for so many businesses today. An entire industry has been formed around the old concept of giving a paper gift certificate. Today, you will find gift cards at most major checkout lines. A point of sale system should be able to sell, redeem and control balances for your own gift card program. No longer do you need a book of certificates that are kept in the safe. Today, all you need is a stack of blank plastic cards with your colorful logo on them. These cards carry no balance and have no cash value until sold and a balance placed on account. As an owner you should keep a few of these cards with you. Each of these cards might have a small balance on them for you to hand out to pull customers to your restaurant or to give in case of a poor experience to help bring someone back. Think of these cards as your personal marketing tool. When the customer looks in their purse or wallet and sees your logo they will be reminded to come visit you. If you use gift certificates or gift cards you need a point of sale system.

1. Since you don't need any more 'Partners', you need a point of sale system.

Sure you need gift cards. Yes you need to better understand your customer's buying habits. You absolutely need to have credit cards integrated with your point of sale system. You need enhanced reporting and export of these reports to electronic accounting and payroll services. You need to eliminate errors, reduce mistakes and keep track of your payroll. But more than any of these you don't need any more partners. Especially the ones that take their portion of the profits before you get yours. We are talking about the servers, waitresses, bartenders and cashiers who:

Undercharge customers in order to enhance their own tips. Show a $5 tab and a $50 tip. (Yes, I have seen this!)

Deliberately void or delete an item after it has been paid for.

Stuff coupons into the cash drawer in exchange for cash.

Don't charge customers for soft beverages to enhance their tips.

Ring up a lower priced item (well brand) and serve a higher priced item (premium brand)

Give discounts to their friends.

In a buffet line, ring up a buffet and a tea. Reprint this ticket 10 times and sell and collect for themselves these reprinted receipts instead of ringing up new customers.

If you want to stay in business, you need a point of sale system.
Jerry D. Wilson Mr. Wilson has over 25 years experience consulting businesses and installing point of sale systems. He has been a guest speaker at various conventions, industry functions and has served on the Dealer Advisory Board for Panasonic. Currently, he is the Director of Internet Sales for BMI-POS. For additional information please visit www.directouchpos.com and www.directretailpos.com.

Forgotten Point of Sale System Features - Grand Totals

2008-03-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

Restaurant point of sale systems have loads of features that POS salespeople love to talk about. Some are glamorous, others are flashy and some are unique to their product. When showing off these new and fancy features too often these salespeople forget about the basics and why cash registers were invented in the first place.

Preventing theft. That is the purpose of a cash register. Ringing up items and safely storing cash if the fundamental philosophy that created a now multi-billion dollar industry known as the Point of Sale Industry.

Why then are so many point of sale companies, software manufacturers and POS salespeople forgetting about the fundamental principles that are still valid in today’s business environment? The answer eludes and frustrates me because valuable profits are being lost by not utilizing these basic and important features.

Reporting Grand Totals

Would you buy a car without an odometer? Then why would you buy a point of sale system without a grand total? The principles are the same. They track how far you go and subtracting yesterdays total from today’s total tells you how far you went today.

Point of sale systems today have gotten away from this extremely important feature that securely reports on the total sales of your business. Cash registers still have this feature as a standard feature. But even with this feature too many people do not know the importance of the feature and how valuable it can be in stopping theft and letting management know when there is something wrong with your business.

Not too many years ago I was helping a fast food franchisee open a new location. We were going over the system, mostly reminding him of the features of the system, which he already had installed in several other locations. I mentioned the grand total and he questioned me on what that was.

I explained that this number was just like a car odometer and tracked every dollar sold and kept incrementing after every sale. Take today’s number and subtract it from yesterday’s number and you knew exactly how many dollars in sales you had.

To add to this number, the point of sale system he had also had a reset counter that showed how many times the system had been closed since first installed. Each day’s report should be incremented by 1, thus they should always be sequentially numbered.

With this knowledge in hand we returned to his office and began a quick audit of one of his problem stores. We quickly found that the daily close count showed missing reports. We also checked the grand totals and found missing sales.

What was happening was the closing store manager was running the end-of-day report between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm and then running another close at midnight, the time when the store was supposed to close. The closing manager was pocketing the sales rung between the first and last closing reports and turning in the first closing report as the daily sales report.

Had it not been for the grand totals we would never have caught this thief. The closing manager even went as far as to change the time on the register to keep the elusion complete. It was those little used grand totals that eventually caught up with him.

The sad thing is, most point of sale systems have gotten away from the grand totals. Not only are they not even offered, if you ask about them you will probably hear excuses why they aren’t important.

Grand totals are important. Without them the scenario just explained above could be repeated every night on a point of sale system without these totals and you would never know it. When I say never, I mean never. You would eventually go out of business because your closing managers would be taking all the profits and leaving you with all the expenses.

Don’t settle for less than you deserve. Demand the security that your point of sale system should provide. You wouldn’t buy a car without an odometer. Don’t buy a point of sale system without grand totals.

Jerry D. Wilson has over 25 years of point of sale experience helping business owners stop employee theft and increase profits. Please visit DirecTouch POS and DirectRetail POS for more information on other features that are important to your point of sale needs.

Restaurant 86 Item Countdown Feature - A Point of Sale Solution To An Old Problem

2008-03-25T03:41:00.000-07:00

The History of the 86 Feature

The term, "86" started so many years ago that its origin has long since faded into the memories of all but a few restaurateurs. Suffice it to say, if you "86" an item you are out and you need to stop taking orders immediately.

A lot of table service restaurants use a board located near the kitchen to write items that have been 86st for the day. Servers are expected to actually read this board and remember the items that are not available. Some restaurateurs yell out the items as they run out. Problem is, the restaurant sounds more like an old style fast food restaurant with employees yelling at each other.

Yelling is not the only problem with trying to track items in this way. Like, who has time to write the items down? Also, do you really expect the wait staff to remember how many of each item is left? And then when the count gets down to 1 item left you know that 2 servers are going to sell that last item.

The Need for the 86 Countdown Feature

You need a fast and accurate method of letting the wait staff know the exact number of items left and then stop servers from ordering the item after the last one is sold. This needs to be displayed at each station every time the server goes to the terminal. It needs to be visual, eye catching and instantly updated each time an item is sold.

The Solution for the 86 Countdown Feature

Some restaurant point of sale systems come standard with an "86 Item Countdown" feature that displays actual counts, deducts from the count when an item is sold and then prevents sales of the item once it is sold out. All management has to do is set the count for the items to be tracked and the system will do the rest.

Every item being tracked will have the number of items left displayed on their menu button. Each time an item is sold from any terminal in the system the number available will decrement and update on every terminal. Once an item is sold out the item will no longer allow the item to be sold.

Some systems will even allow for an substitution menu to pop up for items that have been sold out.

The Benefit To You

Better communication to your wait staff means better service to your customers. Your wait staff will now be able to approach your customer with confidence about the quantity of items remaining and be able to quickly shift customers to other items when your daily specials are all sold out.

Customers will benefit from knowing before they order if an item is available. No one wants to order an item and have the server return to the table and be told that they can't have what they want. By using an 86 Item Countdown feature this problem will be reduced.

Something Extra For You

How about getting more than just a countdown of daily specials? How about using this feature in a bar to inventory bottled beer? Yes, you could use this same feature to inventory and count down bottle beers.

Other uses for this feature would be baked breads in a bakery/sandwich shop, pre-made salads in a fast food restaurant and tickets to a special event.

Use your imagination and you will be well pleased with the many other uses that are possible with this easy to use feature.

However, not all restaurant point of sale systems have this feature. Please make sure to ask to verify that this feature is available on the software you are considering.

Jerry D. Wilson is Director of Internet Sales for DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale. With over 25 years of hospitality point of sale experience, he has written several articles explaining different aspects of hospitality point of sale software. You can visit DirecTouch Do It Yourself Restaurant Point of Sale or DirectRetail Do It Yourself Retail Point of Sale for more information

Employee Time Clock And Restaurant Point of Sale Systems - A Perfect Marriage

2008-03-24T02:38:00.000-07:00

The History Of The Employee Time Clock And Point of Sale

The concept of punching a time clock has been around since the industrial revolution of the early 1900's. However, it was not until the invention of the electronic cash register in the early 1980's that employees could clock in/out on the cash register. This eliminated the need for a punch card and greatly increased accuracy and reduced manpower needs in calculating time worked for payroll purposes.

While the need for employees to clock in and out on a terminal started off simple the requirements of government have greatly increased the demands placed upon management. There are a host of different labor laws, tip reporting requirements and labor restrictions governing the number of hours to be worked in a day/week and even when minors are allowed to work.

The Need For An Employee Time Clock

What started off simple has quickly become complex. Your needs are far greater than a simple time clock that tracks the clock in and out times for your employees. You need help with the government regulations regarding different aspects of your labor pool.

Tip reporting and handling have become a huge issue in the restaurant business. You need help tracking tipped employees and what they declare as tips earned.

Tracking employee breaks has become a bigger and bigger hassle. Some states govern the length of breaks and whether they are paid or not. I know of one state that requires a minimum of a 20 minute unpaid break per employee. If that employee clocks back in 1 minute early, their entire break is paid. Who has time to monitor every employee's break?

And we have just now gotten to the problem of employees clocking in early, riding the clock or simply having a friend clock them in when they aren't even there!

You need help. You need an integrated time clock and you need it bad.

The Solution Of The Employee Time Clock

Some point of sale systems come standard with an employee time clock feature that is designed specifically for restaurants and the goofy requirements placed upon restaurant owners.

All employees can clock in/out on any terminal in the system. There is no set terminal that must be used by all employees. Any employee may clock in on any terminal.

Security and secrecy should be a concern and point of sale software products have different ways of accomplishing this.

Secret 4-digit employee code for clock in/out.
Optional magnetic card reader and magnetic cards for employees to use when clocking in/out.
Optional biometric reader which recognizes individual fingerprints for employee clock in/out.
Employee breaks are tracked and various rules can be set depending upon your own state's regulations.

Tipped employees are required to declare their tips earned when they clock out for the day. These declared amounts are then reported with their time worked.

What good would all this data do if we didn't report on it? Most software products are able to track and report on all time clock data and use weekly, bi-weekly, bi-monthly and monthly payroll cycles. Be sure to verify that the product you are looking at will meet all of your requirements before purchase.

Some point of sale products will also export all time clock data to file for import into several different accounting packages.

The Benefit Of The Employee Time Clock To You

This feature has several benefits. Let's list a few:

Increased accuracy over punch cards and manual time tracking.
Reduced rounding errors in computing time.
Reduced time for management to compute employee hours.
Enforce break rules.
Enforce tip tracking and declaration for tipped employees.
Eliminate buddy punching with optional biometric scanners.
Export time clock data to payroll software or payroll service.

Jerry D. Wilson is Director of Internet Sales for DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale. With over 25 years of hospitality point of sale experience, he has written several articles explaining the benefits of touch screen and retail point of sale software. Please visit DirecTouch Do It Yourself Restaurant Point of Sale or DirectRetail Do It Yourself Retail Point of Sale for more information.

Forgotten Point of Sale System Features - Cash In Drawer Limits

2008-03-24T02:36:00.000-07:00

This feature has been around since I started in the cash register business some 25+ years ago. I haven’t heard POS salespeople talk about this for over a decade and if it isn’t being used in your business you are opening yourself up for theft and possibly armed robbery of your business.

All cash registers and point of sale systems track sales and tenders. They all know how much money, checks, gift cards, credit cards and other forms of payment are in each cash drawer/till.

Most cash registers and a few point of sale software companies have the ability to set a limit on how much cash should be in each cash drawer/till. When this limit is reached the cashier is notified and then can notify management to do a cash pull from the drawer. Some systems go as far as sending a message via pager/cell phone alerting management that a cash drawer/till is over the cash limit.

Management can then go to the drawer, pull out an amount of cash, count it and enter the amount removed as a cash pull. This amount is then removed from the cash in drawer amount and lowers the overall cashier responsibility.

Do not forget that every time the cash drawer/till is opened all the cash is exposed to view and to the temptation of everyone. Not only does the money become accessible to your cashier, it is also accessible to long-armed customers who have been known to reach across when the cashier was not looking.

What could be even worse is the fact that when the cash drawer/till is open potential robbers are able to estimate and determine if your operation is worth returning for a full-scale robbery.

Cashiers like this feature in that it reduces the amount of cash they are responsible for as the cash removed is deducted from their overall cash responsibility. Cashiers also like the fact that if there is less cash in the drawer they are less apt to have a gun shoved in their face during a robbery.

Owners like this feature in that it reduces the temptation to remove money from the cash drawer/till through employee theft or through robbery.

If you are an owner, wouldn’t you like keeping more of the money in your cash drawer/till for yourself? Wouldn’t you like to reduce the chance/temptation of an armed robbery? This old-time cash register feature now found in some point of sale systems could be the exact answer to your needs.

Check your current point of sale system to see if the cash in drawer feature is even offered. If you are looking at a new point of sale system you should make sure that the cash in drawer feature is offered.

Don’t let technology dazzle you to the point that you forget about the basics features that you need to stop theft and increase profits. Those features that have been around for decades are still valid today.

Cash in drawer limits were considered an important part of any cash register and point of sale system for many years. The reason for the feature and the need to keep your cash safe never went away. Stopping theft is still a critical aspect of any point of sale system. That being the case, why should you settle for anything less than your business needs? Don’t settle for less. Demand the cash in drawer feature.

Restaurant Employee Tip Tracking Through A Point Of Sale System

2008-03-21T02:39:00.001-07:00

The History Of Restaurant Employee Tip Handling

No one knows when tipping began. But we do know that in the 1980's the IRS levied new regulations on restaurant owners to track the tips received by the employees of the restaurant.

The magic number of 8% became the benchmark for servers and waiters to declare as their tipped earned. Not because it was accurate. Rather, because it was the minimum amount allowed by the IRS.

The trick is this. Tipped employees in restaurants are generally not paid minimum wage. The amount varies from state to state but it runs between $2.15 to $3.15 per hour. The IRS assumes that the tips received will make up the difference between this low hourly amount and the true minimum wage that is currently $5.15 per hour. If this is not the case, then it is up to the restaurant owner to make up the difference between what the tipped employee earned + declared tips and minimum wage. This makes accurate tip declaration, tracking and reporting a vital aspect of running a restaurant.

The Need For Restaurant Employee Tip Handling

You need a employee time clock system that recognizes tipped employees, tracks their individual sales, any charge tips collected and requires them to declare cash tips at the end of their shift.

You also need a employee time clock system that can handle tip sharing, tip pooling and tip out to bus help, bartenders and other servers.

You need a employee time clock system that will track the hours worked and tips collected and recognize problems with employees not declaring enough tips to meet the minimum wage requirements.

The Solution Of Restaurant Employee Tip Handling

Some point of sale software products have tip tracking built into their time in attendance module. Once you set an employee as a tipped employee the system will require tip declaration prior to clock out.

Servers and waiters who ring sales will have their total sales tracked. Tips collected through credit card sales are tracked and shown on the server closeout report. Prior to clock out the server/waiter will be shown their total sales, the charge tips collected and then asked to declare their cash tips.

Some point of sale products do allow for programming flexibility with this feature:

You may change the minimum declaration from the default of 8%.
You may change the requirement to declare tips at clock out.
You may opt to have the system print a chit with their tips shown.
You may opt to not show charge tips on the declaration screen.

The Benefit Of Restaurant Employee Tip Handling To You

How do you measure the amount of relief a person can have knowing that your point of sale system is enforcing tip regulations levied by the IRS? Not to mention the mass amount of time savings in tracking declared tips, charge tips and hour worked for every tipped employee.

This is one headache you don't want to have to deal with. If you have tipped employees you need a good point of sale system with tip tracking and time and attendance.

Jerry D. Wilson is Director of Internet Sales for DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale. With over 25 years of hospitality point of sale experience, he has written several articles explaining the benefits of touch screen and retail point of sale software. Please visit DirecTouch Do It Yourself Restaurant Point of Sale or DirectRetail Do It Yourself Retail Point of Sale for more information

Tips For Point Of Sale Marketing

2008-03-20T02:34:00.000-07:00

How can a good point of sale product help your business? As a business owner, I know that my goal every day is to sell to my customers. I have also learned that a good point of sale product can help me with that. The point of sale, if you aren’t sure, is wherever your customer goes in order to pay for items or services. The point of sale could be on the internet, in a retail location, or sitting across from one another at a lunch table. You will find that you can get a lot of mileage out of point of sale products if you use them correctly. There are a few ideas that you should at least consider.

If you own a retail or physical location for your business, it is likely that you use a cash register, cash drawer, and printer receipt at your point of sale. If you do, you might as well make them into point of sale marketing materials. For one thing, if you place certain items you are hoping to move quickly near the cash register, customers can use change or extra money to purchase those items as a spontaneous purchase. You may find that this works best as a point of sale products if you mark them as on sale, clearance, or marked down.

For the best results on cash register point of sale products, you should also dress them up a bit. Use merchandisers like toppers or attractive dispensers. With something like that with the merchandise, it will draw a customer’s eye even if they wouldn’t have normally considered the product. A good point of sale product is one that will at least get the customer’s attention, and at most will encourage them to buy more from you.

Another tip for point of sale is to use the receipt. Use your marketing dollars to get your customers return coupons. A way to do that is to print such a coupon on the back of each customer’s receipt. The coupon should be for something on their next visit to your location. Such a coupon can encourage the return of customers in a short amount of time.

There is probably no better place to market your business than at the point of sale. There is where you can lock in return business and can make a final impression. Take the time to look at point of sale products and how they can help you to expand the success of your business. You may be surprised at how far you can stretch your marketing dollar at the point of sale.

If you would like to read more of my articles on point of sale information, please feel free to visit my website on marketing

Retail Point Of Sale

2008-03-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

A second channel is Producer-Retailer-Consumer, by which goods may be purchased directly from manufacturers. Retail stores may also be opened by manufacturers by this channel.

A third channel is Producer-Wholesaler-Retailer-Consumer, which is the traditional and most economical channel. Penultimately, there is Producer-Agent-Retailer-Consumer, in which many producers use manufacturing agents, brokers, etc. for reaching the retail market. Finally, there is Producer-Agent-Wholesaler-Retailer-Consumer, where the services of agents are utilized by the smaller retailers, who purchase from a wholesaler and sell to small stores.

A large number of channels of distribution are available to the manufacturer for bringing his product to the ultimate consumer. Efficient distribution at the least cost and attaining the desired volume of sale can be secured only after experience, study and analysis. The notice of the product, its unit value, its technical features, and its degree of differentiation from competitive products are the factors which may limit the number of potential channel alternatives.

A retailer, as the name indicates, does retailing, which is to say he sells to ultimate consumers. In the distributional hierarchy, retailers are below the level of stockists, distributors, and wholesalers. Sometimes, retailers are termed dealers or authorized representatives. The retailer often operates in a smaller territory or at his specific location; earns lesser commission compared to higher levels in the channel; he does not carry out stock holding and sub-distribution functions.

A stockist or distributor or wholesaler is also a large sized operator but not on par with the marketer or sole selling agent in level, size and territory of operation. Stock holding and sub-distribution, as per the policies laid down by the manufacturers or the marketers, are the main functions of stockists/distributors.

Point Of Sale provides detailed information about point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale is the sister site of Fulfillment And Distribution

Point Of Sale Marketing

2008-03-19T03:40:00.001-07:00

Point of Sale marketing is the economic process by which goods and services are exchanged between the producer and the consumer and their values determined in terms of money prices. Much of marketing is concerned with the problem of profitably disposing of what is produced.

Marketing originates with the recognition of a need on the part of a consumer. Marketing terminates with the satisfaction of that need by the delivery of a usable product at the right time, at the right place, and at an acceptable price. There are five distinct concepts related to Point of Sale marketing. First is the exchange concept, which, as the very name indicates, holds that the exchange of a product between the seller and the buyer is the central idea of marketing.

While exchange does form a significant part of marketing, to view marketing as a mere exchange process would amount to a gross undermining of the essence of marketing. Exchange, at best, covers the distribution aspect and the price mechanism involved in marketing.

Second is the production concept. In organizations that practice this concept, production and technology dominate the thinking process of the key people. The concept holds that consumers would, as a rule, support those products that are produced in great volume at a low unit cost. Thirdly, there is product concept, which seeks to achieve the same result via product excellence – improved products, new products and ideally designed and engineered products. It also places the emphasis on quality assurance.

At this stage, it would be appropriate to explain the phenomenon of ‘marketing myopia’. Excessive attention to product or selling aspects at the cost of the customer and his actual needs creates this myopia. As more and more markets became buyers markets and the entrepreneurial problem became one of solving the shortage of customers rather than that of goods, the sales concept became the dominant idea guiding Point of Sale marketing.

The Top 10 Reasons You Need a Point of Sale System

2008-03-19T03:39:00.000-07:00

10. You have employees.

9. Pricing and Math Errors.

It is still amazing how many restaurants still use a calculator and hand written tickets. According to studies done by various institutions you are open to math and pricing mistakes totaling in excess of 1% of your annual volume. In a restaurant doing as little as $1,300 per day that would add up to $4,700 per year. (Less than the price of our 2-terminal Sweet Deal Package) To eliminate pricing and math errors you need a point of sale system.

8. Time In Attendance.

Employee payroll is one of the most overlooked and most easily managed portions of your profit and loss statement. If you have 12 employees and each of them clocks in 5 minutes early a day, that equates to 1 hour per day of extra payroll. Even with minimum wage plus benefits this could add up to $6 - $8 per day or over $2,900 per year. This figure doesn’t take into account the total man-hours it takes to compute time cards and then report on the hours worked for each employee. This is time that you could be spending elsewhere. If you have a few as 5 employees you need a point of sale system.

7. Reducing Theft.

This is the original reason for the invention of the cash register back in the late 1800’s. Even when most of the businesses were family owned and run there was a need for a cash register to reduce theft. In today’s world of hiring employees to help staff and manage your store there is even greater need for this type of control. For years we have known about the tendencies of people with regard to theft. 10% of the people wouldn’t steal if giving the opportunity. 10 % of the people are going to steal no matter what safeguards are in place. 80% of the people will steal if given the opportunity. Point of sale systems are put in place to guard against the 80% and make it more difficult for them to steal from you.

6. Speed of Service.

There is only 1 thing we can think of that will drive customers away faster than bad food and that is slow service. When a customer places their order their own internal clock is running in overdrive. No matter how long they took to look over the menu and to place their order, once they have given your server or cashier their order their hunger clock is speeding along faster than a fan on high! You need a fast, reliable way to get orders into your system. This should mean a terminal that is fast, easy to understand and quick to respond to the touch of the server, cashier or bar tender. The system should also distribute the order properly to the kitchen prep station or bar. Your point of sale system should also measure your speed of service and report on how you are doing. Reducing the time it takes to get your customer’s their food is critical and can even make up for less quality. For proof I give you some of the major fast food chains. Is their popularity based upon the best tasting, best dressed and best served burger or speed of service? If you want to speed up your customer service you need a point of sale system.

5. Enhanced Reporting.

What is the use of having a computer and not taking advantage of the power? If all you need is to have a total amount of cash in the drawer that sometimes matches to the amount of sales shown you probably don’t need a point of sale system. However, if you want more detail and information to help manage your operation and make it more profitable then you need a point of sale system. It used to be that having a good product was enough to get you by. Now it takes a lot more information in order to compete with all the other restaurants in your market that are all looking for the same customer you have seated in your restaurant. You need to understand the buying habits of your customers. What are they ordering? When are they ordering it? What is your most profitable item? How many of it did you sell? What items on your menu are not selling? If you cannot answer all of these questions with total confidence in your answers then you need a point of sale system. If you hesitate to correctly answer (without guessing) any of these questions you need a point of sale system.

4. Exporting of Data to Other Systems.

3. Integrated Credit Cards.

If you are not currently taking credit cards as a form of payment you need to start today. Never mind the fees. The loss of business that you are suffering in today’s plastic minded economy will more than compensate for the fees charged. If you are currently taking credit cards through a stand-alone terminal you could be being charged exorbitant fees for the terminal when you could be processing through your point of sale system. In some cases, the elimination of the terminal rental will pay for the credit card interface in less than a year. With integrated credit card processing you are assured that the amount of the sale will match the amount charged on the credit card, eliminating the need to go back and match individual sales when the credit card batch does not match credit card sales. When high-speed Internet connections are used to process credit cards we receive approvals in less than 2 seconds. No longer is slower speed of service an excuse not to take credit cards. If you want to quickly, accurately and smoothly process credit cards you need a point of sale system.

2. Competitive Marketing.

a. Frequent Diner Modules. Who are your customers? What do they buy? How often do they visit? Of your frequent visitors, who hasn’t been in to see you during the past month? Of your frequent visitors, who has a special day coming up this month? These are questions that you should have the answer to. All the major chains and all of your competitors are after the people who come to your restaurant. They want to take them for themselves. How are you going to compete with the billions of dollars being spent to draw your customer away? By marketing your operation and your menu. Your point of sale system should be able to manage your customer base, keep up with their buying habits, how often they visit, when was their last visit and what special occasions they have coming up. Your point of sale system then should be able to sort these into groups that should be sent mailers, coupons, invitations to special events or simply told that they are appreciated and asked to visit you again. If you have competition you need a point of sale system.

b. Gift cards have become the norm for so many businesses today. An entire industry has been formed around the old concept of giving a paper gift certificate. Today, you will find gift cards at most major checkout lines. A point of sale system should be able to sell, redeem and control balances for your own gift card program. No longer do you need a book of certificates that are kept in the safe. Today, all you need is a stack of blank plastic cards with your colorful logo on them. These cards carry no balance and have no cash value until sold and a balance placed on account. As an owner you should keep a few of these cards with you. Each of these cards might have a small balance on them for you to hand out to pull customers to your restaurant or to give in case of a poor experience to help bring someone back. Think of these cards as your personal marketing tool. When the customer looks in their purse or wallet and sees your logo they will be reminded to come visit you. If you use gift certificates or gift cards you need a point of sale system.

1. You Don’t Need Any More ‘Partners’.

Sure you need gift cards. Yes you need to better understand your customer’s buying habits. You absolutely need to have credit cards integrated with your point of sale system. You need enhanced reporting and export of these reports to electronic accounting and payroll services. You need to eliminate errors, reduce mistakes and keep track of your payroll. But more than any of these you don’t need any more partners. Especially the ones that take their portion of the profits before you get yours. We are talking about the servers, waitresses, bartenders and cashiers who:

a. Undercharge customers in order to enhance their own tips. Show a $5 tab and a $50 tip. (Yes, I have seen this!)

b. Deliberately void or delete an item after it has been paid for.

c. Stuff coupons into the cash drawer in exchange for cash.

d. Don’t charge customers for soft beverages to enhance their tips.

e. Ring up a lower priced item (well brand) and serve a higher priced item (premium brand)

f. Give discounts to their friends.

g. In a buffet line, ring up a buffet and a tea. Reprint this ticket 10 times and sell and collect for themselves these reprinted receipts instead of ringing up new customers.

If you want to stay in business, you need a point of sale system.

Jerry D. Wilson is Director of Internet Sales for DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale. With over 25 years of hospitality point of sale experience, he has written several articles explaining the benefits of touch screen and retail point of sale software. Please visit http://www.directouchpos.com or http://www.directretailpos.com for more information.

Point Of Sale Products

2008-03-18T03:20:00.001-07:00

As a business owner your goal of selling to your customer can be enhanced by the point of sale products that you use. The point of sale is the area in which your customer comes to in order to pay for his or her items. Whether this is on the web at an ecommerce website or if it is in a retail location, the final look at what you have to offer is quite important to the customer. Point of sale products are, in fact, likely to help you to sell whatever it is that you need to if they are used correctly as marketing medium. Here are some options that you may want to consider.

Point of sale often means the cash register, the cash drawer and the receipt printer. If you are one of the many that use these aspects, making them marketing materials can help you. For example, the placement of products that you would like to get rid of near the register allows customers who haven’t spent all that they planned to to have the opportunity to spend a little more. This is quite effective when the point of sale merchandise is “marked down” or “clearance” as they know they are getting a great price on the products.

To make this effective, you should use point of sale merchandisers such as toppers for the register or attractive dispensers. Regardless of what the price is for the merchandise, just because it is there, they will look at and consider it.

Other options that you have include using your marketing dollars to present return coupons for your visitors. For example, on the back of their cash receipt is a coupon for their next visit. This will help to encourage their return in a short time period.

Whether you use point of sale merchandise, marketing materials, or even electronic options, taking advantage of the dollar at the point of sale terminal is an excellent opportunity many businesses miss.

for more information please see http://www.point-of-sale-help.co.uk

Point Of Sale Systems: How to Choose a Dealer to Buy From

2008-03-18T03:19:00.001-07:00

Given that a point of sale (POS) system is critical to your business, choosing a dealer to buy from is a very important decision. In some ways, the dealer is a more critical factor than the actual hardware and software.

So how do you zero in on the right dealer? Here are some of the things you should look at.

* The dealer’s experience should play a big part in your decision. If you run a fine dining restaurant with up-market clientele, your business needs are vastly different from someone else’s who runs a self-service cafeteria. A bookstore has different needs than a dry cleaning outlet.

Make it a point to investigate what experience the dealer has in your specific industry. And for how long they have been dealing with your industry.

* If the dealer does have experience in your industry, ask for references from within the industry, or in closely related operations.

Ask these references questions about all aspects of their POS system experience. What is it they would have done differently in choosing and utilizing their equipment? What is it they don’t like about the dealership / choice of system?

Also find out if they know any other users who are served by this dealer. You may find that people not directly referred by the dealer tend to be more forthcoming about the pros and cons of the equipment and the dealer.

* A POS system quickly becomes indispensable to your operations. Any downtime is usually a very serious affair and may affect your business in many ways. That’s why support is a critical factor.

Determine what level of support you will need. Will you need 24 hour on-site support? How long can you afford to run without a live POS system?

Sit down with the prospective dealer and get a detailed understanding of the support they offer. Perhaps they initially provide phone support. If that doesn’t solve the problem, they may send support personnel over. And if the problem can’t be rectified immediately, find out if they will be able to give equipment on loan till your system becomes functional again.

Ask to see a copy of the service contract and scrutinize it carefully.

* Request the dealer to give you a demo of the equipment they are proposing to install for you. The demo could be done at your site or theirs. Go along with some of the actual end users in your organization.

A hands-on trial is an excellent way to gauge what you are getting into, both in terms of the equipment itself as well as how the dealer utilizes it.

* Get a sense of the dealer’s installation procedures. Do they have a one-size-fits-all approach? That could be risky with something as critical and complex as a POS system.

The best dealers will make a detailed study of your infrastructure, inspect your power lines and in general, get an excellent grip on your needs and on your present situation before recommending a system.

The initial days after installation are critical, to ensure that the system functions as intended. Will the dealer’s personnel be looking in often for the first two weeks to a month to ensure that everything is working fine and to answer the questions that will inevitably arise?

The above tips should help you determine which POS system dealer is the best fit for your business needs. Preparing well at the pre-purchase stage can save you endless frustration later on.

Mark Henry is a systems consultant and has written on POS equipments, tips for choosing the right point of sale system, how point of sale equipment needs to fit in with the business environment and other related topics.

Point Of Sale Systems: How to Choose One That's Right for Your Business

2008-03-17T04:10:00.001-07:00

A point of sale (POS) system can have a dramatic impact on the way you run your business -- and on your bottom line. Choosing the right one requires careful planning.

Here are some of the things you need to think through to make a good decision when selecting POS equipment and systems for your business. Use this list as a starting point for your planning process.

* First of all, price should not be the main consideration when buying a POS system. The improved efficiency, greater flexibility and better reporting should pay for the investment in a reasonable period of time.

* Don’t start off by calling for lists of features of various POS systems. Instead, start with a comprehensive analysis of what your business requires.

* Do you have operations spread over multiple locations? What are the implications?

If you run a restaurant, for example, you may need to keep some parameters common across locations while varying others. For instance, your menu may be identical at all locations, but prices of some items may vary from one outlet to another. The system you choose must be capable of implementing such differences.

* How easily can you make changes to the system? You can be sure that your business will keep changing in many respects -- employees join and leave, prices go up or down, your product range expands, locations get added or deleted and so on.

Ask yourself if the programming interface will easily allow your employees to execute such changes.

* Will it be possible to make changes ahead of time? For example, if you’re beginning a special promotion on November 15, can you input the price changes well in advance and set the system to automatically effect the changes on that date?

This as well as other types of flexibility are essential for many retail operations.

* To what extent will the POS system need to integrate with your accounting system? Does it have to be real time? Or is it enough to have an export of entries at day-end?

* If you are running a bar, does the POS system need to work with liquor control devices? A liquor control device tracks pours from bottles. This makes billing easier and reduces shrinkage.

* Will the credit / debit card processing system in the POS equipment work well with your merchant account?

* Will the system allow you to implement special deals for frequent shoppers? For instance, each purchase could have points associated with them and these points could eventually translate into lower prices or free gifts.

* What reporting capabilities will you need? If you work across multiple locations, will the system give you an online real-time report of transactions completed?

Most dealers will have sample reports available. Ask to see them so that you can compare better.

* In most cases, the POS system will have to be upgraded as your needs evolve and expand. How quickly can the dealer respond to your needs?

Also, most dealers put out regular software upgrades. Are they included in the contract or does the dealer charge extra for them?

For the sake of avoiding compatibility problems, plan to purchase new hardware of the same kind as the original. That way you’ll ensure everything works well together -- and even if there are problems, you can get the dealer to handle it.

* Support is a critical consideration. What happens if your POS system goes down? This can have a serious impact on the business. You need to get a detailed written agreement on how the dealer is going to handle breakdowns.

The dealer may try to diagnose and solve the problem over phone initially. If that doesn’t work, they may send support staff to your location. And if the problem can’t be solved quickly, you may need to get equipment on loan till your system is repaired.

POS system downtime can have serious implications. Make sure you get the support you need.

The above list should help trigger ideas about the kind of issues you need to look at. Do your planning well before deciding on a POS system for your business.

Mark Henry is a systems consultant and has written on POS systems, tips for choosing the right point of sale equipment, how point of sale systems need to fit in with the business environment and other related topics.

Increase Your Profits with a Point of Sale (POS) System

2008-03-17T04:08:00.000-07:00

Whether you operate a chain of restaurants, a mom-and-pop convenience store, or a medium-sized retail shop, you are in business to make money. And, one of the most critical aspects to your profit and loss is your ability to track information… you need to know which products are making you money, what items need to be re-ordered, who your customers are, and so on. This is where today’s point of sale (POS) systems play such a valuable role.

In the not too distant past, retailers used mechanical cash registers to record sales onto a paper tape which then had to be manually transcribed into the company’s accounting ledger. Later, electronic versions of cash registers were introduced which allowed business owners to track more of the data pertaining to each transaction (for example, management was able to track all sales and refunds by each cashier). Today, cash registers have evolved into modern computer-based point of sale systems, which let you track more information than previously imaginable.

Some of the ways that a point of sale system can help you increase your profits include analyzing your product margin, tracking sales, increasing the accuracy of your pricing, and maintaining customer contact.

As a business owner, you know how important it is to keep a close watch on the margin of each product since you want to focus on selling the things that make you the greatest profit. A point of sale system can help you quickly identify your greatest money-makers and make decisions about how much of each item you want to stock. (If you have a limited storage area, it doesn’t make sense to fill it up with low-profit items).

A point of sale system also allows you to know, practically at the push of a button, how much cash you have in the till (and how much of it is profit!), the type and amount of each product sold that day, and how many items are still on the shelf. You can even set it up to automatically notify you when reaching the re-order point on any item.

With the advent of barcodes and barcode scanners, retailers now enjoy greater accuracy in the pricing of their products that ever before. If you need to increase the price of a “widget”, you simply make the change in your point of sale system and all widgets immediately reflect the new price. Plus, your cashier or sales clerk doesn’t have to guess what any product costs (which might cause you to lose money)… they just scan it and the correct price is automatically applied.

Marketing 101 tells us that an existing customer is worth a lot of money to a business owner because they are likely to buy from you again and again in the future (this is known as the “residual value”). Because of this, you should make selling to your existing customer base part of your marketing plan. A point of sale system lets you keep track of customer names, addresses, and purchase history… just imagine how you could use that information to generate more sales!

Hopefully by now it is clear that a point of sale system can help you track the information that is critical to your business success. This includes analyzing your margin, tracking each day’s sales, increasing the accuracy of your pricing, and maintaining contact with your customers. Armed with this information, you can make informed decisions and take actions that are sure to increase your profits.

Brian Cook is a freelance writer whose articles on point of sale (POS) systems have appeared on many websites. You can find more of these at http://www.pos-free-software.com

The Problem With Technology At The Point Of Sale In Financial Services

2008-03-13T03:41:00.000-07:00

Background

There’s a conundrum that currently exists between the customer and the seller in financial services. The customer buys and the seller sells. The customer is focused on their wants as much as needs, and whilst the seller often says they are focused on the customer’s needs, all too often the focus is on products and profit. Indeed a wider examination of the decline in customer service might also do well to address the issue of remuneration systems which reward sales but not customer service. This latter practice merely confirms the customer’s suspicion that the seller has more to gain from any advice or transaction than the buyer. Included in the mix is regulation. Regulation was meant to assist and protect the consumer. Instead, we have witnessed a massive exodus from providing advice whilst compliance costs rocket skywards. The continuation of bad press on sales practices; fines of major firms; and the inability of the industry to speak with one voice leads many to believe that protection for the consumer is a by-product not an aim. In addition the customer is now faced with an overloading of the sales or customer relationship process with paper, which include endless questions to complete even the simplest transaction and massive fact finds covering every conceivable piece of information imaginable. Rather than act as a comfort to customers these processes have merely heightened their suspicions. Yet insofar as technology is concerned, whilst the customer trusts the technology, they do not trust the person operating the technology.

Point of Sale systems

In this scenario it is hardly surprising that Point of Sale systems continually fail to pay back the investment. In most cases it’s not that the system doesn’t work, it’s just that working the system requires different skill-sets and a realisation that the customer is wary of being asked questions. These are behavioural issues and yet whilst Point of Sale systems by design are based upon a customer’s past buying behaviours and potential future buying propensity they tend to lack an appreciation of:

a) The reluctance of the seller to use technology at the point of sale

b) The physical environment in which customer interactions take place

c) The amount of time it takes to learn to operate new technology with confidence in front of a customer

Reluctance of sellers to use technology at the point of sale

Many experienced and qualified advisers now rely heavily on technology. This explosion of the use of technology has led all software and hardware suppliers and IT departments to believe that the future is bright, the future is technology. In the rush to design and implement systems however, some basics have been overlooked:

a) Sellers are as opposed to sales processes as are customers

b) Introducing technology at the point of sale involves a significant change of behaviour on the part of the seller

c) Sellers experience great difficultly in changing their behaviour

d) Most sellers in the type of financial services organisations that can afford to buy Point of Sale systems are junior front-line staff with the consequence that

- their feedback on the reality of using these systems in front of customers is often ignored

- where they provide feedback it is often guarded

- pilot launches are always used with ‘champions’ who provide a minute insight into the difficulties which will be faced when launching the system to a wider audience. In addition many of the results of pilots are widely exaggerated in order to bolster the confidence of those who have already embarked upon considerable expenditure and of those who will continue to be used as champions

e) The ability of sellers to convince managers that the system is being used when it is not (this in itself is one of the main reasons for Point of Sale systems not realising any return on investment)

f) The ability of sellers to convince managers that customers do not like the new system whereas the opposite is almost always the case. What customers do not like is the behaviour they experience from the seller. Clearly if the seller is reluctant to use the system they will adopt a less than enthusiastic set of behaviours in front of the customer

g) The ability of sellers to convince managers that changes should be made to the system in order to make the customer feel more comfortable

The physical environment

Most Point of Sale systems are information hungry and therefore the programme requires the seller to either input or to read a significant amount of data. This results in the seller and customer seating positions being such that almost always exclude the customer from seeing what is going on. The customer becomes wary. The seller senses the discomfort of the seller and reacts accordingly. The customer senses the discomfort of the seller – and so the cycle continues.

Time to learn

In all cases, the time estimated and used to teach sellers the new system is inadequate. By the time sellers return to the workplace most will have forgotten 90% of the details of the system. This then requires them to teach themselves how the system works during lulls in normal customer interactions. This fragmentation of learning takes place without reinforcement or feedback and certainly without the practice of using the system in front of a customer. Within a very short time-scale sellers have taught themselves to use the system without the customer being present. When the opportunity then presents itself to use the system live with a customer the leap from theory to practice is too daunting and therefore delayed until the seller feels more confident. This simply never happens.

The solution

In an environment where the cost of Point of Sale is significant the solution is simple but unpalatable – it requires more time and resource.

DESIGN OF THE CUSTOMER INTERFACE

The system has to be designed with the customer in mind not the seller. The customer has to see what is happening and in this way can be encouraged to take part in the exploration of their needs and wants

DESIGN OF THE TRAINING

The first step for sellers is the need to convince them that the system will work in front of a customer. They have to be shown how it will work. The second step is to convince the user how much effort is required to learn how to use the system in front of a customer. The third step is to provide sufficient time and to ensure that the design of the training balances technical knowledge with physical selling skills

FIELD IMPLEMENTATION

The most critical aspect of field implementing is often overlooked – the involvement of the line manager. The manager must act as a coach which means they have to be trained to use the system – but do not need to become experts. They need to experience the learning. In this way they will be able to gauge when sellers are resisting because of learning difficulties or emotional difficulties. They need to taught how to recognise the difference and how to behave accordingly. Coaches need to be taught how to transfer training to the field and the crucial element – how to improve performance. The whole point of Point of Sale is to improve performance.

Frank Salisbury is a motivational an inspiring business coach and trainer. He has designed and delivered a range of personal development programmes for individuals and organisations aimed at helping people achieve their potential. He has spoken at numerous conferences and seminars where his style has received acclaim from those who hear him speak with a passion for life and achievement.

In 2006 Frank was elected a Lifetime Honorary Fellow of the Sales Institute of Ireland. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Commercial Management; a member of the Institute of Leadership & Development; a member of the Association for Coaching, and a Council Member of the Gerson Lehrman Group Business Services Council.

http://www.btsolutions.ie

Can Point of Sales Systems Really Enhance My Customer's Visit?

2008-03-12T03:27:00.001-07:00

You may assume that your guest's experience at your restaurant may be enhanced by a point of sale system. Maybe you had not even though of it. However, the fact is that a good point of sale system can benefit the experience of your guests.

So often the salesperson tries to focus your attention on the benefits of their product with regard to your interests. But what about your customer's interest? Shouldn't you also be concerned about how installing a point of sale system is going to affect them?

Depending on the type of restaurant or bar you have certain benefits will be more readily apparent than others. On top of that, the method by which a guest's experience is enhanced may also change. But overall you can expect some or all of the following:

Remote Printing or Displaying Or Orders

There are varying degrees of this benefit depending upon your application. In Table Service you have the ability to have the order entered by the server and immediately printed on various printers in the kitchen. With some systems you can have up to 6 remote printers. This reduces steps to the kitchen and eliminates the requirement for the server to even go to the kitchen to deliver the ticket.

In a Quick Service environment you can also use printers to deliver orders to the kitchen but an even better solution is a kitchen video system. The orders get to the kitchen even faster as an item is sent to the monitor as soon as the next item is entered. With printers, the order does not start printing until the order is finalized. With a kitchen video system items can be set to go when the next item is entered, thus speeding up the process of order delivery even more.

Bars can enjoy increased speed of service through the use of remote printers. With some systems we can even use the printer next to the terminal to save on the cost of an additional printer. Drink orders can be printed on this printer and the drinks can be prepared and waiting on the server when they walk up.

For your customers, faster service means happier customers

Reduced Errors In The Kitchen

Printing or displaying the orders for the kitchen is also more accurate than hand written tickets. No longer will you have hastily scribbled notes to the kitchen that are hard to read, time consuming and the birthplace of guessing and eventual errors.

In multi-lingual situations you will be pleasantly surprised how quickly your kitchen staff will learn to read the tickets that come out of the printer.

You will also see how organized the tickets are and how special orders and modified items stand out with either 2-color printing on the tickets or multiple colored items on the displays.

For your customers, reduced errors means happier customers.

Quality of Service

In a Table Service setting, since the server is not required to walk to the kitchen to hand deliver the ticket they are able to use this time to prepare soft beverages and deliver them to the table quicker.

For Quick Service operations once the cashier is through with one order they may start another. The orders are separated and a specific number is assigned to each. This number helps track the entire order and keep items together for presentation to the customer.

In bars with a kitchen it would be ridiculous for a bartender to leave the bar to take an order to the kitchen. This would reduce customer service. Well, so is not serving food to your bar customers. By printing orders on a remote printer you are better able to serve your bar customers.

For your customers, better service means happier customers.

On-Line Credit Authorization

Some point of sale systems are able to process credit card transactions via a high-speed Internet connection. This reduces authorization down to as little as 1 - 2 seconds from up to 30 seconds for a dial-up connection.

On a standard credit card machine provided by most credit card processors each approval can take up to 30 seconds. Each swipe takes time. Each server waiting in line adds up the total time it takes to process a credit card for a customer. If you have 3 servers waiting on the same credit card terminal the 1st server waits 30 seconds, the 2nd server waits 60 seconds and the poor 3rd server waits 90 seconds to get their approval. Add the time it takes the server to walk back to the table and the poor customer has almost had another birthday!

For your customers, faster service means happier customers.

Processing Credit Cards At Multiple Terminals

Take the previous scenario and add multiple terminals. In our industry we recommend 3 servers per point of sale terminal. Therefore, if you have 3 server terminals you could have as many as 9 servers on the floor at one time. If they all try to access the same credit card terminal from the processor the wait could be intolerable for your guests.

Almost every restaurant point of sale system allows for credit card transactions to be swiped at each terminal. With most processing software you can swipe at every terminal at the same time and there is no additional waiting. If you are processing through a high-speed connection each terminal in the network can expect an approval in less than 2 seconds.

For your customers, faster service means happier customers.

Professional Appearance

DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale will produce a professional and neat guest check, ticket or receipt for the customer. Items will be detailed with pricing. Modifiers can also be printed to show preparation instructions. The taxes will be shown and broken out by type. The total will be displayed in bold lettering so that there is no confusion.

You will also be able to show the date of the visit, the server, cashier or bartender that served them as well as any marketing information you wish in the header and footer of the receipt.

This will assuradly be better than the receipt we get at our local Mexican restaurant which is simply a calculator tape with no description of the items we were served.

For your customers, a trusting customer is a happier customer.

Customer Reward or Customer Loyalty Programs

With Frequent Diner Modules you are able to reward repeat customers through either discounts on meals, free food or reduced prices on specific items.

These rewards are earned either on a points system or on dollars spent. The rewards are good off of their next visit.

Use these programs to directly market to your customers about specials, new items or even an invitation to come in for a free/discounted meal for their anniversary or birthday.

For your customer, a rewarded customer is a happier customer.

Split Checks

There are many times when the customer will not tell the server that they want split checks until the ticket is presented. Having an easy method of splitting these checks is essential to customer satisfaction. If the task is difficult then the attitudes of the servers will show through to the customer. Then the task itself will take a long time, really impacting the customer's experience.

Some,not all point of sale systems have extremely fast and easy method of splitting checks at any time the ticket is open. In a few simple touches, extra tickets can be added to the table and items moved to the proper seats. When done, the system will immediately print new tickets for each guest.

If the server rang the original order in separate seats then it is even quicker and easier to split the order.

For your customers, faster service means happier customers.

Split Items

Sharing appetizers should be encouraged by your servers even if the guests want to split the costs amongst themselves. This will create additional sales for the restaurant in enhance the guest's experience.

Some,not all point of sale systems can easily split the cost of an item and divides the cost amongst the guests that shared the item. If not all the guests shared the item, then only the guests who want to share the cost will.

For your customers, accurate pricing means happier customers.

Pricing Accuracy

Hand written tickets create errors. Using a calculator to compute tickets creates errors. For years, cash register salespeople have been taught that doing a guest check audit is one of the best ways to sell a cash register of point of sale system. Humans make errors. Point of sale systems don't.

What about multiple prices for the same item? Do you run a happy hour in your bar? How about early bird pricing in the restaurant? How do you know that the servers and bartenders are charging the correct price? Your point of sale system will set the price by the time of day for you. Your early birds will get their discount pricing.

The National Restaurant Association backs this up with surveys and documented evidence that says that the average loss due to human error on hand written tickets and calculator tape is 2% of sales. Do the math for your business with our Return on Investment spreadsheet. I'll bet the loses are huge if you are using hand written checks or calculators to compute guest checks.

For your customers, accurate pricing means happier customers.

86 Item Feature

Almost all restaurants run some kind of daily special or have items with a limited shelf life. Table Service applications sometimes have lunch or dinner specials that are added just for that day. Deli operations sometimes have a limited number of breads available by style. The 86 Item feature will count down these types of items until you are sold out.

Prior to running out of an item the terminal will display a numeric display on the button letting the server, cashier or bartender exactly how many of that item are left. When the item is sold out it will then display a symbol on the item button and prevent the item from being rung.

Customers who want a daily special that is out will be given the opportunity immediately to order something else rather than ordering the item and then being disappointed that it is not available.

For your customers, a satisfied customer is a happier customer.

Faster service, better service, customer rewards, accurate orders, fewer mistakes and satisfied customers are all benefits enjoyed by your customers simply by you investing in a point of sale system.

The fact remains that the investment is yours to make. The financial benefits are yours to enjoy from the return on your investment. But you are going to have the share the satisfaction with your customers and guests.

Jerry D. Wilson has over 25 years of restaurant point of sale experience consulting and helping businesses automate their processes, control their businesses and increase their profits. You may find out more about restaurant systems and how they can help your business by visiting DirecTouch Point of Sale. directouchpos.com

Get Rid of Cash-Register Eyes in Your MLM Business

2008-03-12T03:26:00.001-07:00

Do you have cash-register eyes when it comes to people?

With your current and past MLM companies do you see or have you ever seen the people in your downline as simply things and not the same as yourself?

Do you only think about yourself and getting what you want in business and not providing value to your downline?

If you do or if you ever did, then you have been guilty of having cash-register eyes.

So what should you do about it?

How should you stop this malady; this disease of MLM and network-marketing business?

Just think for a moment of what you want in your chosen MLM business: Don't you want financial security, an easy life style, no money-worries, the opportunities to travel, etc?

Of course you do.

And so do the individual people who make up your downline.

So how do you go about this?

Simple. Treat them with respect and treat them as you would like to be treated. Stop calling them your downline and refer to them as your business colleagues. Talk to them as people, and not just a cash cow, because if you do then in time, without you doing much of anything else, you will most likely make money from their activities because they will want to do the money-making activities for themselves.

Is this a mercenary way to think?

No, simply because that is how all business works, even when you work at a J.O.B.

If you have a good boss at your job, then most likely you will be more productive and make him money. As a result you will be paid a small amount of money called a wage or salary. This is a preset amount most of the time, no matter how much money your work produces. This is your share of the profits.

When you have a team in an MLM business, then because you put in the effort in the beginning to find, train, encourage and generally manage your team, your MLM company rewards you with a share of the profits that they produce. Even board members of large corporations can be paid these same types of monies, and in these cases they are called bonuses, even if the company does not produce a profit.

In MLM businesses these bonuses are only paid on sales made by your team. Hence a truer reward system.

Therefore shouldn't you build a large team and reap the rewards?

So STOP! with the cash-register eyes and treat your team as people. They will reward you well!

Join Andreas Krokene in the pursuit of MLM success in the Internet age and download free information on how to use the Internet to promote any MLM company you wish. Simply click this link http://icorralia.com

Opening a Dollar Store - Cash Register Organization

2008-03-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

Are you opening a dollar store? Then remember that checkout areas are the last thing that your shoppers will see when they make purchases in your store. The appearance of the cash register area is what those same customers will remember about your store after they leave. In fact, the appearance of that area may well determine whether shoppers return to your store in the future.

Leave a favorable impression on every shopper by getting organized. If you are opening a dollar store don’t allow clutter to accumulate around the check stands. Create designated areas for the tools and supplies that cashiers need to effectively serve store customers.

When opening a dollar store it is easy to allow clutter to build in the cash register area. Cashiers and other employees get busy and place items around the cash register while handling other tasks. Don’t allow that practice to occur. Adopt the philosophy that there must be a location for every item in the checkout area. Stand behind that philosophy by ensuring that every item is kept in its designated location and that other items are never allowed to accumulate.

Never allow other items to gather at the check stands when you are opening a dollar store. If customers change their minds about a purchase during checkout then designate a place for those items to be placed. Of greater importance is to establish a process and the expectation for employees to quickly return those items to their designated location on the sales floor.

Are you opening a dollar store? Make a lasting, positive impression on every person who enters your store. Leave a long lasting and positive impression on your shoppers who make purchases. Create a checkout area that is well-organized and clutter-free. While it takes some effort and discipline, the results are worth the effort.

To Your Dollar Store Success!

Do you want to own your own Dollar Store? Visit www.openingadollarstore.com for more information. http://www.onlineauctionsmadesimple.net

How Avoiding These Shopping Pitfalls Can Save You Big Money at the Cash Register

2008-03-11T02:42:00.000-07:00

The following tips can you aware of your shopping and spending habits, and how manufacturers try to influence you, the consumer. Being a conscientious shopper can help you stay on your monthly food budget.

Beware Grocery Aisle Layout and Item Displays: Brand names pay stocking fees to stores so that their products are placed at appropriate eyelevel. Adult products are placed higher, while products for children are placed lower. Products placed at eyelevel are often the most expensive, because of the stocking fees, and the fact that manufacturers know that the consumer is more like to buy a product from eyelevel while walking down the aisle.

Solution: Take a few extra seconds and look at the shelved above and below the featured product. Chances are you will find the same product at a better price.

Avoid "Sale" Merchandise: Stores advertise items known as "loss leaders" that are features at rock bottom prices, or even free with purchase. Occasionally, these can be bargains, but remember aisle ends are reserved for these items or the bargain priced product is features next to a higher priced product. You usually can find similar items in the regular aisle section that may be cheaper than the "sale" item.

Solution: Be wary of sale ads. Focus on the price of the product, and not the advertising or fancy packaging. Compare brands. Remember, if you buy a product you wouldn't normally use, you are not saving any money, and it isn't a bargain no matter the price.

Beware of Product Appearance and Packaging Tricks: Companies can be very clever when packaging their product. Bright colors attract attention, especially red and yellow. Oversized packages are also a draw for consumers. Shoppers assume that larger packaging means more product and a better deal. This is often not the case. The "Buy in Bulk" mantra has been pounded into the average shopper for years. Advertisers know this, and the larger quantity package may have a cheaper counterpart in smaller packaging.

Solution: Always compare unit price or per weight cost. Regularly products that have smaller packaging feature a better deal than buying the bulk version.

Avoid Impulse Buying at Checkout: The checkout aisle is a mini store. They have captive shoppers that are forced to look at the products while they wait. Hundreds of items can be crammed into this tiny space, and the profit margin on such items is extremely high.

Solution: Make a conscious decision to not buy from the checkout lane before you enter it. You can also speed through the line during off peak hours. Many stores are now open 24 hours a day, so early morning or late evening shopping can make your stay in the checkout aisle easy to bear and the products easy to resist.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as buying groceries online at http://www.buygroceriesdirect.com

How To Make Your Cash Register Ring All Day

2008-03-10T03:48:00.000-07:00

A woman walks into a sweet-smelling shop, the product display is exquisite, the perfumes and oils and soaps bright and enticing.

She is approached by a young man. His face is bright, enthusiastic, well-scrubbed. His hair is clean and fragrant, his nails trimmed, his suit pressed, and his shoes polished. Then he opens his mouth and uses words with the sophistication of a back-alley brawler.

The magic is lost. After a few flustered words, a few patent excuses, the woman leaves.

The cash register remains untouched, and the proceeds for the day the same. Hour after hour this tragedy continues.

What tragedy befell this merchant?

Meanwhile, she, still in need of cosmetics and toiletries visits another store in the mall. There the pace is hectic, the display mauled over, and the salesman, despite careful grooming in the morning, now appears disheveled by too much work.

She approaches with hesitation, and her impatience and resistance, too, are stronger.

Seeing her approach, the salesman speaks.

She smiles for the first time that day, the pinched look on her face disappears, the pursed lines around the mouth soften.

Eloquent words flow from his lips, words of courtesy, interest, and charm.

He shows her one product after another, describing the benefits and the magnetism of each in turn.

Soon she is moving swiftly, from one choice piece of soap to another bottle of exquisite scents. She piles up her arms then asks him to assist her to carry more. Together they carry the boxes to the counter. The cash register rings yet again, the drawer is almost overflowing with ill-pressed bills, and the salesman barely has enough time to close it and catch his breath when she has been replaced by yet another eager customer.

Why the good fortune of this merchant?

Business. It is simple. It is the words you use.

Business. It is complex. It is the words you use.

Words create reactions, people buy or refrain from buying because of them.

A product is manufactured. A service is created. A structure is built around them. A strategy is designed to deliver them to the public with the most appeal. Yet without words, no perception is created.

The beautiful product image is not interpreted. The stirring value of it’s content is not appreciated. The elaborate service model is not permitted full execution.

Without words, it is only so much dust. Another product that sits on the shelf, another enterprise that is unvisited, another service that is not sought.

But add words, the right words, and it is as if the dust is now fairy dust. Everything now has a certain magic, a mysterious appeal, an allure that cannot be denied. Even yesterday’s outdated product is perceived with a nostalgic touch and considered a vintage find. The eager hand of the customer reaches for it. Money is exchanged. The cash register rings. The merchant is happy, his face uplifted in a smile, a vision of prosperity glazing his eyes.

What do words do?

They lift up perception.

A product is just another product. Until words are added to it. Then it takes on luster and power and comes into a life of its own.

Heed your words, your spoken words, your written words.

It’s not enough to throw a pitch, to make a broad appeal for interest, to say any foolish thing that comes to mind in a clumsy grope for rapport.

Something else is necessary, the right words; and behind the words, a service philosophy, a genuine desire to be of help.

Business is about words. The right words. The expressive words. The words that lure, dazzle, entangle.

Each person is in a world of their own, a trance of mixed variety, and your product is just another product, until you add the right words to it; then it flies off the shelf, and behind your customer is another, waiting eagerly in line to satisfy the perception that the words she overheard you speak aroused in her.

Business is simple if you use the right words. It’s complex if you use the wrong ones.

Train your sales people with the right words and magic happens.

The rest of the story, the quality, the display, the structure around which the business is molded pale in comparison to the words used to describe the merchandise.

Business is about words.

Whatever the business, regardless of the magnificence of its shape, size, and reach; regardless of its originality, brilliance, and design; deny it the power of words, and like a magnificent ocean liner striking a reef, it will sink like a rock.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. http://www.theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html

Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. It's a shareware article.

Your Marketing - From The Couch To The Cash Register

2008-03-10T03:47:00.000-07:00

When you put time or money into any marketing plan, your only objective is to MAKE A SALE. Are you sure your marketing is going to get your customer from their couch to your cash register?

When somebody hears your message or sees your logo from some medium you have created, what does the path from that first ‘touch’ to your cash register look like?

We call this path the yellow brick road. If your yellow brick road is well built, then your customer will follow a developed path from a recognition point to your cash register. If your road is not well built, there is confusion in your message and because of others’ more developed avenues, this customer will end up at your competitor’s cash register. Therefore, your road must stand out, and it must be designed in a way that will lead the customer through a predetermined path with a transaction being the primary goal.

An example of a marketing plan without any such road is one that puts advertising out into the community and does not have a clear actionable next step; or one that has the clear and actionable step, but the step is too big for the customer who is not ready to make an immediate purchase. A person who has been casually contemplating the purchase of your product will not react to a “One Day Sale Next Friday” advertisement. She may consider dropping by your store next Friday during your advertised sale, but chances are that will be forgotten after five minutes. This customer has no path to follow because the timing and the conditions were not yet right for her.

Your advertising in this case, has been somewhat wasted. A woman who will make a purchase in the next six months received it, but the only option that you gave her was to buy next Friday. You do not know who she is and you have no way of following up with her.

Your own aimless advertising cost yourself a warm lead.

The only way to keep in touch with this person is to continue to run costly advertising, and maybe, just maybe, when she is ready to purchase, she will receive another one of your mailers or hear your radio commercial and she will come right in and buy from you. I would not hold my breath if I were you.

Now we’ll run the same example with a message that clearly has a road for this customer to follow. You run an advertisement in the Sunday paper. The advertisement is designed in a way that creates a clear path: a visit to your website. She will visit your website because you have an offer that both interests and engages her; something that caught her eye and sparked her interest. This could be anything from a product recommendation tool your website offers, to a free book about how to pick the perfect product. You will intrigue her enough that she will take the first step down this path. This is powerful because when she goes to the website or calls you on the phone, you will capture her information.

The minute that you capture her information, you have capitalized on your marketing investment. Information, when it is in the right hands, is as good as cash.

Therefore, instead of positioning your advertising, or any other marketing program, to go right for the sale, you should instead also create a more comfortable step for people to take that will give them something of value in exchange for their information.

When you have their information, this puts them on your road. Once they are on your road, you will have everything choreographed so that you touch these future customers as often as possible in a systematic way. With these frequent touches you will be keeping that top-of-mind awareness and you will be flying a holding pattern until they are ready to buy.

Each piece that you put out into the community will have a specific objective about where you want them to go. You will have to choose the destination (website, phone, or to stop in) based on your chances of success of actually getting them there. This being said, obviously, you want them to come into the store, but this is the hardest objective to achieve.

You must understand the proper objective of marketing. This objective will be one of three things. It will either lead the future customer to click, call, or stop in. It is important that you understand your own path as to deliver a clear message to the customer.

When your path is well structured, it will lead right from the customer’s couch to your cash register.

Tom Richard is the author of Smart Sales People Don't Advertise: 10 Was To Outsmart Your Competition With Guerilla Marketing To buy this book or to subscribe to Tom's weekly ezine, visit http://www.tomrichard.com/

POS (Point of Sale ) Cash Register Systems- They May Be The Best Investment You'll Ever Make

2008-03-08T01:11:00.000-08:00

The Slope Report read, ?excellent conditions?. It was cold but sunny and the slopes were full of skiers and snowboarders. The powder? Perfect. I could see out the window a group of skiers were headed toward the lodge bar. Inside the bar they waited patiently as the bartender keyed in their seating numbers, drinks and bar tab. It took over four minutes for them to get their drinks; the same amount of time it took for them to decide on dinner at another pub.

Capturing the skiers during a weather-perfect season is simple. Capturing their food and beverage business isn?t always so easy. It requires not only need a customer-friendly environment, but also a user-friendly POS (point of sale) cash register system for efficiency. Today?s technology provides this?and more. POS cash register terminals that continuously synchronize with each other, endless report options, alcohol inventory controlled by bottle weights and computerized tap monitors, staff time and attendance, ski, school, and guest database management, and so much more are available. Let?s face it. It takes more than cooperative weather to run a ski resort.

So, when choosing a POS software system, be certain to explore all the options. Cost is always a factor, but unless the software gives you all the management tools you need and is fully supported, an initially less expensive system can end up costing you much more. There are as many point of sale cash register systems available as there are skis and choosing the right one can be confusing and time-consuming. Aside from meeting technological requirements, your POS system must remain easy to use, with speed and accuracy. Customers, Employees, Managers and Sales Staff are all affected by a point of sale system. So, imagine first what you would like the ideal computer cash register system to do for your resort; make a list of features you hope to find. Chances are you?ll find all of them on today?s market.

One software company that stands out above the rest is a Canadian-based company called Tesoro Technologies, Incorporated. Wired or wireless, Windows or Linux, networked or independent terminals, their Volant? POS System is up for any challenge. Since 1993, Volant? System developers have been designing equipment that is ?cash register tough and computer smart? to serve some of the biggest and best.

Snow Valley Ski Resort, located in Barrie, Ontario, wanted a POS system that could produce ID cards and time passes, manage a client database and ski school, as well as handling all their food and beverage and retail services. The geographical location had Director, Peter Haney, concerned at first. ? Like most ski resorts, we are very remote. We needed a satellite tower and wireless system. We also looked at a lot of providers and found that most of the companies didn?t offer the hospitality end we needed. Volant? is hospitality.?

Tesoro had to install a fail-safe, independently running system for the remote summit area that could also be integrated with the high volume operations below. Using both wired and wireless network topology, their system has operated without software failure despite the unstable power and network issues. Snow Valley Ski Resort also utilizes the database of guests and 5,800 pass holders to generate email broadcasts, which enhances their marketing plan. ?We?re real pleased with Volant?. It?s an entity that grows and evolves along with our business,? says Haney.

In fact, Volant? has revolutionized the wireless POS industry. Their creative approach to wireless mobile computing makes Volant? the perfect POS software choice for not only ski resorts, but for other venues as well, such as stadiums, trade shows, casinos, arenas, race tracks and outdoor sales areas where conventional POS cash register systems aren't practical nor feasible.

Tesoro Technologies, Inc. may be at the forefront of a new generation of guest management technology, but they?re still producing. Recent breakthroughs in point of sale development are allowing a full range of services and back office capabilities never before considered.

So, when you?re looking for a more efficient POS cash register system that can create ?excellent conditions? for your business, spend the extra time researching your options ? it may turn out to be the best investment you?ll ever make.

For more information on how Tesoro and Volante POS systems can help your business, contact them through their website http://www.volantesystems.com/ or email them at sales@volantesystems.com.

Seven Points of Sacrifice for Increasing Sales

2008-03-06T02:31:00.002-08:00

Perhaps the most important business model found in Scripture is found in the Old Testament in the pattern established with the Tabernacle of Moses, the place where God promised to conduct His business with man. You see, God has an enterprise. He is taking it where He wants it to go. He has competition from a ruthless, inferior competitor, yet He is not threatened or worried. He has a great plan with wonderful strategies which have been hidden in plain sight in Scripture, but only revealed to the spiritually discerning (1 Cor 2:14). The tabernacle God had Moses build reveals much about the way God does business with us, and the lessons we can derive from that are far reaching for sales and business in general.

I know the Tabernacle of Moses is a type or shadow of the true tabernacle of God in Heaven (Heb 8:2-5), but it is very important to note that God laid out the precise design of that earthly tabernacle which Moses built. Every aspect of that tabernacle is extremely important, highly significant and the things you can observe from God?s attention to detail are profoundly practical in business. The central theme I want to look at in this article is the concept of ?sacrifice? and I will identify seven sacrifices you can make that will cost you dearly but reward you greatly!

Give up the couch
The first station of service you see when you approach the tabernacle is the altar of sacrifice. There were six sacrifices offered on the altar (one short of the perfect seven), and it was needful that Christ come and fulfill what was lacking and be sacrificed once and for all for our redemption. Too often we are content to stay in our comfort zone and become lazy, even if we look busy.
Succeeding in sales is not about being busy, it is about being effective. It?s not about our comfort; it?s about the needs of our customers and putting them at ease with us so we can earn the right to serve them. In order to serve them well, we will need at times to sacrifice our own comfort and idleness (or false busyness) to accommodate those needs. How many sales have you lost because a competitor was prepared to make a greater sacrifice than you? Sacrifice in sales is not a one time event; it is an ongoing position of service we choose to take for the customers higher good.

Give up complacency
The next principle of sacrifice is represented in what was called the ?burnt? offering. It was the one offering where the total animal was sacrificed. None was to be eaten or shared with anyone. It was completely burned up. In sales this speaks of sacrificing complacency or half-heartedness. To win in sales, we must give our best, our all, and do that every time we interact with customers. This will mean that you will work with fewer prospects in any given time frame but your conversion rate to customers will go through the roof.

Give up your spare time
The next principle of sacrifice is represented by the grain offering. In the Old Testament, they would bring a sacrifice of grain but only a handful was actually burned. The rest went to the priests who had the responsibility of feeding the people spiritual food. This grain came from a renewable resource and I believe it represented giving of their cash flow or income to invest in their own spiritual and intellectual growth. In short, they sacrificed stinginess and invested in the ones who were making their knowledge and guidance available. To me this speaks of investing in your own training. Most sales people I know spend more time perfecting their golf swing so they can entertain potential customers than they do investing in their own personal and professional growth which will pay them much bigger dividends! When was the last time you turned your car into an education center, listening to tapes or CD?s that will teach you Biblical truth applied to the sales profession? Who do you know that is currently accomplishing what you want to accomplish and is a person you admire that you can invest in to glean some of their wisdom? Call them up and invite them to a nice lunch or a steak dinner. break bread with them at your expense and you will be surprised at the dividends that will pay.

Give up the complaint box
The next sacrifice was called a peace offering. It was a voluntary, festive sacrifice of thanks given to God when one wanted to express gratitude for the blessings one had received. Family and friends shared in the offering because only part was consumed on the altar and the rest was enjoyed by their guests. This was an opportunity to sacrifice complaints, to give up negative talk and to use this occasion to build their network of relationships. When is the last time you decided to quit griping about things that aren?t working out well and focus on the good things that abound around you and share that joy with others? If you want to limit your network, just hold on to your right to complain, but if you want to attract a strong support network, be sure to share your gratitude with others. Consider a customer appreciation day where you grill out hamburgers or put out a spread for your customers. Invite a few prospects as well. They will interact with your satisfied customers and be quick to proselytize on your behalf.

Sacrifice your ignorance
Next, it?s time to sacrifice your ignorance. I am speaking of the sin offering which was typically sacrificed for inadvertent sin or sins of omission. We all fall short in serving our customers and many times it?s because we don?t know a better way. Take customer surveys. Listen to the feedback you receive. Don?t tolerate ignorance and don?t accept ?average?! When you find an area needing improvement, don?t plead ignorance any longer. Basically, be teachable. Don?t justify your mistakes. Admit them and learn from them. Learn from others who are succeeding where you are not. Practice continuous improvement in yourself first, and then in your processes.

Give up your pride
Don?t forget to sacrifice your pride. I am referring to the trespass offering which was usually offered for known sin like breach of trust, fraud or concealing a crime and always involved restitution. When you drop the ball with your customers, don?t make excuses. Make it right. Take responsibility. Experts say when you make a mistake with a customer, they will repeat it to several others, but when you sacrifice to make that mistake right to the customers satisfaction or beyond, they will tell twice as many people.
Restitution in the Old Testament usually involved a multiple of the original amount involved, depending on the circumstance. Consider what you can do to ?wow? your customer when you drop the ball. Turn that negative situation into an opportunity to shine. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has lapses in judgment. How you respond to yours will greatly impact the reception you receive in the marketplace. Years ago when the new Saturn car line was introduced, a defect was found and the affected cars were recalled much to the shagrin of the new Saturn owners. To their surprise however, instead of repairing the glitch, Saturn destroyed the cars and gave all the owners brand new automobiles! That story was headline news and did more to favorably impact Saturn sales than much of their paid advertising.

Give up your mistakes
Lastly, there was one more offering that was optional and was called a ?drink offering?. This would typically be an offering of wine and offered with the grain offering, only it was entirely poured out or ?wasted?. The idea of pouring out a drink offering is that there is no turning back. Once it has been poured out, it is gone for good. What?s done is done. I believe this can speak of sacrificing your regrets. Yes, we have all made our mistakes, but let?s choose to leave them behind. Don?t carry them forward. Make restitution where possible and then press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Don?t get bogged down in your failures. Bring closure to them and look to a brighter future. God?s mercies are new every morning (Lev 3:22-23) and He daily loads us with benefits. (Psa 68:19). Practice these seven sacrifices in your sales or business career and you will reap a harvest of return that confound your competitors while rewarding you richly.
This article provided by ChristianBusinessDaily.com- The Online Network for Christians in Business. Your source for news, articles, and commentary from a biblical perspective.

Why Use a Restaurant Point of Sale System?

2008-03-06T02:31:00.001-08:00

When you are opening up a new restaurant - your very own restaurant - everything is exciting. You imagine all the people who will visit your establishment, and imagine the happy faces of happy customers and staff. You've worked hard, and you deserve your success.

But to see that success come to fruition, you need to manage your restaurant well, give your customers a good meal, provide friendly and efficient service, and make sure there is a hassle-free payment system. Three of these requirements can be helped by choosing a quality Point of Sale (POS) system.

A good quality POS system can help you achieve both more efficient service, and give you a smooth and easy payment system. At the same time, the information that the POS can provide can help you make better management decisions. There are many ways in which a quality POS system can help your restaurant. Let's look at a few of these.

1. A POS system can help you track your orders more accurately

A POS system can tell you what items were purchased, how many, and even when they were purchased. This can help you make inventory ordering decisions, up selling suggestions, and even better marketing decisions.

2. Process credit cards & debit transactions in seconds

If speed is of the essence, then a web-based POS system with integrated payment processing may be the best solution. POS systems with integrated payment processing can run from your existing "always on" Internet connection, and can process each transaction up to 30 seconds faster than a cash register with a stand-alone payment terminal.

3. Manage multiple locations from a single computer

Do you look forward to the hassle of running between locations every time a menu item needs to be updated, a price needs to be changed, or you just want to see the reports? No! Instead, look forward to doing what you do best - managing the business. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to change prices & add and remove menu options at all your locations, all at one time, even from home?

4. Handle gift card and promotions right in the system

Let servers and wait staff excel at what they do best - serving your customers. Your POS should be able to quickly and easily handle your promotions and rewards, without putting additional strain on your server staff.

5. Easier changing and modifying of orders, with less confusion

Have you ever been in a restaurant and experienced some confusion when you just wanted to change something on your order? Maybe you got charged for that appetizer twice, or didn't get charged at all for a drink. A good quality POS system can help make changing orders easier, and cause less confusion for your customers. It can also help increase the accuracy of your orders, and help you stay on top of your business.

There is no doubt that starting your own restaurant is an exciting, stressful, and somewhat expensive process. By choosing the right options at the right price, you can help increase your chances of success, and of having happy, repeat customers. Good luck!

Daniel Mitchell works with Halo Web Based Point of Sale to provide high-quality, cost-effective POS Restaurant systems. Feel free to contact Halo to find out how your restaurant can be more profitable.

Point Of Sale Advertising Is 36% Less Effective Than It Could Be

2008-03-05T02:46:00.000-08:00

How I loathe those awful, cheesy pages promoting the "secrets" of point of sale advertising. They usually offer nothing more than common knowledge with a bonus picture of a slick, 1980?s suited guy grinning at you.

However, this page will try to inform you about exactly that: a ?secret? market of 210,000 shoppers every 2 weeks (that?s 34,000 more shoppers more than Tesco?s) that most point of sale advertisers completely overlook.

I am talking about Motorway Service stations. 1 of these stations attracts 22 times the footfall of high street branded convenience stores. The stations have all your familiar shops: Boots, WH Smith, M&S Food, Burger King, The Body shop, in short: practically every shop you can find in your local shopping centre.

The average spend at CTN?s for every visit at a Motorway service station is ?5 compared to ?3.06 a head at conveniences stores. The logic is simple: if the average person spends ?1.94 more at a service station, and they attract 22 times the footfall, your ad at a service station is 22 x ? 1.94 (=?42.68) more worth than in any non-motorway convenience store, which translates in a 36% higher effectiveness rate in generating ROI for your advert.

Advertising in 131 Motorway service stations gives you the added bonus of launching a nationwide advertising campaign with excellent geographical distribution covering major arterial routes between all major areas.

Research conducted by Mintel clearly showed that motorway stations attract 27.3 million visits every two weeks, a number that will only grow in the future. Already there are 500,000 more cars on the road since 1999, and motorway stations carry 1/3rd of the national car traffic (despite representing less than 5% of the UK?s road system.) 75% of drivers on long motorway journeys stop for a break at one of the stations and 15,000 people a day purchase an average of ?5 in snacks for themselves and their families. Amongst the most popular snacks are crisps, a drink, chocolate, sweets, and sandwiches, pies or pasties. It is true in general that there is an overall decrease of chocolate and sweet snack purchases due to raised standards of health awareness. But not so for motorway stations: there the chocolate and sweet snack products perform as strong as ever in the battle to keep blood sugar up and find a kick to fight the monotony of driving long distances.

Do me a favour, next time you organize a point of sale advertising campaign, consider trialling and testing your campaign in motorway stations. I?ll bet you you?ll see your revenue rocket. You can send me a thank you email afterwards at llammens@admedia.co.uk

Find out more about Lorenz's point of sale initiatives in the UK.

Selling More at the Point of Sale

2008-03-04T02:27:00.000-08:00

Point of sale generally means the point at which the customer pays for their products or services. Point of sale (also known as POS) includes but is not limited to: the cash register, the cash drawer and the receipt printer. If you are a merchant that uses POS, you can also use POS items as marketing materials. For example, you could display products that you have a surplus of near the cash register to allow customers to impulse buy. This is quite effective when the point of sale merchandise has been marked down in price or is on clearance so the customer knows that they are getting a great price on the items.

You could also use POS marketing merchandise such as toppers for the cash register. Regardless of what the price is for the merchandise, it?s placement on top of the cash register or other part of the POS system will make customers look at it and consider buying it.

Other options that you have for using your POS system to sell more merchandise include using your thermal printer of receipt printer to print return coupons for your visitors. You could even print the coupons on the back of their cash receipt. This will help to encourage customers to come back soon in a shorter amount of time.

As a business owner your goal should be to sell as much as you can to your customer. This can be enhanced by the point of sale products that you use. Whether you use POS marketing merchandise, other marketing materials, or even electronic options, take advantage of the dollar at the point of sale. Whether your POS is on the web at an ecommerce website or if it is in a retail location, the final look at what you have to offer is quite important to the customer. Point of sale products are, in fact, likely to help you to sell whatever it is that you need to if they are used correctly as marketing medium.

If you want to find out more about Samsung or about Point of Sale or even about Epson please follow these links.

Choosing a Good Point of Sale System

2008-03-04T02:20:00.000-08:00

Choosing a good point of sale system is one of the most important aspects of a new or existing business. A good point of sale system can help you serve your customers better and more effectively, helps with inventory and bookeeping, can give you valuable reporting features and streamline the checkout process. Do you use credit cards? A POS system can integrate that as well and can totally eliminate the terminal fees you are used to paying for.

A typical point of sale system consists of, the register computer, monitor, cash drawer, bar code scanner, receipt printer, mag strip reader, and pole display (for retail establishments). Touch screen monitors are growing in popularity, making it easier by just having to touch the screen for what you want instead of having to remember keyboard keys or use a mouse.

The POS Software is a just as important item as the pos hardware. The pos software should be able to maintain an unlimited number of products in the database. It should work with or without a barcode, set price levels by customer, quantity or promotion, be compatible with regular monitors as well as touchscreen displays, run sales and inventory reports, support integration of data files, manage receivables, and one of the most important for your employee benefits is to be easy to learn and use.

When setting up your pos equipment, you need a basic network. All you need for an ethernet type network is Cat5 cabling to each register that plugs into a network switch ( I don't recommend using a hub) or if you need internet access for cc processing you can use a router, but you may still need the switch as well. I also recommend that you have a back office computer that runs the same software. The reason for that is so you as a manager can check reports, do the accounting, receivables, etc all from the back office and you don't have to interrupt operations on the sales floor. In the back office, you should have all the network cabling connecting into the switch/router (preferrably everything labeled as well), you'll also have your dsl/broadband modem if you are using one and I would also highly recommend a backup power supply, UPS, and a network attached storage device , NAS, for backing up your data. Backups are extremely important! One other option that is becoming increasingly popular is video security such as IP video (network video) which allows you to be able to view your store from anywhere where internet access is available and the video quality is much better than the older analog cctv type video and with the proper software you can record, pause, zoom, rewind,etc. Once all this is setup your business should be streamlined and ready to go. Feel free to contact me for any additional information or advice or visit my website at www.hivelocitynetworks.com

David Overholser, a partner of Hivelocity Networks in Martinsburg, WV, has worked in retail POS for a major clothing store chain for 6 years and did support and setup of the point of sale equipment and has taken that knowledge and started his own POS, IP Video, Network cabling business.

How to find the Right Point of Sale System for You

2008-03-03T01:33:00.000-08:00

Replacing your cash register and payment processing terminal with a point of sale (POS) system is a great way to take your business to the next level. Few purchases can have as dramatic an effect on your retail or hospitality business as a POS system.

A well implemented POS system can give you a new level of control over your operations, increase efficiencies, boost profits and help you fine-tune your business model. In addition to efficiency gains over your cash register, POS systems provide information and reports that can help you make more informed business decisions.

Conversely, the wrong POS system can multiply your headaches and cause you to spend valuable time and money on supporting a technology that distracts you from running and growing your business.

By reading this article, you will learn how to make an informed POS purchase decision. Knowing what questions to ask will help you avoid the mistakes of a first time buyer.

DO YOUR RESEARCH - Spend time evaluating POS companies

Finding the right POS software for you takes time and effort. It's an important decision that will effect how your business operates. Make sure you do your due diligence and research several companies.

When choosing a POS system, experienced buyers will tell you that it is very important to buy from a solid company. Taking the time to evaluate companies to ensure that they are customer centric and are committed to great service for the entire lifetime of your business is a smart move which will alleviate headaches now and in the future.

Ask the Following Questions to Evaluate POS companies

1. How long have you been in business?

Software develops over time. So the younger the company, the greater potential for software bugs. With an older, more established company, you can rest assured that they have gone through the growing pains of new software and have a proven product.

2. What is your growth rate?

You want a company that is actively growing. The software industry is very competitive. Companies need to continually advance and improve their product offerings to keep their competitive edge. Not having significant growth indicates that the company may not be advancing their product as much as they should and could eventually be left behind. Stick with innovative companies that are leading the way.

3. How many customers do you have?

The number of customers is an indication of how successful the company is. If the company only has a handful of customers, it's either a) a new company, which you probably should avoid, or b) the company has a bad product or poor service resulting in high customer turnover and few new customers.

4. How do you sell your products?

If the company sells direct, the company has more control over price and support which means you get consistent service and prices. If the company uses a reseller channel be prepared for increased costs and inconsistent service. Selling through a middleman limits the company's ability to control service and price.

SPEND TIME EVALUTATION SERVICE LEVELS

When you purchase POS software, you are entering into a long term relationship with a vendor. Let's face it, there's no such thing as fool-proof software. Understanding that you will be in continual contact with your chosen POS company for software updates, support, training, hardware and consulting should be an important consideration in your decision process. The company's level of support could be the difference between a good experience and a bad one. Take the time to inquire about support service levels. If the company you are talking to cannot provide you with specific support measures, they likely don't take support seriously.

Ask the Following Questions to Evaluate service levels

1. Do you offer 7 X 24 X 365 support?

You need support that works on your time. Why settle for anything less? Find a company that you know will be there for you when you need assistance.

2. How do you diagnose issues?

With web-based hosted solutions, support issues can be diagnosed immediately allowing the support team to begin to solve your problem immediately. With on-site, you have to wait for someone to come down to your location to first assess the problem and then take measures to fix it.

3. What is your average support wait time?

How long will the support phone ring before it's answered? Waiting anything more than 30 seconds is abysmal. A company that takes their time answering support calls, indicates that they don't care about their customers.

4. What is your 1st call pick up level?

Companies may say that they pick up their support phone in less than 30 seconds, but how long does it take to speak with an actual support person? Support lines can be answered by an automated system that places you in a call waiting pattern or they send you directly to voicemail. This can be very frustrating and time consuming when you want to speak to a 'real' person. By asking this question, you can find how often you will speak to a 'real' person when you call the first time. The higher the percentage, the greater the chance you will speak with someone sooner.

5. What is your system performance uptime?

Your POS system needs to work 99.9% of the time. A 98% uptime promise may sound good initially but this actually means that the system can be down for 29 minutes a day or 14 hours a month and they've still met their obligation!

LOOK FOR A POS SYSTEM THAT'S DESIGNED FOR YOUR SPECIFIC BUSINESS TYPE

Your business is unique. As such, you need software that meets your specific needs. A lot of POS companies claim their system works for every business type (retail, restaurant: fast food to fine dinning). As a business owner, you are well aware that you can't be all things to all people. Why settle for something generic when you can get software that was built with you in mind? Know what business issues you need to address with your POS in advance and then look for a POS that is catered to your needs. You will be much happier in the long run.

REQUEST A DEMO

You'd test drive a car before you buy it, wouldn't you? Requesting a demo from a salesperson is a great way to see how the software works and if it's a potential fit for your business. Beware of the salesperson who just launches into their product without first taking the time to understand your business needs. Use the salesperson as a resource. The best salespeople are there to answer any questions you may have and to help you find the best solution for you - even if it's not their product.

ASK SALESPEOPLE FOR QUOTES

By now, you should have a good understanding of what your needs are and you can begin asking for quotes. Please note that getting quotes from companies that you are interested in adds another dimension to the decision making process.

Some POS companies will include everything in their quotations while others will leave items out to make their prices seem more palatable - make sure you are comparing apples to apples. It's also very important to ask about costs that may arise during the life of your POS, such as maintenance, support, and upgrades.

You should also ask the sales rep to give you a proposal on all hardware, training, installation, support, upgrades and maintenance.

Ask salespeople the following questions

1. Is software support included for the full term?

We can't reiterate enough how important support is. The majority of providers will provide free support for the first year of the contract, leaving you with potentially expensive on-demand support for the remainder of your contract. Be sure to clarify the support service when you are evaluating companies.

2. Is hardware support included for the full term?

Some companies separate hardware and software support. Hardware support is just as important as software support. Be sure to find out if hardware support is 1) included and 2) covered for the full term of the contract.

3. Are there internal costs I should consider?

With many traditional POS systems a back-office computer is required to run your entire POS operation. It is your responsibility to maintain this computer. The cost of maintaining and running this operating system needs to be included when you are considering purchasing a traditional POS system. Conversely a web-based system would not have this additional cost.

4. How often do you provide updates?

You want the best software available. You can only stand to benefit from a company that is continually upgrading and improving their product.

5. Do you charge for updates?

Some companies charge extra for updates. As a user, you deserve to use the most updated and bug-free version of the software. Look for a company that includes upgrades for the full term of your contract.

CALL REFERENCES

Asking the salesperson for references gives you the opportunity to speak with someone that has used the product first hand. Taking the time to contact references and ask the right questions will help you select the right system and avoid many problems.

In addition to asking for references from businesses that are similar to your own business, ask for references from businesses that have successfully addressed issues that are similar to your own issues (opening a new restaurant, switching from a cash register, addressing a specific cost issue). By speaking with relevant references, you can find out if the POS company keeps their sales promise.

Ask References the Following Questions

1. Have you used other POS solutions?

The reason you should ask this question is to determine how valuable the reference will be. If the reference has only owned and operated one POS solution, they essentially have nothing to compare their experience to. They could be experiencing the worst service in the industry and not realize it. A reference that has used several POS solutions can provide a comparative context and therefore better information.

2. Why did you purchase this POS solution?

If you can take away one thing from reading these tips, it would be to find a POS system that is best suited for you. You can definitely learn 'what not to do' from someone that purchased solely on price, but there is more value in speaking with someone with similar business issues to you, that found a system that best fits their needs.

3. Did the POS live up to its promises?

You want to find a company that stands by the promises that they make.

4. What specifically do you like best about your POS?

Features are great, but most POS systems have relatively the same features. What really counts is good service and support which is difficult to find in this industry. If service is what the reference likes most about their POS system, chances are you've found a good company.

5. What specific issues have you had with your POS?

As mentioned earlier, software is not infallible. There will be issues. It's important to find out if the issues were only minor or if the software had major faults that prevented the user from performing fundamental tasks.

6. How has the POS company addressed these issues?

Responsiveness is key. A company that responds quickly to issues is an indication of great service. Find out how quickly the company responded to the issue and took the necessary actions to solve the problem.

7. Rank sales expectation setting out of 10.

In any sales situation, sometimes promises are made to get the prospect to purchase the product. Did the sales person oversell and leave the customer expecting more? You want to be able to trust the salesperson. Make sure the customer's expectations were met when they started using the end product.

8. Rank the training experience out of 10.

How easy was the product to learn? Did the training process run smoothly? If the reference rates the training experience highly, you can assume the training process will run seamlessly with little disruption for you as well.

9. Rank the service experience out of 10.

Service. Service. Service. Ask this question to get a quantitative score for highly important service levels.

10. Rank your likely of recommending out of 10.

If the reference would recommend this product it's a good indication that they are happy with the product and it is a good fit for their business.

11. If you were going to buy a new POS solution, what questions would you ask a new vendor that you did not ask last time?

This is a great opportunity to learn from someone that has already gone through the process you are currently undergoing. Established POS users have a different perspective and would probably approach things differently the second time around. Gaining insight from the reference will help you avoid the mistakes of a first time buyer.

PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

It's important to think about your future. You may have one location now, but if you ever plan or dream of having multiple locations you need to consider scalability. Ask the provider about the software's ability to incorporate additional locations. How are the different locations integrated? How are menu items and prices changed for all locations? What are the costs associated with having additional locations? Purchasing a POS system can be a scary and frustrating process, but with the right amount of patience and perseverance you can find the POS that best fits your needs and puts you on the track to success.

Dan Mitchell works with Halo Web Based Point of Sale to provide high-quality, cost-effective POS Restaurant systems. Feel free to contact Halo to find out how your restaurant can be more profitable

Building a Restaurant Point of Sales Software Application

2008-03-01T01:59:00.000-08:00

Five years ago I began searching for an easy way to track my customers, my accounts receivable, and all the other aspects of my business. I wanted to be able to share this information and access it from anywhere on a wide variety of systems. The end result was the HotPotato Restaurant Point of Sale.

My search ended with me designing and developing my own modular Point of Sale. I spent a great deal of time considering the coding technology I would use. In the end I was swayed to develop my application in visual basic with an HTML front end. Using HTML to design the user interface gave me a very simple way to use the application on a wide variety of platforms. The server may need to be Windows based system, but client machines can be any platform. Pocket PC development became a snap and Linux becomes a viable operating system for any client machines.

At first I thought this development angle might pose problems. But after using the system I can say nothing but positives about it. A web server based application defeats all the problems associated with client installation, multi-location support and ability to access from anywhere.

HotPotato can be installed either locally or on a web server, this gives it the advantage of being on a closed network or accessed off-site. Multi-location support and reporting abilities were some of the features I added first.

Over the last five years I've seen HotPotato go through a wonderful evolution that has produced it's most current version. It is easy to install and so simple to deploy that I?m embarrassed to brag about it. Truths when I say the features developed into the application are cutting edge and developed with the latest software methodologies. A great amount of time went into considering the platform for its development. There was a lot of worry that the business community wasn?t ready for a distributed web server based application. However current trends from larger software companies confirm this is not only a viable option but also how future software applications will be developed.

Being able to easily deploy, support and update thousands of systems with one install and being able to back, manage and analyze their data is the kind of power people once dreamed of. Those powers and abilities are now here in viable applications.

Restaurants are one business that can truly take advantage of using hand held PCs for order placement. The cost savings and profit increase are too obvious to ignore. Developing a system that was easy to install, deploy and maintain I looked to lead of large companies and have been more than satisfied with the results. A true multi-platform application that speeds the order process and refines the work flow to allow for better staffing, a better customer experience and a high profit.

Managing inventory was simplified by associating menu items with one or multiple inventory items supplied by specific vendors. This creates a recipe for the menu item and an accurate accounting of the inventory. By setting minimum stock number and restocking levels a restaurant can maximize their revenue by creating accurate orders that reflect the sales patterns the software reveals.

Customer management tools, delivery management, waiting lists and a wide range of catering features were all developed to round off the software. Centralizing the most common tasks and providing information on time management and sales records gives the restaurant the ability to make strategic decisions regarding their business. No piece of software is perfect and they all require good user feedback to refine them. Developing several Point of Sale Software applications has taught me just how special each business is and just how much power their software can give them.

Custom Point of Sale Development

2008-03-01T01:58:00.001-08:00

I started writing Point of Sale Software tools a half a dozen years ago and almost a decade ago I was writing database tools to keep track of sales and inventory. What I?ve learned in the last decade is that no two businesses are the same even if they look like it. There comes a time in a small businesses life where a magical transformation can take place. If the business model is sound and it can be replicated in multiple locations then suddenly a small business starts to become a large business. Information management is one of the largest factors in speed and success of growth. Companies that have solid computer networks and point of sale systems that can be managed easily across locations have a much larger chance of success. Imagine if Wal-Mart had really bad cash registers that didn?t provide inventory and sales data. Do you think Wal-Mart would be the company we see today? Of course not, the simple idea is almost laughable.

Businesses that use off the shelf generic software tools are missing out on the growth potential a custom solution can provide. Technology is accelerating at a rapid pace and the abilities for vendors, warehouses and retail outlets to exchange information are changing the way businesses operate. Many companies may feel trapped into the system they bought ten years ago and fear any kind of change. But the increased profit potential makes the risk of custom development pale in comparison to the benefits.

The key is in finding the right company to develop your software and creating a strategic relationship with them. Would you grow the food you sell in your restaurant? In most cases the answer is no, you pay someone else to provide the raw ingredients. So having your own in-house tech support division seems silly, restaurants serve meals not support software systems. Get a good solid technology partner and be prepared to pay a monthly fee. In some cases you may want a separate hardware company and a separate software company.

Ask yourself some basic questions when looking for a custom software development company. How long have they been in business? What kinds of tools have they created? Have they created tools for my vertical market before? How reasonable are their support rates? Can they also provide hardware support? Can they work with a separate hardware support company? Can they expand and grow with your business? Will they be the right company to be providing your support five years from now? Can they develop software that is well documented and easy for another company to take over support? Do you own the software they develop or do they own some portion of the software? If you can answer these questions and feel satisfied with the answers then you?ve found the right company to design your custom point of sale software.

There comes a time in the life cycle of all successful businesses when they must decide how far they want to grow. It is at this time that a business must make a serious evaluation of the software systems they use. Making a poor choice can be the factor that determines the success of the growth of the business or its demise. Custom software development is not the solution for every business model but the majority of franchise companies that make it big are the one?s who have taken the time, put in the effort and spent the money to direct the development of the software they use.

Please consider this article for publication in your newsletter or on your website. Permission is granted to reprint for free with author box and byline intact. Please send me a copy of your publication if you choose to include my article. TITLE: AUTHOR: Ed Duval URL: www.AndTechComputers.com

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Author Box - ? Ed Duval (2006) Ed Duval is contract writer and software developer for www.AndTechComputers.com and Creator of the HotPotato Restaurant Point of Sale Software System. With over a decade of experience in software development he shares his unique insight on today's point of sale software systems

Handheld Point of Sales Changing Restaurants

2008-02-29T01:05:00.000-08:00

A few years ago in Europe a small restaurant chain made history. The future had arrived when they took their first order and sent it electronically to the kitchen. That simple act forever changed the future of high volume restaurants. Their little experiment was expand to over a dozen restaurants and netted them a 20% increase in revenue within months. The system paid for itself and created profits by decreasing table turn time by delivering orders to the kitchen in the blink of an eye and increasing the amount of time the wait staff could spend with their patrons.

Such a simple and wonderful idea has been slow to catch on. Many restaurants fear the initial cost investments and the technical nightmare of installing software on handheld devices. Several of major restaurant software manufacturers have released handheld versions of their software. Most of these lack the ease of use and installation needed to make them viable. There have even been a few attempting at making software that can recognize handwriting. Although the concept seems sound in practice it is far from easy to master.

Some time ago I was challenged to write a customer Point of Sale Software System for a customer. I spent a long time thinking about hand held PCs and how best to incorporate them into the package. Easy installation and the ability to run on almost any platform became my primary concerns. I soon hit upon a realization that I could create the application with an HTML front end. I had already created three versions of a Point of Sale system we used in house. I had created our Point of Sale System as an Internet application because we perform a lot of on-site service. Being able to access a customer?s bill and update it from right there at their location was a power we desperately needed. It also allowed for easy integration into our supplier network and allowed the owners to access company data from anywhere and since they?re always halfway across the country it solved a lot of problems.

Taking the tools I had already created and using them to construct a Restaurant Point of Sale was fairly easy and straightforward. There were tons of changes and modifications made and features added, but the core functions of selling a product and recording it are the same no matter what you sell. The end result was a Point of Sale Software Application that can be accessed and used on almost any platform system with no special software to install. The benefits to using this kind of model for software development are far too numerous for me to type. I think you can get an idea of the advantages to businesses of any size. Think of just a few of the advantages to a medium or large sized company. For a large chain of restaurants to be able to increase profits by more than 20% is a staggering figure and well worth the paltry hardware and software costs. With an Internet Based Application they can also increase profits by decreasing the time needed to install and manage software across all locations. Imagine being able to update the software for 400 locations instantly. Imagine how much would be saved by not needing to install software for the vast majority of the machines used for Point of Sales. The amount of money a large company could make just by streaming their technology and taking advantage of it is just staggering.

In all of this I forgot to mention the best part. Think about how cool it is to sit down and have a waitress take your order on a handheld. That?s just too cool and I love it. The same great software can also be used as a Kiosk where patrons enter their own order. I can see the day when you sit down in a fast food restaurant and a computer-generated face takes your order and a small robot brings it to the table or it gets dropped from a chute. Not all restaurants would benefit from all technology, but the advantages of hand held ordering are at the bottom line and a lot of restaurants are going to reap in the profits.

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Hosted Point of Sale Applications

2008-02-29T01:03:00.000-08:00

*Hosted software is instantly updated to all users
*Has an install so easy you can just click a shortcut and you?re running
*Can provide guaranteed off-site data back up that was once only the luxury of super rich mega companies.

Those are just the icing on the cake. You can run a Hosted application on almost any platform. Suddenly Linux systems don?t require a specialized software install, just a web browser. The technical support required for a non-Microsoft operating system drops considerably. You also get the added advantage of easy access on handheld devices and mobile phones.

Many of the largest companies have already stated their support and intensions in this area. When looking for a software company to provide a point of sale system I look at how well it integrates into this model. Can the software be hosted on a single server and manage 100 locations? How easy is it to install on different platforms? Can I keep it backed up and updated quickly and easily? Will it lower my bottom line and increase my profits? Evaluate the arguments and you?ll see the advantages Hosted Applications can offer any size business.

The development costs for a Hosted Application are also significantly less. Instead of worrying about difficult installs for multiple operating systems (even Windows Apps have to be tested on Win98 and up) you can focus on writing towards the most currently accepted standards as determined by the W3C. Having only one standard to worry about removes the concern that different operating systems will require different installs and files. As long as you use a browser that follows the W3C guidelines, and the big ones do, then you?ve reduced development and testing time. This creates a better application that isn?t bloated with all the junk needed to make it run on a million different systems.

There may be some concern in using a Point of Sale system through the Internet, but SSL encryption and other security techniques are quite sound. Stealing information has been around long before technology and thieves will always pick away at the profits. The question is whether the risk is higher in using a Software tool that can be so easily accessed by not only your employees but by financial assassins that we all know are there. Security is an always will be a concern, but if your company is connected to the Internet in any way then any information on those networks is at just as much of a risk if not more of a risk than the information stored in a hosted application.

If your network is connected to the Internet then you?re already taking the same risks as someone using an Internet Hosted Application. Even systems on a closed WAN have their security risks. The benefits of using an Internet Hosted Point of Sale System far outweigh the risks. In business every dollar counts and when it comes to technology picking the right path can make a huge difference in your profits.

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Integrating Point of Sales and Inventory

2008-02-27T01:25:00.000-08:00

Keeping track of your sales and the cash flowing in is one of the most important features of your point of sale software system. However it is only half of the story, a good point of sale system doubles as an inventory management system. Tracking an item from the moment you order it to the moment it is sold makes point of sale software the single most important tool for retail business today.

Integrating inventory into your point of sale system can be a huge time consuming task. Many companies have thousands of potential inventory items; larger companies can have hundreds of thousands. The most important aspect is keeping track of the product from it?s creation to beyond the sale. Knowing who manufactured an item and their specifications for its use allows you to provide a service aspect to your customers. If today?s point of sale systems for larger companies didn?t track this then recalls would be almost impossible to issue and manage.

Employee theft is one of the biggest hits companies can take. Hundreds of thousands of dollars could escape large retailers through the sticky fingers of dishonest associates. New technologies being incorporated into the sales aspect are slowing moving over to inventory management and theft prevention. RFID tags imbedded in the products packing from the manufacturer can allow an entire truckload of incoming products to be counted and added to the inventory at record time. Sensors placed strategically can prevent products from walking out the wrong door unpaid and pay for the cost of system quickly with the savings from fewer thefts.

Any technology has its issues and inventory management can run into lots of bumps. In many cases inventory items can be purchased from multiple vendors and supply chains can change. Your point of sale software system needs to take these changes into account. Prices can also change sometimes on a daily basis. You not only have to keep track of the cost of the item and the price it was sold at, but you have to do this every time the item is brought into inventory. For large companies this can create huge amounts of data and the more data your system holds the slower it can become. So we tread this fine line between capturing the information and keeping ourselves from retaining too much data. Experienced data base programmers have tricks and methods to keep the actual amount of data retained to a minimum while still supplying the functions required in a point of sale system.

To any company that sells retail products inventory management is just as important as sales management. When shopping for a new point of sale software system I suggest you pay particular attention to the inventory and product management features. Having a system that performs a quick sale and manages the cash to the penny is great, but if it can?t help you track your inventory in a method that makes you feel secure then I suggest you keep looking. Finding the right software for your business can be a time consuming process but believe me when I tell you it is the single most important decision you can make.

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Low Cost Point of Sale Systems and Software

2008-02-26T02:21:00.000-08:00

Now the last thing I want is for this be a shameless promotion of the software we develop. But my position gives me a unique insight in the business models followed by different software companies. We produce a no cost point of sale software package and can testify that the free and low cost software model is a viable enterprise. Instead of focusing on selling the product and slowly building a user base and then relying on selling upgrades to continue the momentum we?re finding that charging a steady monthly fee for support and updates actually reduces customer cost and increases the quality of service we can provide.

Look at the commercial viability of Linux and you understand what?s going on. Free software is free to use, but if you need help (and everybody does) then support plans are available from industry experts for a monthly or single incident fee. By sending software out into the world you capture a large audience and can quickly establish a presence on the market.

Point of Sale systems can be especially expensive for small businesses and most resellers offer so many options that it can be easy to get lost. You not only have software to consider by the wide range of hardware available. We focused our products on two vertical markets; Computer Service & Retail Point of Sales and Restaurant Point of Sales. Both businesses can be very expensive to setup and maintain. Saving costs and increasing profits is vital and many software companies position themselves to provide Point of Sale Software that forces you into expensive service agreements and fees. Often times this goes beyond the reasonable fees assumed for support. A small business should not have to pay for an entire support division just for their point of sale software.

Business managers need to look at the lifetime cost of the Point of Sale Systems. Is the hardware efficient or overpriced and way too powerful for the task? Is the software streamlined for my vertical market? Will it increase costs and lower expenses? Will it provide statistical sales data that can be imported into accounting packages? What is the true cost and savings of the system? What kind of support is available and is it priced reasonably? If you can answer those questions and feel satisfied with the answers then you?ve found the right system for you.

So the price of the software is only a concern for those tight on budget for getting started. The real cost is in the efficiency of the software and the support network it provides. Take time and evaluate several of the tools available on the market for your point of sales system. Learn what makes each one special and has the features that most closely match your business. Find out what kind of support you get and decide if email only is really support. If every business took the time to evaluate their point of sale software and the true cost then we?d find a lot of companies changing software.

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Multi-Platform Point of Sales

2008-02-14T03:53:00.000-08:00

I love Microsoft and I love Windows. I hate to admit it but they make the best software you can buy. But when you can get a really awesome Operating System for FREE then as a business you have to look at the bottom line. I?m not saying Linux is an end-all be-all against Microsoft?s offerings, but I do think it can find its place in the world.

Let?s look at specialized computer systems designed for a single task like Point of Sale systems. These are computers that are completely unlike office workstations and home PCs. They serve a single task of recording the sale and movement of inventory and services rendered to your customer. They don?t need to have really good sound systems and be able to show video at ultra-pixel resolution. In the equine world they are the mules that carry the load. So often small and medium sized businesses are spending money they could save. Many large businesses have embraced alternate operating systems for a lone time and I hope the trend will continue.

One of the concerns many businesses have is in installing specialized software and going through complicated setups. There is now an emerging trend in software development that will get rid of many of these fears. Several Point of Sale applications have been released as Web Server based applications. This is not to be confused with an Internet Application although they are very similar which I?ll explain. A Web Server based application can be installed locally and an Internet Application is installed off-site and accessed through your Internet Connection. These applications can be found and used either way depending on the manufacturer?s sales model.

With Software as a Service becoming the motto of many of today?s large software companies it becomes obvious the power Internet Applications hold. Instead of selling a license to install software and risk a bad install software manufacturer?s can charge for access to the software online through a web browser. This provides so many benefits that I don?t think I can list them all. Hosted software is instantly updated to all users, has an install so easy you can just click a shortcut and you?re running and can provide guaranteed off-site data back up that was once only the luxury of super rich mega companies. Those are just the icing on the cake. You can run a Hosted application on almost any platform. Suddenly Linux systems don?t require a specialized software install, just a web browser. The technical support required for a non-Microsoft operating system drops considerably. You also get the added advantage of easy access on handheld devices and mobile phones.

The easiest fastest way to create any tool for multiple platforms and not worry about technical support costs is to look for those companies making the leap to the next level of technology. Software companies that make Internet Based and Web Based applications are going to experience an explosion as the world moves to this advantage. Many of the largest companies have already stated their support and intensions in this area. When looking for a software company to provide a point of sale system I look at how well it integrates into this model. Can the software be hosted on a single server and manage 100 locations? How easy is it to install on different platforms? Can I keep it backed up and updated quickly and easily? Will it lower my bottom line and increase my profits? Evaluate the arguments and you?ll see the advantages Hosted Applications can offer any size business.

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Point of Sale Systems of the Future

2008-02-13T03:33:00.002-08:00

Technology has been moving at an amazing avalanche pace. It continues to grow and develop faster than many companies can keep up with. We?ve come back to one of those lulls where companies are tightening their technology belt. It isn?t that these companies don?t appreciate the technology being launched; instead they?re waiting for the next round. Technology really does move in waves and businesses respond to these cycles. Advancements are made quickly, but it can take time to smooth out the problems that always arise with anything new. Businesses tend to watch new operating systems and software solutions closely before investing heavily in it. With the near release of Vista businesses are gearing back their IT budgets and preparing for the next wave.

The next year is going to be an exciting time especially since it?s been so long since Microsoft?s last Operating System Release. Each time I get nervous and remember back in the early days the trouble I got when I upgraded to DOS 4.0. Of course DOS 5.0 was close at hand and everything smoothed out. Still I wonder what new and exciting things that will happen. This power Microsoft yields over the entire Industry is well earned and no one with any respect for their accomplishments can deny Windows XP is all they said it would be (after numerous lawsuits, revisions, patches, updates and a whole lot of headaches). Today?s Windows XP is a lot different from the one they released so many years ago. A wonderful job has been done to make the application solid and secure with a wide range of features I really use. If we?re lucky Vista will only need one major service update to make it really good, but only time will tell.

The unfortunate side affect of Microsoft?s success is that their releases have a direct impact on the bottom line of a lot of IT companies. At certain times we experience this scary lull light the eye of a hurricane. On the bright side Vista is sure to super charge the IT Industry and generate revenue for a lot of companies outside of Microsoft.

So where does this whirlwind of waves hold for the future of retail software? Many companies are going to hold their budgets until Vista can prove itself. A small minority might venture to Linux and a brave few will dive into Vista with blind resolve. There are some software companies and software applications that have found a unique way to avoid the Operating Fears. Instead of developing software to run and be installed on multiple systems they?re finding Internet Technologies are allowing cross platform development people didn?t dream of five years ago. By developing software that runs through a web browser programmers can focus on writing their software to match standards created by the W3C. Instead of tying themselves down to one operating system they open themselves up to almost all of them.

As Internet Technologies continue to advance we?re going to find the spiral of technology spending will no longer rely so heavily on the releases of specific operating systems, but instead on a set of existing standards created by the W3C. Point of Sale Systems are one of the most common types of computer systems used in business. By leveraging the power of Internet Technology companies are finding software applications that are multi-platform, require no installation and provide dedicated back up services in addition to a wide range of other benefits Hosted Applications can provide.

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Point of Sale Systems that Grow with You

2008-02-13T03:33:00.001-08:00

Not all businesses grow up and become nationwide sprawl mall custom fair. But any solid business that can be replicated is a potential Star Bucks. I worked for a major nation wide retailer for three years. I actually didn?t work in one of their 400+ retail locations, but in one of the service centers that repaired the wide variety of electronics that company sold. They sold everything from washing machines to computer systems. I was a computer tech, beta software tester and the network admin for a location of seventy some employees.

While working there they spent a lot of time pounding in the corporate culture and the legend and myth of their humble beginnings. It was designed to brainwash us into loving the company and sharing in its success. They happened to be big on propaganda and a lot of silly micromanagement junk that almost ruined them during the time I worked for them.

Let me set the stage for you and tell you part of the corporate tale of this company that shall remain unnamed. They started as a music store up north a couple decades ago. Car stereos and music sales made for rapid growth. A second location was opened and also proved successful. Before long there was four locations and they expanded from stereos to all kinds of electronics and appliances. Then they sat stagnant for a while and one of the stores was wiped out in an unfortunate accident. Then without warning they bankrolled an ambitious expansion plan and a new corporate giant was born. New stores started popping up everywhere. They were growing at a breath taking speed and within a decade they had conquered America.

Move to 1998 when I had my interview and accepted a job that lasted three years and held so many responsibilities that many times I wondered if it was worth it. At this time a new fear was sweeping the nation and it went by the code name of Y2K. The company I worked for was in big trouble. Their point of sale software that had helped them create their empire had been developed without concern for Y2K. Limited tests showed that the software would fail in dozens of ways after January 1, 2000. I don?t know the final dollar amount of developing the replacement software but halfway through I remember the engineer leading the project saying they had hit Nine Million Dollars and it wasn?t even done yet.

I was lucky to be one of the beta testers and involved in the direction and development of the software. I learned a great many lessons during that crazy hectic time of insanity. The most important lesson is that when your business starts to grow it?s a whole lot cheaper to make sure your software is going to grow with you rather than to pay for it later. They survived the hit to their bottom line and the software, although buggy at first it was eventually ironed out and launched to all their locations before Y2K (but it was so close a couple people almost lost their jobs).

The Point of Sale software for any business is so critical that I can?t stress enough how much effort should be put into getting the right system. No one can foresee all the Y2K bugs out there and every software tool has its flaws. But businesses that don?t take their technology seriously are not the one?s that survive to the point where it takes almost ten million dollars to fix their mistake.

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Point of Sale: No Longer Just a Place Where You Take the Customer's Money

2008-02-11T22:05:00.000-08:00

POS is the holy grail. One popular easy to implement system is Quickbooks. Quickbooks Point of Sale is the answer for those who want to move away from a calculator and regular, analog cash register. Microsoft Point of Sale is a more costly, yet friendly retail-management package for mom-and-pop shops. Point of Sale is a fairly ethereal concept, as we really do not know where exactly the "sale" is made in the buyer's mind. The point of sale is the most visible and important contact you have with your customers. It is similarly becoming more flexible itself. In addition to software, the location of your POS system in your business is important. Colorful logos and graphics should be used to direct the attention and improve message retention of the visitors and prospects. The touch screen point of sale is ideal for working restaurants and growing restaurants looking for a better restaurant register. What it comes down to is this: In a well-run establishment, the point of sale is more than just the place where the money comes in. Extending the point of sale is something retailers have been trying to do for years.

Few purchases can have as dramatic an effect on your retail or hospitality venture as a point of sale (POS) system. Be sure to invest in integrated business processing rather than simple exchanges of information in a basic cash register. Get the software component you need to streamline your business process and improve customer service.

If you?re involved with a business that holds inventory, that?s another area to be concerned about. How do you make sure that the inventory at each ecommerce site is accurate? Whether your establishment has a small gift shop or a larger sales item inventory, look for a point of sale module that makes sales inventory management easy. This will allow you to offer improved customer service by viewing real time inventory information.

The point of sale is the location where the transaction takes place. It is going to be a point where a whole new form of `marketing-at-retail' is set to emerge - in our service businesses and supermarkets alike. Keep in mind the important things to look for in POS. Protecting credit card tabulations at the point of sale is challenging. One of the biggest benefits of QuickBooks Point of Sale is that it integrates with QuickBooks Financial Software and merchant accounts to make this easier for you. Remember, choosing the right spot for a new point of sale is a key decision for a company. In summary, point of sale is giving way to point of service.

Before you purchase a POS system make sure to visit SoftwarePointofSale.com where you will quickly and easily find resources and information on point of sale systems, label printers, flat screen monitors, and other useful links that will help you make your decision.

Retail Point Of Sale

2008-02-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

There are a number of channels of distribution available to the producer, which may be employed by him to bring his products to the market. Consumer goods may be distributed generally through channels, in each of which the manufacturers may use the sales branch or sales office as the additional alternative. One of the channels used is Producer-Consumer, where no middleman is involved. Sales are made from house to house or by direct mail. A second channel is Producer-Retailer-Consumer, by which goods may be purchased directly from manufacturers. Retail stores may also be opened by manufacturers by this channel. A third channel is Producer-Wholesaler-Retailer-Consumer, which is the traditional and most economical channel. Penultimately, there is Producer-Agent-Retailer-Consumer, in which many producers use manufacturing agents, brokers, etc. for reaching the retail market. Finally, there is Producer-Agent-Wholesaler-Retailer-Consumer, where the services of agents are utilized by the smaller retailers, who purchase from a wholesaler and sell to small stores.

A large number of channels of distribution are available to the manufacturer for bringing his product to the ultimate consumer. Efficient distribution at the least cost and attaining the desired volume of sale can be secured only after experience, study and analysis. The notice of the product, its unit value, its technical features, and its degree of differentiation from competitive products are the factors which may limit the number of potential channel alternatives.

A retailer, as the name indicates, does retailing, which is to say he sells to ultimate consumers. In the distributional hierarchy, retailers are below the level of stockists, distributors, and wholesalers. Sometimes, retailers are termed dealers or authorized representatives. The retailer often operates in a smaller territory or at his specific location; earns lesser commission compared to higher levels in the channel; he does not carry out stock holding and sub-distribution functions.

A stockist or distributor or wholesaler is also a large sized operator but not on par with the marketer or sole selling agent in level, size and territory of operation. Stock holding and sub-distribution, as per the policies laid down by the manufacturers or the marketers, are the main functions of stockists/distributors.

Point Of Sale provides detailed information on point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale is affliated with Affordable Point Of Sale Systems

Why Buy A Point Of Sale System?

2008-02-09T02:12:00.001-08:00

Many retailers have built a very successful brand without a point of sale system. Whether they rely on pen and paper,or cash registers, credit card machines, and accounting systems, a point of sale system is sometimes merely an afterthought to a thriving retail business. Yet, retail is changing; competition is increasing, customers are revaluating where and how they buy, and point of sale systems have now become standard equipment.

Retailers who are considering point of sale know that critical business information is often lost in the disorganization of multiple systems, and redundant data entry. Employees too,lose productivity when they are faced with complex systems,inaccurate records, and confusing processes. Most retailers
know they need to eliminate disparate systems and
non-integrated components, but the time required to do so is often daunting to a busy retailer; some believe thy already have detailed knowledge of the business performance; albeit instinctual. In addition, retailers are hesitant to adopt a point of sale system, as they believe it will require outside service providers, lost historical data and sometimes, just too much of an investment.

Yet automation of the point of sale has tremendous benefits to the retailer including:

? Managed and visible inventory: stock to par levels, record and use sales and ordering information for immediate and future decisions, search, filter, and retrieve inventory information easily.

? Faster checkout: enable productivity with easily identifiable merchandise through bar codes and quick look ups, automated tasks and easily retrievable information lead the sales and checkout process.

? Improved customer detail: keep customer data on file, track purchases, enable target marketing, and reward loyalty.

? Reduced costs and increased revenue: easily identify operating cost, labor and shrinkage, quickly realize and track revenue increases.

Point of sale systems have grown beyond complex software systems with cumbersome hardware components. Rather they have become very easy to setup on your countertop and install. Most may be shipped right to you with the software and hardware peripherals already loaded, with simple wizards that
ease the task of entering inventory, store, and employee information. Most existing, historical sales data may be imported simply, and systems will now integrate with a variety of popular accounting systems, loyalty programs, and multiple credit card
processors. There are tremendous cost effective solutions suited to your unique business that enable you to set up quickly, and expand and grow as your business does. They may even provide you information about your business that your instincts did not.Take a look.
selling businesses
business for sale

Restaurant Point Of Sale

2008-02-08T00:28:00.000-08:00

In restaurant point of sale a product passes through certain distinct stages during its life. This cycle of stages is called Product Life Cycle or PLC. The PLC is normally presented as a sales curve spanning the products course from introduction to exit. Concept lies in the fact that each stage in the restaurant point of sale is characterized by a typical market behavior and consequently each stage lends itself to the application of a certain specific marketing strategy. Understanding the PLC concept and managing it effectively can help prolong the profitable phases of the life span of a product.

A typical product at restaurant point of sale passes through distinct stages during the course of its life. During the market pioneering stage, the product is in its introductory stage in the market. Here there may not yet be a ready market for the product. Sales are low; the product undergoes teething troubles; profits seem a remote possibility; demand has to be created and developed; and customers have to be prompted to try out the product. One of the crucial decisions to be taken at this stage is the pricing strategy to be adopted for the product.

The ease and speed with which competitors can bring out similar products is perhaps the most important factor in deciding the pricing strategy at this stage. Another crucial area demanding attention is market development and promotion. That?s where demand has to be created and developed. The firm has to invest heavily in promotion before it sees any returns.

During the market growth stage, the demand for the product increases and the size of the market grows. That?s when one has to stay ahead of his competitors and persuade the customer to prefer his brand. He cannot dictate the price to the customer; he cannot dictate the terms to the channel.

Point Of Sale provides detailed information on point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale is affliated with Affordable Point Of Sale Systems

Point Of Sale Software

2008-02-06T23:19:00.000-08:00

The growth and survival of the business in the dynamic environment as of today depends upon the development of new software. Organizations must be always in the lookout of new opportunities and exploiting the opportunities by creating new software and services. Therefore, it is needless to say that new product development holds the key for the survival of an organization.

With so many new companies entering into the fray these days, it?s no surprise that there is a huge demand for Point of Sale Software. But sadly most folks that go into this venture don&39;t realize the importance of choosing a good piece of Point of Sale Software.

New software does not come about on its own. They are the result of the ingenuity of creative people in the organization. As such, it is obvious that point of sale software is the function of organizational creativity. In other words, it depends upon how creative an organization is in respect of new ideas because any organization can be as creative as its people.

Point of sale software just doesn&39;t cut it to use a pencil and paper to keep track of sales and expenditures. It will help you keep solid tracking of everything between what products are moving to how much you are spending on them. Point of sale software provides information and tracking that can define the path your business should take.

When talking about point of sale software, creativity is the buzzword. It may be viewed as new insights, which points to better ways of dealing with reality. It involves a departure from conventional thinking to non- conventional thinking. It entails establishment of a relationship between the hitherto unrelated things, ideas or concepts.

Point Of Sale Displays provides detailed information on point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale Displays is affiliated with Affordable Point Of Sale Systems.

Point Of Sale Systems

2008-02-06T00:17:00.001-08:00

An organized enterprise does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it is dependent on its external environment. It is a humble part of many systems, such as its own industry, the economy, and society as a whole. Thus, the enterprise receives various inputs, changes them somehow, and releases the outputs to the environment.

However, this simple model needs to be expanded and developed into a model of operational management that indicates how the various inputs are transformed through the managerial functions of planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling. Clearly, an open system model that includes interactions between the enterprise and its external environment must describe Point of Sale systems.

The inputs from the external environment may include people, capital and managerial skills, as well as technical knowledge and skills. In addition, various groups of people will make demands on the enterprise. For example, employees wants higher pay, more benefits, and job security. On the other hand, consumers demand safe and reliable products at reasonable prices.

It is up to the managers of an enterprise to transform inputs into outputs effectively and efficiently. Of course, the transformation process can be viewed from different perspectives. Thus, one can focus on such diverse enterprise functions as finance, production, personnel and marketing.

Communication plays a pivotal part in Point of Sale systems. First, it integrates the managerial functions. For example, the objectives set in planning are communicated so that the appropriate organization structure can be devised. Communication is essential in the selection, appraisal and training of managers to fill the roles in this structure.

One should never forget that the customer, who is the reason for the existence of virtually all businesses, is outside a company. It is through the Point of Sale systems that the needs of customers are identified; this knowledge enables the firm to provide products and services at a profit.

Point Of Sale Displays provides detailed information on point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale Displays is affiliated with Affordable Point Of Sale Systems

Point Of Sale Hardware

2008-02-05T01:32:00.001-08:00

The systems model of management demonstrates that communication is what is needed for executing managerial functions and for integrating the organization with the outside world. Point of sale hardware exactly performs this function with the help of Management Information System (MIS).

MIS can be defined as a formal system of gathering, integrating, comparing, analyzing and dispersing information internal and external to the enterprise in a timely, effective and efficient manner. MIS has to be tailored to specific needs and may include routine information, such as monthly reports, information that points out exceptions, especially at critical points and information necessary to predict the future.

Electronic equipment allows speedy and inexpensive crunching of gigantic quantities of data. The computer can, with proper programming, process data toward logical conclusions, classify them and make them readily available for a manager?s use. In fact, data do not become information until they are processed into a usable form that informs.

Information needs differ at various organizational levels. Therefore, the impact of point of sale hardware will also be different. At the supervisory level activities are usually highly programmable and repetitive. Consequently, the use of hardware is widespread at this level. Scheduling, daily planning and controlling of the operation are just a few examples.

Middle level managers, such as department heads are usually responsible for administration and coordination. But much of the information important to them is now also available to top management if the company has a comprehensive information system. For this reason, some people think that the computer will reduce the need for middle level managers. Others predict that their roles may be expanded and changed.

Top level managers are responsible for the strategy and overall policy of the organization. In addition to determining the general direction of the company, they have to do whole lot of other things. Hence, it is not easily programmable. Yet they can use the point of sale hardware to retrieve information from a database that facilitates the application of decision models.
Point Of Sale provides detailed information on point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale is affliated with Affordable Point Of Sale Systems

Why An Efficient POS (Point of Sale ) Cash Register System May Be The Best Investment You'll Ever Make

2008-02-04T01:03:00.001-08:00

The Slope Report read, "excellent conditions". It was cold but sunny and the slopes were full of skiers and snowboarders. The powder? Perfect. I could see out the window a group of skiers were headed toward the lodge bar. Inside the bar they waited patiently as the bartender keyed in their seating numbers, drinks and bar tab. It took over four minutes for them to get their drinks; the same amount of time it took for them to decide on dinner at another pub.

Capturing the skiers during a weather-perfect season is simple. Capturing their food and beverage business isn't always so easy. It requires not only need a customer-friendly environment, but also a user-friendly POS (point of sale) cash register system for efficiency. Today's technology provides this...and more. POS cash register terminals that continuously synchronize with each other, endless report options, alcohol inventory controlled by bottle weights and computerized tap monitors, staff time and attendance, ski, school, and guest database management, and so much more are available. Let's face it. It takes more than cooperative weather to run a ski resort.

One software company that stands out above the rest is a Canadian-based company called Tesoro Technologies, Incorporated. Wired or wireless, Windows or Linux, networked or independent terminals, their Volant? POS System is up for any challenge. Since 1993, Volant? System developers have been designing equipment that is "cash register tough and computer smart" to serve some of the biggest and best.

Snow Valley Ski Resort, located in Barrie, Ontario, wanted a POS system that could produce ID cards and time passes, manage a client database and ski school, as well as handling all their food and beverage and retail services. The geographical location had Director, Peter Haney, concerned at first. " Like most ski resorts, we are very remote. We needed a satellite tower and wireless system. We also looked at a lot of providers and found that most of the companies didn't offer the hospitality end we needed. Volant? is hospitality."

Tesoro had to install a fail-safe, independently running system for the remote summit area that could also be integrated with the high volume operations below. Using both wired and wireless network topology, their system has operated without software failure despite the unstable power and network issues. Snow Valley Ski Resort also utilizes the database of guests and 5,800 pass holders to generate email broadcasts, which enhances their marketing plan. "We're real pleased with Volant?. It's an entity that grows and evolves along with our business," says Haney.

Tesoro Technologies, Inc. may be at the forefront of a new generation of guest management technology, but they're still producing. Recent breakthroughs in point of sale development are allowing a full range of services and back office capabilities never before considered. For more information on how Tesoro and Volante POS systems can help your business, contact them through their website, www.volantesystems.com, or email them at sales@volantesystems.com.

So, when you're looking for a more efficient POS cash register system that can create "excellent conditions" at your resort, spend the extra time researching your options - it may turn out to be the best investment you're resort has ever made.

Your Business May Benefit From A Point of Sale System

2008-02-02T00:25:00.000-08:00

Probably the most energetic and enterprising individuals live in the United States. So many Americans nowadays invest their savings with the hope that they will start a lucrative small business. They do it with hope and passion, powerfully attracted by the world of small business. Statistics show that in 2004 in the USA there were 24.7 million small businesses. What is more important is that for the last ten years, small businesses have supplied around 60-80 percent of the new jobs in the country. Before you decide to start a retail business, rent a space, or buy inventory, you should develop a business plan.

For this purpose, you may have to spend some time researching on the advantages of a point of sale system.

You will find out that on the market there are different versions of a point of sale system. However, probably the most approachable and easy point of sale system is the one that Microsoft offers. This point of sale system is based on the Windows framework. That is what makes this point of sale system approachable as most of us have grown up using Windows.

POS system is the abbreviation, which is usually used to refer to a retail point of sale system. A point of sale system helps small business, as well as large businesses, to rationalize their daily activities. A point of sale system can make even a large project easier to realize. A point of sale system will allow you to manage large databases in order to make your business more profitable. Some years ago, retailers used 10-digit registers, plug-in calculators, and carbon copy credit card receipts. This time is gone. Now, it is the age of point of sale system.

The contemporary point of sale system makes no difference with the regular personal computer. Point of sale system has every function that a desktop computer has and more. With a point of sale system, a businessperson will be able to ring up transactions, make payments, and manage inventory and print reports. Sales can be sorted and showed by day, by product, by cashier and by the hour. You can easily print labels for shelves, and price tags for products. Databases can be sorted like clients databases, department databases, item databases, and supplier databases. Even purchases can be tracked.

The point of sale system can be networked so that everyone will be able to share ideas, send messages and so on. In addition, if you wish receipts, labels and calendars can be designed. When you need them, summary sales reports, detailed sales reports and regional sales reports can be printed. Contemporary retail business is almost impossible without a retail point of sale system. It is hard for me even to imagine what business was when point of sale system does not exist.

Any operation nowadays will be very difficult to perform without a point of sale system. A point of sale system will save you all the paper work you are obliged to do. No matter if you are managing one store, ten stores, or one hundred you cannot miss to take a point of sale system.

Morgan Hamilton offers expert advice and great tips regarding all aspects concerning sales. Get more information by visiting Point of Sale System

Point Of Sale Displays

2008-01-31T01:32:00.001-08:00

In a competitive market, point of sale displays help solve several of a marketer?s short-term hurdles. The impact of sales promotion measures is not durable like the results obtained through advertising and personal selling. Sale displays by and large are understood and practiced as a catalyst and as a supporting facility to advertising and personal selling.

Point of sale displays differs from advertising in many ways. Whereas advertising is mostly an indirect and subtle approach towards persuading consumers to buy a product, sale displays is a direct and almost open inducement to consumers to immediately try the product. Secondly, advertising normally has long-term objectives like building brand awareness or building consumer loyalty or repositioning a brand, sale displays performs an immediate task of increasing current sales. Finally, advertising helps sales by adding some durable and long-term value to the product, while point of sale displays aid selling by temporarily changing the existing price-value relationship of the product.

While continuing to use advertising to build long term patronage of the consumer, sale displays will come handy to give the occasional spurt required to boost up current sales. Marketing man resort to sale displays to meet several marketing needs such as introducing new products, overcoming a unique competitive situation, unloading accumulated inventory, overcoming seasonal slumps, getting new accounts, retrieving lost accounts and for persuading dealers to buy more/ increase the size of the orders.

The above categorization is based on the marketing problem to be tackled. If we look at the target group to whom sale displays measures are normally aimed at, we find four broad target groups, viz. the consumer, the trade or channel and influential groups. Bulk of the sale displays effort is aimed at the consumer and the trade.
Point Of Sale Displays provides detailed information on point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale Displays is affiliated with Affordable Point Of Sale Systems.

Point Of Sale

2008-01-31T01:31:00.001-08:00

Point of Sale can be defined as the physical location at which goods are sold to customers. In a specific sense, sales promotion includes those sales activities that supplement both personal selling and advertising and coordinate them and help to make them effective, such as displays, shows and expositions, demonstrations and other non-recurrent selling efforts not in the ordinary routine.

Point of Sale can also be termed as a retail shop, a checkout counter in a shop, or a variable location where a transaction occurs. When a firm has a payable or receivable denominated in a foreign currency, a change in the exchange rate will alter the amount of local currency received or paid. Such a risk or exposure is referred to as transaction exposure.

Cash is the most liquid asset. It is of vital importance to the daily operations of business firms. While the proportion of corporate assets held in the form of cash is very small, often between 1 per cent and 3 per cent, its efficient management is crucial to the solvency of the business because in a very important sense cash is the focal point of fund flows in a business. In view of its importance, it is generally referred to as the ?life blood of a business enterprise?.

Why does a firm need cash? There are two primary reasons for a firm to hold cash: firstly to meet the needs of day-to-day transactions and secondly to protect the firm against uncertainties characterizing its cash flows. It is obvious that cash serves necessary functions. Nevertheless, cash is an idle resource. Holding too much cash forfeits alternative investment opportunities. Therefore, the financial manager should carefully control all cash.

Point Of Sale provides detailed information on point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale is affliated with Affordable Point Of Sale Systems.

Switching from a cash register to a computerized point of sale system was my best business move ever!

2008-01-31T01:30:00.001-08:00

I had been putting off changing from my trusty old cash register to a computerized point of sale system, as I was intimidated and daunted by the task. I kept telling myself, changing to a new system would not really benefit my business that much, and in any event, I don't have the time.

A friend of mine, who had gone through the process a year earlier, was kind enough to sit down with me and share how he had handled the changeover process, and some of the tremendous benefits this had provided for his business. Now, two years later, I would like to pass on, how your business could also become more efficient and profitable, by switching to a modern computerized point of sale system.

Here are some of the great benefits I have come to appreciate after installing a computerized point of sale system in my business.

Isn't a point of sale system just like a cash register?

A POS software system does more than just replace your cash register. Showing your cash flow for the day is principally all a cash register does. It is unable to provide any information about profit margins; products sold or best/worst selling lines. On the other hand, a computerized POS system, can on demand instantly report on how much money is left in your cash drawer, and how much of that money is in fact profit. Product specific reports can also show how many were sold today, how many are left on the shelf and when that product needs to be re-ordered.

Helps prevent theft by just being there.

Studies have shown computerized point of sale systems typically, reduce theft by around 2.5%. That means an average small business with a turnover of $750,000 per year, could be losing approximately $18,750. This amount could be reduced or eliminated completely by simply installing a point of sale system. Inventory is watched much more carefully, because your employees know that stock is being monitored. All involved are more alert.

Reduce inventory shrinkage.

A computerized POS system monitors obsolete and broken inventory more carefully and in greater detail. Shelf inventory stock on hand counts are easily and accurately compared with computerized stock on hand counts, further reducing losses by an additional 2.5%.

Better manage your inventory.

Using detailed product reports, the flow of inventory can be managed much more carefully by monitoring increased sales. Historical product data helps in the prediction of future inventory needs. Orders should be based on what you know you sell, not on what you think you sell.

Watch your margins.

Examination of your product reports may indicate you have sold 9000 products that cost 48 cents, for 50 cents each. Or, that you have sold 200 products that cost $1.90, for $9.95 each. Correct use of your reports will help you stock more of what delivers greater profits, and fewer of what produces lesser profits.

Keep your customers happy.

Computerized POS systems, with touch screens, fast barcode scanners, fast thermal printers and many other tools, make the checkout process efficient and much quicker. This results in happier customers.

Pricing accuracy.

Completely eliminate the guesswork associated with manual pricing of your products. Using a computerized point of sale system ensures every product in your store has an associated and accurate price. Your sales staff will have no need to guess prices anymore.

Build a customer list.

Possibly, the most important and beneficial aspect of switching to a computerized point of sale system, is the ability to build a customer list and track your customers purchasing habits. Analyzing your best, worst, high profit, low profit, high frequency and infrequent customers becomes as easy as reading a report. Predicting when customers are about to stop patronizing you store means you are able to directly target market these customers with special offers or gift vouchers, in an attempt to win them back. You can use your POS system to market to a group of customers in a particular region or just to get to know your most loyal customers on a first name basis.

A computerized point of sale system has been one of the best investments I have made for my business. My business has become more efficient, more profitable and a better place for my customers.

Any doubt I may have had 2 years ago has been replaced with absolute amazement for what a computerized POS system has done for my business.

Raymond D of MELBOURNE VIC - POSActive Customer

Types of Point Of Sale Activation.

2008-01-29T02:13:00.001-08:00

From : intelecard.com.

POSA is not only about activation, it also refers to balance inquiries, refunds, voids, refresh, report printing and can even include services, such as real-time web-based queries. There are two types of POSA available in the market, online solutions and offline solutions.

Online solutions

The term online does not refer to the Internet. An online solution is any technology that requires the POSA device in a store to communicate with the stored value platform at the time of sale. This type of solution involves reading data off a preprinted card and using that data to identify and manipulate a specific stored value account on the platform. The data on the card is usually stored on a magnetic stripe or encoded in a barcode on the product packaging. Either way, at the time of sale the data is read by the POS device and put into a data packet that is sent to the platform as part of an electronic transaction. Sending this packet of data at the time of sale is what specifically defines an online solution.

A communication link or "line," hence the term online, must be established between the POSA device and the platform where the stored value account, or PIN, resides. The POSA device can be a stand-alone POSA terminal or logic integrated into previously installed store equipment, such as credit card processing terminals. There are many different types of communication links and technologies, but for the purpose of this discussion I will illustrate online POSA by discussing two common types of technology, host-to-host and dial up. The distinguishing difference between host-to-host communication and dial-up communication is that one is always connected while the other is used only as needed. Large national retailers who have extensive technology facilities connecting their stores to a central corporate IT location can, and usually do, implement host-to-host connections.

This contrasts with smaller chains or single retail sites that must use the modem in their POSA device to dial the platform on an as-needed basis. A host-to-host solution is always connected. Dial-up communication is established and closed on a per-transaction basis. The point is that implementing online POSA technology requires the ability to support multiple communication mechanisms to the platform, including host-to-host and dial up.

Offline solutions

Offline solutions are the opposite of online, meaning that they do not require the POSA device to communicate with the platform at the time of sale. There is no such thing as an offline host-to-host POSA solution. Additionally, any offline POSA solution not have a PIN-printing solution.

Most PIN-printing solutions print the entire card on blank card stock at the time of sale. Others print only the PIN onto pre-existing cards, while another type of offline mechanism uses preprinted PINs in sticker form that are affixed to preprinted card stock at the time of sale. All offline POSA mechanisms give the retailer a secure way to sell stored value products without the need for the POS device to connect to the stored value platform at the time of sale.

PIN-printing technologies store active PINs and other information in the memory of the POSA device. When a stored value product is purchased, the required information is printed onto card stock or receipt paper. The PIN is already active in this type of POSA mechanism, so there is no need for technology to communicate with the platform for every sale. Instead, at the end of the day these devices typically upload their daily sales totals by dialing into a computer server that collects the data and also downloads more active PINs.

POSA (Point Of Sale Activation) at a glance

2008-01-28T02:07:00.001-08:00

From : intelecard.com.

POSA is a generic term that describes the many different types of transactions and services available at the point of sale that support the sale of stored value products. Thus, POSA is not only about activation, it also refers to balance inquiries, refunds, voids; refresh, report printing and can even include services, such as real-time web-based queries.

1. All offline POSA solutions are some type of PIN-printing solution.

2. Offline POSA solutions cannot provide as many features as complete online solutions.

3. Large national retail chains require online solutions because they demand a full suite of POSA features, often including in-store refresh and other custom transactions. Most of these solutions are host-to-host.

4. Payment card emulation solutions, often referred to as Visa emulation or debit card emulation, are online solutions, but because of their underlying technology, can provide only limited features.

5. PIN-printing devices eliminate the need to produce cards with individual encoding thereby reducing the cost of the card stock or eliminating it all together.

6. Some PIN-printing devices connect online to an intermediate computer system and thus are hybrid systems because they can provide real-time web-based transaction reporting but not true online functionality, such as in-store refresh or balance inquiry.

7. PIN printing almost always requires the retailer to own a special PIN-printing POSA terminal.

8. Online POSA can be integrated into existing POS software or loaded onto existing POS equipment.

9. POSA is complicated. All of these rules are generalizations.

Forgotten Point of Sale System Features | Cash In Drawer Limits

2008-01-25T02:32:00.000-08:00

Why then are so many point of sale companies, software manufacturers and POS salespeople forgetting about the fundamental principles that are still valid in today's business environment? The answer eludes and frustrates me because valuable profits are being lost by not utilizing these basic and important features.

This is a series of articles about the fundamental features that every business should be using to stop employee theft, increase sales and increase profits.

Cash In Drawer (CID) Limit

This feature has been around since I started in the cash register business some 25+ years ago. I haven't heard POS salespeople talk about this for over a decade and if it isn't being used in your business you are opening yourself up for theft and possibly armed robbery of your business.

All cash registers and point of sale systems track sales and tenders. They all know how much money, checks, gift cards, credit cards and other forms of payment are in each cash drawer/till.

What could be even worse is the fact that when the cash drawer/till is open potential robbers are able to estimate and determine if your operation is worth returning for a full-scale robbery.

Owners like this feature in that it reduces the temptation to remove money from the cash drawer/till through employee theft or through robbery.

If you are an owner, wouldn't you like keeping more of the money in your cash drawer/till for yourself? Wouldn't you like to reduce the chance/temptation of an armed robbery? This old-time cash register feature now found in some point of sale systems could be the exact answer to your needs.

Don't let technology dazzle you to the point that you forget about the basics features that you need to stop theft and increase profits. Those features that have been around for decades are still valid today.

Cash in drawer limits were considered an important part of any cash register and point of sale system for many years. The reason for the feature and the need to keep your cash safe never went away. Stopping theft is still a critical aspect of any point of sale system. That being the case, why should you settle for anything less than your business needs? Don't settle for less. Demand the cash in drawer feature.

The Top 10 Reasons You Need A Restaurant Point Of Sale System

2008-01-23T02:32:00.000-08:00

After over 25 years of consulting and helping business owners like yourself analyze their business and decide to invest in a point of sale system I have found that many reasons drove their decision. I have seen their problems, listened to their complaints and caught quite a few employees taken extra benefits directly from the cash register. To simplify things just a little, let's look at the top 10 reasons you need a point of sale system.

10. You have employees.

If you have employees you are open to theft, sweet-hearting and careless mistakes. You need a point of sale system to manage your employees, enforce your policies and insure that your money gets to you.

9. Pricing and Math Errors.

It is still amazing how many restaurants still use a calculator and hand written tickets. According to studies done by various institutions you are open to math and pricing mistakes totaling in excess of 1% of your annual volume. In a restaurant doing as little as $1,300 per day that would add up to $4,700 per year. (Less than the price of our 2-terminal Sweet Deal Package) To eliminate pricing and math errors you need a point of sale system.

8. Time In Attendance.

Employee payroll is one of the most overlooked and most easily managed portions of your profit and loss statement. If you have 12 employees and each of them clocks in 5 minutes early a day, that equates to 1 hour per day of extra payroll. Even with minimum wage plus benefits this could add up to $6 - $8 per day or over $2,900 per year. This figure doesn?t take into account the total man-hours it takes to compute time cards and then report on the hours worked for each employee. This is time that you could be spending elsewhere. If you have a few as 5 employees you need a point of sale system.

7. Reducing Theft.

This is the original reason for the invention of the cash register back in the late 1800?s. Even when most of the businesses were family owned and run there was a need for a cash register to reduce theft. In today?s world of hiring employees to help staff and manage your store there is even greater need for this type of control. For years we have known about the tendencies of people with regard to theft. 10% of the people wouldn?t steal if giving the opportunity. 10 % of the people are going to steal no matter what safeguards are in place. 80% of the people will steal if given the opportunity. Point of sale systems are put in place to guard against the 80% and make it more difficult for them to steal from you.

6. Speed of Service.

There is only 1 thing we can think of that will drive customers away faster than bad food and that is slow service. When a customer places their order their own internal clock is running in overdrive. No matter how long they took to look over the menu and to place their order, once they have given your server or cashier their order their hunger clock is speeding along faster than a fan on high! You need a fast, reliable way to get orders into your system. This should mean a terminal that is fast, easy to understand and quick to respond to the touch of the server, cashier or bar tender. The system should also distribute the order properly to the kitchen prep station or bar. Your point of sale system should also measure your speed of service and report on how you are doing. Reducing the time it takes to get your customer?s their food is critical and can even make up for less quality. For proof I give you some of the major fast food chains. Is their popularity based upon the best tasting, best dressed and best served burger or speed of service? If you want to speed up your customer service you need a point of sale system.

5. Enhanced Reporting.

What is the use of having a computer and not taking advantage of the power? If all you need is to have a total amount of cash in the drawer that sometimes matches to the amount of sales shown you probably don?t need a point of sale system. However, if you want more detail and information to help manage your operation and make it more profitable then you need a point of sale system. It used to be that having a good product was enough to get you by. Now it takes a lot more information in order to compete with all the other restaurants in your market that are all looking for the same customer you have seated in your restaurant. You need to understand the buying habits of your customers. What are they ordering? When are they ordering it? What is your most profitable item? How many of it did you sell? What items on your menu are not selling? If you cannot answer all of these questions with total confidence in your answers then you need a point of sale system. If you hesitate to correctly answer (without guessing) any of these questions you need a point of sale system.

4. Exporting of Data to Other Systems.

Even most small businesses today have some form of electronic accounting in place either in their operation or through an accounting service. In addition, most businesses have an electronic payroll service or software that creates payroll. Point of sale systems capture critical data for you and then export this data in formats that automatically put this information into accounting and payroll packages, eliminating hours of tedious manual input that often leads to mistakes and human error. If you have an electronic accounting or payroll service/software or even if you want to track your sales in Excel, you need a point of sale system.

3. Integrated Credit Cards.

If you are not currently taking credit cards as a form of payment you need to start today. Never mind the fees. The loss of business that you are suffering in today?s plastic minded economy will more than compensate for the fees charged. If you are currently taking credit cards through a stand-alone terminal you could be being charged exorbitant fees for the terminal when you could be processing through your point of sale system. In some cases, the elimination of the terminal rental will pay for the credit card interface in less than a year. With integrated credit card processing you are assured that the amount of the sale will match the amount charged on the credit card, eliminating the need to go back and match individual sales when the credit card batch does not match credit card sales. When high-speed Internet connections are used to process credit cards we receive approvals in less than 2 seconds. No longer is slower speed of service an excuse not to take credit cards. If you want to quickly, accurately and smoothly process credit cards you need a point of sale system.

2. Competitive Marketing.

a. Frequent Diner Modules. Who are your customers? What do they buy? How often do they visit? Of your frequent visitors, who hasn?t been in to see you during the past month? Of your frequent visitors, who has a special day coming up this month? These are questions that you should have the answer to. All the major chains and all of your competitors are after the people who come to your restaurant. They want to take them for themselves. How are you going to compete with the billions of dollars being spent to draw your customer away? By marketing your operation and your menu. Your point of sale system should be able to manage your customer base, keep up with their buying habits, how often they visit, when was their last visit and what special occasions they have coming up. Your point of sale system then should be able to sort these into groups that should be sent mailers, coupons, invitations to special events or simply told that they are appreciated and asked to visit you again. If you have competition you need a point of sale system.

b. Gift cards have become the norm for so many businesses today. An entire industry has been formed around the old concept of giving a paper gift certificate. Today, you will find gift cards at most major checkout lines. A point of sale system should be able to sell, redeem and control balances for your own gift card program. No longer do you need a book of certificates that are kept in the safe. Today, all you need is a stack of blank plastic cards with your colorful logo on them. These cards carry no balance and have no cash value until sold and a balance placed on account. As an owner you should keep a few of these cards with you. Each of these cards might have a small balance on them for you to hand out to pull customers to your restaurant or to give in case of a poor experience to help bring someone back. Think of these cards as your personal marketing tool. When the customer looks in their purse or wallet and sees your logo they will be reminded to come visit you. If you use gift certificates or gift cards you need a point of sale system.

1. You Don?t Need Any More ?Partners?.

Sure you need gift cards. Yes you need to better understand your customer?s buying habits. You absolutely need to have credit cards integrated with your point of sale system. You need enhanced reporting and export of these reports to electronic accounting and payroll services. You need to eliminate errors, reduce mistakes and keep track of your payroll. But more than any of these you don?t need any more partners. Especially the ones that take their portion of the profits before you get yours. We are talking about the servers, waitresses, bartenders and cashiers who:

a. Undercharge customers in order to enhance their own tips. Show a $5 tab and a $50 tip. (Yes, I have seen this!)

b. Deliberately void or delete an item after it has been paid for.

c. Stuff coupons into the cash drawer in exchange for cash.

d. Don?t charge customers for soft beverages to enhance their tips.

e. Ring up a lower priced item (well brand) and serve a higher priced item (premium brand)

f. Give discounts to their friends.

g. In a buffet line, ring up a buffet and a tea. Reprint this ticket 10 times and sell and collect for themselves these reprinted receipts instead of ringing up new customers.

If you want to stay in business, you need a point of sale system.Jerry D. Wilson is Director of Internet Sales for DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale. With over 25 years of hospitality point of sale experience, he has written several articles explaining the benefits of touch screen and retail point of sale software. Please visit http://www.directouchpos.com or http://www.directretailpos.com for more information.

Use Restaurant Point Of Sale Systems And Their Employee Time Clock Feature To Control Your Payrol

2008-01-19T01:38:00.000-08:00

Employee Time Clock

The History Of The Employee Time Clock And Point of Sale

The concept of punching a time clock has been around since the industrial revolution of the early 1900's. However, it was not until the invention of the electronic cash register in the early 1980's that employees could clock in/out on the cash register. This eliminated the need for a punch card and greatly increased accuracy and reduced manpower needs in calculating time worked for payroll purposes.

While the need for employees to clock in and out on a terminal started off simple the requirements of government have greatly increased the demands placed upon management. There are a host of different labor laws, tip reporting requirements and labor restrictions governing the number of hours to be worked in a day/week and even when minors are allowed to work.

The Need For An Employee Time Clock

What started off simple has quickly become complex. Your needs are far greater than a simple time clock that tracks the clock in and out times for your employees. You need help with the government regulations regarding different aspects of your labor pool.

Tip reporting and handling have become a huge issue in the restaurant business. You need help tracking tipped employees and what they declare as tips earned.

Tracking employee breaks has become a bigger and bigger hassle. Some states govern the length of breaks and whether they are paid or not. I know of one state that requires a minimum of a 20 minute unpaid break per employee. If that employee clocks back in 1 minute early, their entire break is paid. Who has time to monitor every employee's break?

And we have just now gotten to the problem of employees clocking in early, riding the clock or simply having a friend clock them in when they aren't even there!

You need help. You need an integrated time clock and you need it bad.

The Solution Of The Employee Time Clock

Some point of sale systems come standard with an employee time clock feature that is designed specifically for restaurants and the goofy requirements placed upon restaurant owners.

All employees can clock in/out on any terminal in the system. There is no set terminal that must be used by all employees. Any employee may clock in on any terminal.

Security and secrecy should be a concern and point of sale software products have different ways of accomplishing this.

* Secret 4-digit employee code for clock in/out.
* Optional magnetic card reader and magnetic cards for employees to use when clocking in/out.
* Optional biometric reader which recognizes individual fingerprints for employee clock in/out.

Employee breaks are tracked and various rules can be set depending upon your own state's regulations.

Tipped employees are required to declare their tips earned when they clock out for the day. These declared amounts are then reported with their time worked.

What good would all this data do if we didn't report on it? Most software products are able to track and report on all time clock data and use weekly, bi-weekly, bi-monthly and monthly payroll cycles. Be sure to verify that the product you are looking at will meet all of your requirements before purchase.

Some point of sale products will also export all time clock data to file for import into several different accounting packages.

The Benefit Of The Employee Time Clock To You

This feature has several benefits. Let's list a few:

* Increased accuracy over punch cards and manual time tracking.
* Reduced rounding errors in computing time.
* Reduced time for management to compute employee hours.
* Enforce break rules.
* Enforce tip tracking and declaration for tipped employees.
* Eliminate buddy punching with optional biometric scanners.
* Export time clock data to payroll software or payroll service.Jerry D. Wilson is Director of Internet Sales for DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale. With over 25 years of hospitality point of sale experience, he has written several articles explaining the benefits of touch screen and retail point of sale software. Please visit http://www.directouchpos.com or http://www.directretailpos.com for more information.

Restaurant Employee Tip Tracking Easier Through A Point Of Sale System

2008-01-19T01:37:00.001-08:00

Restaurant Employee Tip Handling

The History Of Restaurant Employee Tip Handling

No one knows when tipping began. But we do know that in the 1980's the IRS levied new regulations on restaurant owners to track the tips received by the employees of the restaurant.

The magic number of 8% became the benchmark for servers and waiters to declare as their tipped earned. Not because it was accurate. Rather, because it was the minimum amount allowed by the IRS.

The trick is this. Tipped employees in restaurants are generally not paid minimum wage. The amount varies from state to state but it runs between $2.15 to $3.15 per hour. The IRS assumes that the tips received will make up the difference between this low hourly amount and the true minimum wage that is currently $5.15 per hour. If this is not the case, then it is up to the restaurant owner to make up the difference between what the tipped employee earned + declared tips and minimum wage. This makes accurate tip declaration, tracking and reporting a vital aspect of running a restaurant.

The Need For Restaurant Employee Tip Handling

You need a employee time clock system that recognizes tipped employees, tracks their individual sales, any charge tips collected and requires them to declare cash tips at the end of their shift.

You also need a employee time clock system that can handle tip sharing, tip pooling and tip out to bus help, bartenders and other servers.

You need a employee time clock system that will track the hours worked and tips collected and recognize problems with employees not declaring enough tips to meet the minimum wage requirements.

The Solution Of Restaurant Employee Tip Handling

Some point of sale software products have tip tracking built into their time in attendance module. Once you set an employee as a tipped employee the system will require tip declaration prior to clock out.

Servers and waiters who ring sales will have their total sales tracked. Tips collected through credit card sales are tracked and shown on the server closeout report. Prior to clock out the server/waiter will be shown their total sales, the charge tips collected and then asked to declare their cash tips.

Some point of sale products do allow for programming flexibility with this feature:

* You may change the minimum declaration from the default of 8%.
* You may change the requirement to declare tips at clock out.
* You may opt to have the system print a chit with their tips shown.
* You may opt to not show charge tips on the declaration screen.

The Benefit Of Restaurant Employee Tip Handling To You

How do you measure the amount of relief a person can have knowing that your point of sale system is enforcing tip regulations levied by the IRS? Not to mention the mass amount of time savings in tracking declared tips, charge tips and hour worked for every tipped employee.

This is one headache you don't want to have to deal with. If you have tipped employees you need a good point of sale system with tip tracking and time and attendance.: Jerry D. Wilson is Director of Internet Sales for DirecTouch Restaurant Point of Sale. With over 25 years of hospitality point of sale experience, he has written several articles explaining the benefits of touch screen and retail point of sale software. Please visit http://www.directouchpos.com or http://www.directretailpos.com for more information.

Will You Make These Mistakes When You Buy Retail Point of Sale Software?

2008-01-18T02:18:00.001-08:00

If you're like most retailers, you're worried about making a mistake when you choose point of sale (POS) software. I don't blame you. Buying POS software is a big investment. Not to mention, POS software can have huge impact on the efficiency and success of your retail business!

What's more, there are around 1,000 different POS systems to choose from. And they're all different. All these choices can be overwhelming and confusing.

The truth is... choosing POS software is very difficult. And
too many retailers end up with the wrong system. In fact, it's common for retailers to go through 2, 3 or even 4 different POS systems before they find one they're happy with. Those mistakes probably cost at least $10,000 - $100,000.

Here are a few mistakes that I see retailers making over and over again.

They Buy Hardware First

I can't tell you how many times I've heard a retailer say, "I just bought new computers, printers and I have everything ready to go. Now I need to find POS software."

As soon as I hear that, I think to myself, "This guy could have saved himself a lot of time and money if he selected his POS software first!"

Why?

First of all, your POS software will have hardware and operating system requirements. For example, the software will require a certain version of Windows, Unix or Linux. (Unless it's an "open architecture" system like ASP) In addition, each program will only function with certain types of printers, scanners, cash drawers and card readers.

Second, and more importantly, not all POS systems are the same. And the system that you choose is very important. It will have a huge impact on the efficiency of your business! If you install your computer system first, you will limit your POS software choices. The perfect fit for your "unique" business might run on UNIX but you already bought a Windows 2003 Server! You might also find that the printers and scanners you just bought aren't compatible either.

You can avoid frustration and save money if you choose the POS software first. Then you can ask the software company about their recommended hardware and operating systems.

They Ask the Wrong People

All too often retailers ask a local computer consultant for suggestions about POS software. Most computer consultants have good intentions but they tend to give poor advice when it comes to choosing POS software.

Computer consultants are great sources for information about computers, hardware, and networking. However they don't usually understand the intricacies of POS software and retail management. Nor do they realize that there are almost 1,000 different POS systems to choose from and it's VERY easy to choose the wrong one.

Every retail business is different and has different needs. If you get poor advice and select the wrong type of system, your business will lose money.

They Don't Place Enough Focus on the Character of the Software Company

When you invest in point of sale software, you're buying a relationship, not just a product. In fact, the "quality" of the software company is usually just as important as the product.

Why is the software company so important?

Well...

After you purchase the software, you will rely on the software company to supply updates, training, technical support, and possibly hardware.

Let me ask you a few questions to help you understand why the company is so important...

- What if the software company went out of business? (Dozens of POS software companies come and go every year!)

- What if they don't give you software updates when you need them?

- What if it takes 2 days to get your technical questions answered?

- What if the software has a bug and they don't fix it?

- What if they didn't give you sufficient training? And as a result, your sales reports are showing the wrong totals!

- What if you can't print and it takes 6 hours to get help from a support technician?

The truth is, the level of service and the financial stability of the software company is very important. It's critical to evaluate the software company; otherwise you could run into some frustrating and expensive problems.

They Pass The Buck

Too many owners give the responsibility of choosing a POS system to an employee or a computer consultant that is not familiar with your industry. This is a huge mistake!

Top management and other key personnel must be involved in the selection and implementation process. You should never rely solely on a consultant's recommendation or input.

The person that evaluates the software must have in-depth knowledge about your business!

POS software is complicated. Not to mention it can make a huge difference in your businesses productivity. POS software is too important to pass the evaluation process to someone else!

I see owners and managers make this mistake all the time. Don't make the same one!

They Overlook Important Features

Unless you are a retail POS expert, it's difficult to sort through countless POS systems and figure out what you need. What's more, it's difficult to understand the "true" potential of your POS system. As a result, many retailers get confused and they overlook important features that would save them a lot of time and money.

Most people don't realize that every POS system is VERY different. Some are designed for large ticket items like tractors. And others are designed to work in fast moving retail environments like a grocery store.

As a result, it's common for retailers to end up with POS software that isn't really designed for them. That's why it's important to properly analyze the needs of your business (even if you're a small retailer). Then you can create a list of features that are important. That list will help you compare and choose the right system.

This might seem complicated, but with a little guidance, you can quickly find the right POS system. You just need to know which mistakes to avoid, where to look, and the right formula.

Jeff Haefner is the author of "The Point of Sale Software Buyers Guide -- How to Choose POS Software and Avoid Problems." It will teach you the secrets to choosing POS software for ANY retail business. If you'd like to learn how to avoid problems, save time, and boost efficiency then check out => http://www.possoftwareguide.com

POS (Point of Sale ) Cash Register Systems- They May Be The Best Investment You'll Ever Make

2008-01-17T02:48:00.000-08:00

For more information on how Tesoro and Volante POS systems can help your business, contact them through their website http://www.volantesystems.com/ or email them at sales@volantesystems.com.

Cash Register Stand Allows Retailers to Make the Most out of Cramped Quarters

2008-01-14T00:23:00.002-08:00

One of the biggest problems for most independent retailers is space- or more accurately, the lack of it. In the never ending quest to offer more to customers, we soon find ourselves offering less space to move around within our store. And that can cause big problems. One solution many retailers are turning to is cash register stands. By abandoning the large store counters of the past for simpler, smaller space saving cash register stands, retailers are saving space and making the most out of their available square footage.

Cash register stands give retailers the professional presence of a traditional checkout counter, without taking excessive space that could better be used to display additional products or allow for more free flowing in-store traffic. Most cash register stands have a flat front with shelving in the back where retailers still have space to store essentials.

For some retailers, it?s important to have a large and long countertop checkout area in the front of the store. But for retailers whose situation has forced them to value space over presence, a cash register stand can be a very valuable consideration for saving space and creating a more welcoming and open environment to entice and serve your customers.

Cash register stands are also very popular among seasonal retailers, including garden retailers and produce and pumpkin farms across the country. Cash register stands work well in this environment because they are portable, they take up very little space when in use, and they? extremely easy to store. A traditional store counter simply isn?t versatile enough to be functional in garden retail spaces.

Retailers who are short on space can look to other areas of their store for solutions as well. Walls provide retailers with a number of options for displaying or storing products and freeing up the sales floor. There are a number of product display solutions that, if implemented creatively, will allow retailers to always make the most of their available space.

Nu-Era and nu-era.com are services of The Nu-Era Group, LLC -the industry leader in store fixtures, supplies, and fulfillment. Nu-Era has been providing its customers with competitively priced quality products with customer-oriented service since 1949. For more information, visit them online at http://www.nu-era.com Visit the company?s blog at http://www.retailstoresupplyinfo.com

Cash Register

2008-01-14T00:23:00.001-08:00

James Ritty might not have guessed that the cash register, which he invented in 1879, would change completely into some thing, which even he would fail to identify. He just wanted to devise a fool proof cash handling system, which effectively prevented his dishonest staff steal and pocket the money at his tavern in his Dayton, Ohio.

Early cash registers were mechanical machines, which did not issue receipts. The cashier would crank up the machine and press the total key to register transaction and that is when the cash drawer would open and a bell ring at the managers/owner?s office to alert him of a completed transaction.

But would it not be possible to open the register when there is no sale at all? These are day to day necessities and the manager or the owner would want to check or take away cash from the register even when there is no sale and the drawer can be opened by hitting the NS (no sale) key which opens the drawer after logging that the drawer was opened. Some models have special keys and latches for such instances.

Modern Cash Registers Whether you have a small business or a restaurant, modern line of cash registers will fit the bills for you. These computerized cash registers of the day can be attached to scales, check stands and bar code readers. Some specially ordered models have the capacity to be attached to credit card terminals and software such as EFTPOS. EFTPOS stands for Electronic Fund Transfer and Point of Sale, which handle transactions with customers. It handles electronic debiting of customers? accounts and crediting the amount to the merchants? account.

Pilferages with modern cash registers are not easy. These are highly protected. One example is alphanumeric passwords.

Accounting and Taxation Angle to Cash Registers It is mandatory for customers and merchants to maintain the receipts for some time while merchants compile tax returns. The point is, it is easy taking stock at the cash registers by the volume of sales rather than inventory. Bar code scanners such as EAN and UPC maintain logs for each item sold and totaled at the end of the day.

Top Manufacturers and Salient Features Japanese have pulled it off in this regard. Toshiba, Casio, Sharp and American companies like IBM, Wincor-Nixdorf and TEC are top selling models. Features keep changing but, Clerk ID System, Self Tax Computation, Memory Protection, Locking Cash Drawer Locking coin tray, multiple tax rates; thermal printers and pop-up rear display are only the most common features.

Have you seen a self checkout cash register yet?

Alan Ross is a regular article contributor on many topics. Be sure to visit his other websites Cash Register Resources, POS Cash Register and One Stop Information

Why You Need To Advertise Beyond The Cash Register

2008-01-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

Advertising campaigns need clearly defined objectives, especially when the offer is a low margin sale on single (or a few) items. Most ad efforts by small to mid-size businesses leave the real money on the table. Here's how to extend your strategy beyond the initial sale.

Advertise Beyond The Cash Register
Most of the retail ads I see offer ?bargain basement? discounts with painfully low profit value to the seller. Sure, there?s the expectation that a buyer will make an additional purchase, but as someone very accurately said, ?hope is not a strategy?!

While it might be a moderately safe ?percentage play? to hope that a buyer will make multiple purchases?a more proactive conversion strategy will produce more impressive, and far more profitable results. Formulating longer-range objectives in all of your ad campaigns will, ultimately, lower your overall marketing costs by increasing the profitability of each campaign.

You Know They?re Coming, So ?Bake A Cake?
Attracting buyers isn?t the same as acquiring a customer, and your marketing strategy has to take this distinction into account. A business that?s not converting buyers into customers is just an endless series of promotions!

Why not have your salespeople ready with pre-planned up-sell and cross-sell strategies, as well as bundled offerings to go along with your initially advertised ?specials?? Granting authority to offer discretionary ?one-off? discounts to complete a bundle can add tremendous power to your sales force and turbo charge their effectiveness.

When an ad campaign is well thought out, your product offering gives a lot of clues about what the buyers who respond really want to accomplish. Instead of thinking about the products you?re selling, consider what problem your buyers want to solve as a result of the purchase.

When you think like a solutions provider, you can create upselling and cross-selling tactics in advance, and instruct your sales force accordingly. This is where discretionary ?one-off? discounts come in handy. Your sales staff can then construct a personalized bundled solution that may have otherwise been missed.

Show The Advantages Of Being A Customer
Do you sell to a return trip by offering a ?first time buyer?s certificate? that is good for some special offering if redeemed in the next 15 or 30 days? What about a ?bring a friend coupon? that may get a response from an additional buyer that your campaign may have either missed or failed to convince.

Your sales staff should have a range of 'bounce-back' options since the same offer isn?t going to be attractive to everyone. Just guessing by what is being bought at the time is a very inaccurate way to judge. After all, the guy whose buying exterior paint supplies for his home isn?t going to be doing that again for a long time!

Capture Their Personal Data
Do you enroll them in your automatic ?birthday discount shopping spree? program to capture their personal information? You?ll need it in the future to involve your new buyer in your relationship marketing efforts.

When you can correlate this data with their first purchase, purchase amounts, etc., you can begin to develop accurate individual customer profiles. As time goes by you?ll know the buying patterns and preferences that will let you deliver laser focused, irresistible offers that generate high volume, high profit responses.

The Takeaway
The deliberate planning of the micro-steps all along the conversion process will generate higher returns on your advertising investments and ensure a continuously widening customer base. You?ll soon see a dramatic upsurge in revenue that you may have otherwise thought impossible!

Kamau Jackson is a Chicago marketing consultant who helps business owners leverage their existing assets to dramatically increase profits?without increasing advertising costs. Get more info about online and offline small business marketing strategies at www.internetknowledgesolutions.com. ? 2006 Internet Knowledge Solutions.

For Maximum Profit Growth: Advertise Beyond The Cash Register

2008-01-11T01:23:00.000-08:00

Much of the advertising by small to mid-size businesses leaves the real money on the table. Here's how to extend your profit strategy beyond the initial sale.

Most of the retail advertising I see offers "bargain basement" discounts with painfully low profit value to the seller. Sure, there's the expectation that a buyer will make an additional purchase, but as someone very accurately said, "hope is not a strategy"! Using a more proactive conversion strategy will give you far more profitable results.

Formulating longer-range objectives in all of your ad campaigns will, ultimately, lower your overall marketing costs by increasing the profitability of each campaign.

You Know They're Coming, So 'Bake A Cake'
Attracting buyers isn't the same as acquiring a customer, and your marketing strategy has to take this distinction into account. A business that's not converting buyers into customers is just an endless series of promotions!

Why not have your salespeople ready with pre-planned up-sell and cross-sell strategies, as well as bundled offerings to go along with your initially advertised 'specials'? Granting authority to offer discretionary 'one-off' discounts to complete a bundle can add tremendous power to your sales force and turbo charge their effectiveness.

When an ad campaign is well thought out, your product offering gives a lot of clues about what the buyers who respond really want to accomplish. Instead of thinking about the products you're selling, consider what problem your buyers want to solve as a result of the purchase.

Show The Advantages Of Being A Customer
Do you sell to a return trip by offering a 'first time buyer's certificate' that is good for some special offering if redeemed in the next 15 or 30 days? What about a 'bring a friend coupon' that may get an additional buyer your campaign may have either missed or failed to convince.

Your sales staff should have a range of 'bounce-back' options since the same offer isn't going to be attractive to everyone.

Capture Their Personal Data
Do you enroll them in your automatic 'birthday discount shopping spree' program to capture their personal information? You'll need it in the future to involve your new buyer in your relationship marketing efforts. When you can begin to acurately correlate this data, you can begin to develop accurate individual customer profiles.

As time goes by you'll know the buying patterns and preferences that will let you deliver laser focused, offers that generate high volume, high profit responses.

The Takeaway
The deliberate planning of your conversion process will generate higher returns on your advertising investments and ensure a continuously widening customer base. You'll soon see a dramatic upsurge in revenue that you may have otherwise thought impossible!

Kamau Jackson is a Chicago marketing consultant who helps business owners leverage their existing assets to dramatically increase profits without increasing advertising costs. Get more info about online and offline small business marketing strategies at www.internetknowledgesolutions.com.

Why An Efficient POS (Point of Sale ) Cash Register System May Be The Best Investment You'll Ever Make

2008-01-09T00:48:00.001-08:00

One software company that stands out above the rest is a Canadian-based company called Tesoro Technologies, Incorporated. Wired or wireless, Windows or Linux, networked or independent terminals, their Volant? POS System is up for any challenge. Since 1993, Volant? System developers have been designing equipment that is "cash register tough and computer smart" to serve some of the biggest and best.

Snow Valley Ski Resort, located in Barrie, Ontario, wanted a POS system that could produce ID cards and time passes, manage a client database and ski school, as well as handling all their food and beverage and retail services. The geographical location had Director, Peter Haney, concerned at first. " Like most ski resorts, we are very remote. We needed a satellite tower and wireless system. We also looked at a lot of providers and found that most of the companies didn't offer the hospitality end we needed. Volant? is hospitality."

Tesoro had to install a fail-safe, independently running system for the remote summit area that could also be integrated with the high volume operations below. Using both wired and wireless network topology, their system has operated without software failure despite the unstable power and network issues. Snow Valley Ski Resort also utilizes the database of guests and 5,800 pass holders to generate email broadcasts, which enhances their marketing plan. "We're real pleased with Volant?. It's an entity that grows and evolves along with our business," says Haney.

Used Cash Registers

2008-01-09T00:47:00.001-08:00

There are a large number of used cash registers available for sale on the Internet. Used cash registers are a good way for a business to save money. A register that is suitable for the scale and type of business needs to be well researched and picked carefully.

Companies that sell used cash registers usually do a thorough check of the machine. After that the printer is given a rebuild and fresh printer rolls are loaded. Loose connections and loose circuits are examined and fixed. The machine is dismantled, cleaned out, and then reassembled. During this time, every effort to make the machine look as new as possible will be made. The basic requirements are then reprogrammed into the register. An instruction manual comes with the register to help once it arrives at its destination.

There are many businesses that cater to second-hand reconditioned cash registers, offering repairs, regular servicing and troubleshooting. Some dealers are completely dedicated to selling used cash tills exclusively. The average life of a cash register is 15 years, but it can be extended much more. Most people upgrade their machines every 5 years, which means many used registers available have plenty of life left in them.

Usually when clients purchase new machines, the original dealers buy back the old ones and resell them after servicing. If buying a register for the first time, it is a good idea to start with a used machine and then as needs become clearer upgrade to a new one. That is a good way to discover your cash register needs, and not get stuck with one that lacks the required functionality.

The main thing to check for in a used machine is the speed and accuracy. There should also be a secure money tray and a battery backup, in case the machine loses power. Keeping these things in mind, it is often a good idea to purchase used cash registers.

Cash Registers provides detailed information on Cash Registers, Cash Registers for Sale, Electronic Cash Registers, Used Cash Registers and more. Cash Registers is affliated with Business Letter Forms

Switching from a cash register to a computerized point of sale system was my best business move ever!

2008-01-06T23:03:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the great benefits I have come to appreciate after installing a computerized point of sale system in my business.

Isn't a point of sale system just like a cash register?

Helps prevent theft by just being there.

Reduce inventory shrinkage.

Better manage your inventory.

Watch your margins.

Keep your customers happy.

Pricing accuracy.

Build a customer list.

A computerized point of sale system has been one of the best investments I have made for my business. My business has become more efficient, more profitable and a better place for my customers.

Any doubt I may have had 2 years ago has been replaced with absolute amazement for what a computerized POS system has done for my business.

Raymond D of MELBOURNE VIC - POSActive Customer

Preventing Your Visitors From Eluding Your Cash Register

2008-01-06T23:02:00.001-08:00

The World Wide Web is probably the biggest technological advancement in the last 75 years. Every bit of information you could ever need is right at your fingertips. However, reading that information can get to be a bit hard on the eyes.

As a Web-surfer, you've probably noticed that it is hard to spend a lot of time reading Web pages directly from your computer screen. The more information there is on a Web page, the more apt you are to print it out and read it later rather then read it directly off the screen. You most likely tend to scan Web pages, reading only what you find interesting.

Now, as a Web site owner, let me ask you this. Are you overwhelming your visitors with too much text? Yes, I know, "copy sells". However, long text (whether sales copy, reports, articles or anything else) read from a lighted surface (like your computer monitor) is not as enjoyable because of the eyestrain. However, there are ways you can create an environment where reading is pleasurable.

Get Their Attention With A Catchy Headline

The first thing your visitor should notice is the headline on the page. Make sure your headline is bold and at least 2 point sizes larger then the rest of your copy. Most importantly, use a headline that will get your visitors attention and will interest them into reading more.

That said... don't stop there! Go on to include "subheads" throughout your copy. It has been proven time and time again that Web site visitors scan before they read. By including sub-headlines within your copy, you can help them quickly pick out exactly what interests them - keeping them at your site longer and increasing your chances of making a sale.

break It Up

break up your copy into easy to read paragraphs of about 3 sentences. Use subheads whenever possible. If you have an extreme amount of copy (long sales letter, extensive report, etc.) you may choose to triple space between paragraphs instead of double space. This will allow more "white space" to come through, thus making it easier on your reader's eyes.

break things out even further by using bulleted or numbered lists. These types of lists are easily scanned so be sure to include important points or benefits within your list.

Lastly, vary your justification. Flush left is the easiest to read. However, an occasional sentence or paragraph that is centered can bring attention to a statement and give additional visual interest to your reader.

Make The Fonts Eye-Friendly

Use an easy to read font for the main copy of your Web site. Arial, Verdana or Helvetica are good fonts to use because they are "non-serif". This means they have no "feet", they appear straight up and down. Non-serif fonts are more easily viewed on a lighted surface. Serif fonts (like Times Roman) that have small "curves" or "feet" at the stopping points of the letters are more easily read in print.

Some other tips include:

· Using a plain black font if possible. Colored text is very hard to read on a computer screen, as it strains the eyes.

· Avoiding all capital letters as they are associated with shouting.

· Using bold or italics only to emphasize important phrases.

· Avoiding underlined text. Underlines are associated with hyperlinks and your visitors may be mislead if you underline text that is not a clickable link.

· Creating graphics-free pages for information that your visitors would be interested in printing out. Since your product is what your visitors came to your site for, it only makes sense to place special emphasis on the text. The more enjoyable you can make your customer's stay, the longer they'll visit, the more likely they'll buy and the better the chance they'll come back.

Carmen is the VP Client Relations of Ms. SEO Inc., a Calgary based Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing Company. Ms. Seo Inc. works with their sister company Ms. Hype Inc., a Calgary Web Design Company, and their parent company Cre8 Hype Solutions Inc., a Calgary based Internet Marketing Company, to offer their clients a powerful online presence.

Why Are Your Cash Registers Empty? 8 Reasons Why Your Site is not Getting Sales

2008-01-06T23:01:00.001-08:00

Ok, you've got your webpage up and running and you have submitted your site to the
search engines, now it is time to make that money! Right? Well then, how come your
virtual cash register has that hollow ring to it everytime you open it? Your site is not
making sales and there are at least 8 reasons why and 8 simple fixes you can
implement in order to immediately remedy anything you are doing incorrectly.

1.You have relied on a passive promotion strategy to get the word out about your
site. Many of you assume that simply putting up a website will cause tons of
visitors to flock to your site with cash in hand practically begging to buy your
products or services.

Sorry, a passive marketing strategy may bring you in a trickle of sales or
absolutely none at all. Alternatively, by utilizing an active marketing strategy,
you do not wait for visitors to come to you, you do everything in your power to
bring targeted visitors to your site. Active marketers utilize methods such as
ezine advertising and article submissions to targeted ezines in order to draw
traffic to their site. They will also use free publicity tools such as press releases
in order to get the word out about their site to an audience that cares.

2.You do not offer a simple and secure method of online ordering or accept
different forms of payment.

This could be easily solved by getting set up with a merchant account provider
that enables you to accept checks and all the major credit cards and provides
you with a secure website to process transactions automatically. The best
company for this in my opinion is ECommerce Exchange. You can learn more
about them here:
http://www.qcaffiliate.com/qc/goldbar

3.You do not have a method of capturing your prospects names and email
addresses when they visit your site.

Get this set up immediately and start building a mailing list of interested
prospects.

The best way to do this is to offer a mailing list that people could subscribe to.
You could offer either a newsletter about a topic that interests your audience or
even a small tips sheet that sends people interesting and useful information
related to the topic of your website. When you've built up your list to over a few
hundred people, then you can begin to send commercial information regarding
the products and services you offer. As long as you are also offering quality
information for free, your audience will be more responsive to your commercial
solicitations.

4.You do not offer enough methods for people to contact you.

You should offer people as many different ways of contacting (and ordering)
from you as possible. Here are some cost effective contact methods you can
implement: the most natural one on the web is of course email. However, you
should also include your phone number for those who prefer to speak with a
human being. If you have one, provide a fax number. There is an inexpensive fax
solution available from a company called JFax. They will allow you to receive
both fax and voice messages in your inbox for an extremely low monthly fee. To
learn more visit: http://www.j2.com Lastly, you should always list your snail
mail address on your website.

5.You only advertise online.

Big mistake. There are millions of people offline who might be interested in your
site and your information. They are often more likely to order immediately as
opposed to someone who surfs the web regularly and who knows they can
always "come back sometime in the future".

One of the best ways to reach an audience and bring them to your site is to put
your URL and your email address on every piece of correspondence you send
out. I know of one person who adds his URL to every bill he sends out hoping
that it will cause someone to visit. The best part is that this type of promotion is
free so you have nothing to lose. One of the most effective offline advertising
techniques involves getting your ad onto a card deck that reaches a targeted
audience. This is a great way to spread the word about your site to many
interested prospects who otherwise may not have had the chance to find out
about you.

6.You do not rely on the power of joint ventures to get the word out about your
products and services.

Joint venture endorsements have the power to bring in more visitors and sales
to your site than any other method I know of. Joint Venture Marketing involves 2
parties: a list owner and someone who wishes to have his product or service
introduced and endorsed to the members of the mailing list. This has the ability
to pull in a large amount of sales due to the trust built up between the members
of the list and the list owner. When he endorses your products or services in
his own words to his list, he conveys your legitimacy and in turn they transfer
their trust to you. If you have ever heard radio shows like Rush Limbaugh or
Howard Stern, you will notice that the ads that receive the most response are
the ones that these disk jockeys read themselves and almost make a part of
their "shtick". They are in effect endorsing a product and in turn generating
interest and sales for it.

7.You do not follow up when people ask you for more information.

Huge mistake. That person has indicated that they are interested in what you
have to sell. Statistics show that people have to be exposed to your marketing
message at least 7 times before they will respond. Sending one email
explaining your product is not enough. You must follow up with a prospect and
make a concerted effort to close the sale. Explain the benefits of your product
or service, refer them to testimonials of satisfied customers, ask if you can call
them to explain your product in greater detail. If people see this as badgering
and they ask you to stop bothering them by all means do so. A great idea is to
automate all of your follow-up by using autoresponders. There are some great
tools on the market to help you with this, we highly recommend using
GetResponse. Discover some of the great benefits of using this sequential
autoresponder by clicking here: http://www.getresponse.com?13323

8.You try to sell too many products and services from your website.

This may work for a site selling books or toys or vitamins where people may be
looking for a large variety of products. However, on a site that is geared towards
business, too many product offerings can give the impression that your
business lacks focus. If someone gets to your site and is immediately
bombarded with marketing material, they may become overwhelmed or even
annoyed at the commercial nature of your site. Offering many products and
services takes away from your credibility by giving the impression that you will
sell anything just to make a buck. Instead, develop your site around one or two
complementary products and services and offer lots of free, related information.
That is sure to build up your credibility with your potential customers. Try to
develop a traffic magnet (such as a discussion board or related articles) so you
can bring back your targeted audience time and again.
search engines, now it is time to make that money! Right? Well then, how come your
virtual cash register has that hollow ring to it everytime you open it? Your site is not
making sales and there are at least 8 reasons why and 8 simple fixes you can
implement in order to immediately remedy anything you are doing incorrectly.

1.You have relied on a passive promotion strategy to get the word out about your
site. Many of you assume that simply putting up a website will cause tons of
visitors to flock to your site with cash in hand practically begging to buy your
products or services.

Sorry, a passive marketing strategy may bring you in a trickle of sales or
absolutely none at all. Alternatively, by utilizing an active marketing strategy,
you do not wait for visitors to come to you, you do everything in your power to
bring targeted visitors to your site. Active marketers utilize methods such as
ezine advertising and article submissions to targeted ezines in order to draw
traffic to their site. They will also use free publicity tools such as press releases
in order to get the word out about their site to an audience that cares.

2.You do not offer a simple and secure method of online ordering or accept
different forms of payment.

This could be easily solved by getting set up with a merchant account provider
that enables you to accept checks and all the major credit cards and provides
you with a secure website to process transactions automatically. The best
company for this in my opinion is ECommerce Exchange. You can learn more
about them here:
http://www.qcaffiliate.com/qc/goldbar

3.You do not have a method of capturing your prospects names and email
addresses when they visit your site.

Get this set up immediately and start building a mailing list of interested
prospects.

The best way to do this is to offer a mailing list that people could subscribe to.
You could offer either a newsletter about a topic that interests your audience or
even a small tips sheet that sends people interesting and useful information
related to the topic of your website. When you've built up your list to over a few
hundred people, then you can begin to send commercial information regarding
the products and services you offer. As long as you are also offering quality
information for free, your audience will be more responsive to your commercial
solicitations.

4.You do not offer enough methods for people to contact you.

You should offer people as many different ways of contacting (and ordering)
from you as possible. Here are some cost effective contact methods you can
implement: the most natural one on the web is of course email. However, you
should also include your phone number for those who prefer to speak with a
human being. If you have one, provide a fax number. There is an inexpensive fax
solution available from a company called JFax. They will allow you to receive
both fax and voice messages in your inbox for an extremely low monthly fee. To
learn more visit: http://www.j2.com Lastly, you should always list your snail
mail address on your website.

5.You only advertise online.

Big mistake. There are millions of people offline who might be interested in your
site and your information. They are often more likely to order immediately as
opposed to someone who surfs the web regularly and who knows they can
always "come back sometime in the future".

One of the best ways to reach an audience and bring them to your site is to put
your URL and your email address on every piece of correspondence you send
out. I know of one person who adds his URL to every bill he sends out hoping
that it will cause someone to visit. The best part is that this type of promotion is
free so you have nothing to lose. One of the most effective offline advertising
techniques involves getting your ad onto a card deck that reaches a targeted
audience. This is a great way to spread the word about your site to many
interested prospects who otherwise may not have had the chance to find out
about you.

6.You do not rely on the power of joint ventures to get the word out about your
products and services.

Joint venture endorsements have the power to bring in more visitors and sales
to your site than any other method I know of. Joint Venture Marketing involves 2
parties: a list owner and someone who wishes to have his product or service
introduced and endorsed to the members of the mailing list. This has the ability
to pull in a large amount of sales due to the trust built up between the members
of the list and the list owner. When he endorses your products or services in
his own words to his list, he conveys your legitimacy and in turn they transfer
their trust to you. If you have ever heard radio shows like Rush Limbaugh or
Howard Stern, you will notice that the ads that receive the most response are
the ones that these disk jockeys read themselves and almost make a part of
their "shtick". They are in effect endorsing a product and in turn generating
interest and sales for it.

7.You do not follow up when people ask you for more information.

Huge mistake. That person has indicated that they are interested in what you
have to sell. Statistics show that people have to be exposed to your marketing
message at least 7 times before they will respond. Sending one email
explaining your product is not enough. You must follow up with a prospect and
make a concerted effort to close the sale. Explain the benefits of your product
or service, refer them to testimonials of satisfied customers, ask if you can call
them to explain your product in greater detail. If people see this as badgering
and they ask you to stop bothering them by all means do so. A great idea is to
automate all of your follow-up by using autoresponders. There are some great
tools on the market to help you with this, we highly recommend using
GetResponse. Discover some of the great benefits of using this sequential
autoresponder by clicking here: http://www.getresponse.com?13323

8.You try to sell too many products and services from your website.

This may work for a site selling books or toys or vitamins where people may be
looking for a large variety of products. However, on a site that is geared towards
business, too many product offerings can give the impression that your
business lacks focus. If someone gets to your site and is immediately
bombarded with marketing material, they may become overwhelmed or even
annoyed at the commercial nature of your site. Offering many products and
services takes away from your credibility by giving the impression that you will
sell anything just to make a buck. Instead, develop your site around one or two
complementary products and services and offer lots of free, related information.
That is sure to build up your credibility with your potential customers. Try to
develop a traffic magnet (such as a discussion board or related articles) so you
can bring back your targeted audience time and again.

Marc Goldman, Goldbar Enterprises
subscribe to The Marketers Resource Weekly:
The Free Internet Marketing Resource for the New
Millennium. Subscribe at http://www.goldbar.net
Discover the exclusive members only website that
will propel your business to dizzying heights.
The Ultimate Marketers Resource

Why Are Your Cash Registers Empty? 8 Reasons Why Your Site is not Getting Sales

2008-01-03T01:20:00.001-08:00

1.You have relied on a passive promotion strategy to get the word out about your site. Many of you assume that simply putting up a website will cause tons of visitors to flock to your site with cash in hand practically begging to buy your products or services.

Sorry, a passive marketing strategy may bring you in a trickle of sales or absolutely none at all. Alternatively, by utilizing an active marketing strategy, you do not wait for visitors to come to you, you do everything in your power to bring targeted visitors to your site. Active marketers utilize methods such as ezine advertising and article submissions to targeted ezines in order to draw traffic to their site. They will also use free publicity tools such as press releases in order to get the word out about their site to an audience that cares.

2.You do not offer a simple and secure method of online ordering or accept different forms of payment.

This could be easily solved by getting set up with a merchant account provider that enables you to accept checks and all the major credit cards and provides you with a secure website to process transactions automatically. The best company for this in my opinion is ECommerce Exchange. You can learn more about them here:
http://www.qcaffiliate.com/qc/goldbar

3.You do not have a method of capturing your prospects names and email addresses when they visit your site.

Get this set up immediately and start building a mailing list of interested prospects.

The best way to do this is to offer a mailing list that people could subscribe to. You could offer either a newsletter about a topic that interests your audience or even a small tips sheet that sends people interesting and useful information related to the topic of your website. When you've built up your list to over a few hundred people, then you can begin to send commercial information regarding the products and services you offer. As long as you are also offering quality information for free, your audience will be more responsive to your commercial solicitations.

4.You do not offer enough methods for people to contact you.

You should offer people as many different ways of contacting (and ordering) from you as possible. Here are some cost effective contact methods you can implement: the most natural one on the web is of course email. However, you should also include your phone number for those who prefer to speak with a human being. If you have one, provide a fax number. There is an inexpensive fax solution available from a company called JFax. They will allow you to receive both fax and voice messages in your inbox for an extremely low monthly fee. To learn more visit: http://www.j2.com Lastly, you should always list your snail mail address on your website.

5.You only advertise online.

Big mistake. There are millions of people offline who might be interested in your site and your information. They are often more likely to order immediately as opposed to someone who surfs the web regularly and who knows they can always "come back sometime in the future".

One of the best ways to reach an audience and bring them to your site is to put your URL and your email address on every piece of correspondence you send out. I know of one person who adds his URL to every bill he sends out hoping that it will cause someone to visit. The best part is that this type of promotion is free so you have nothing to lose. One of the most effective offline advertising techniques involves getting your ad onto a card deck that reaches a targeted audience. This is a great way to spread the word about your site to many interested prospects who otherwise may not have had the chance to find out about you.

6.You do not rely on the power of joint ventures to get the word out about your products and services.

Joint venture endorsements have the power to bring in more visitors and sales to your site than any other method I know of. Joint Venture Marketing involves 2 parties: a list owner and someone who wishes to have his product or service introduced and endorsed to the members of the mailing list. This has the ability to pull in a large amount of sales due to the trust built up between the members of the list and the list owner. When he endorses your products or services in his own words to his list, he conveys your legitimacy and in turn they transfer their trust to you. If you have ever heard radio shows like Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern, you will notice that the ads that receive the most response are the ones that these disk jockeys read themselves and almost make a part of their "shtick". They are in effect endorsing a product and in turn generating interest and sales for it.

7.You do not follow up when people ask you for more information.

Huge mistake. That person has indicated that they are interested in what you have to sell. Statistics show that people have to be exposed to your marketing message at least 7 times before they will respond. Sending one email explaining your product is not enough. You must follow up with a prospect and make a concerted effort to close the sale. Explain the benefits of your product or service, refer them to testimonials of satisfied customers, ask if you can call them to explain your product in greater detail. If people see this as badgering and they ask you to stop bothering them by all means do so. A great idea is to automate all of your follow-up by using autoresponders. There are some great tools on the market to help you with this, we highly recommend using GetResponse. Discover some of the great benefits of using this sequential autoresponder by clicking here: http://www.getresponse.com?13323

8.You try to sell too many products and services from your website.

This may work for a site selling books or toys or vitamins where people may be looking for a large variety of products. However, on a site that is geared towards business, too many product offerings can give the impression that your business lacks focus. If someone gets to your site and is immediately bombarded with marketing material, they may become overwhelmed or even annoyed at the commercial nature of your site. Offering many products and services takes away from your credibility by giving the impression that you will sell anything just to make a buck. Instead, develop your site around one or two complementary products and services and offer lots of free, related information. That is sure to build up your credibility with your potential customers. Try to develop a traffic magnet (such as a discussion board or related articles) so you can bring back your targeted audience time and again.

Marc Goldman, Goldbar Enterprises
subscribe to The Marketers Resource Weekly: The Free Internet Marketing Resource for the New Millennium. Subscribe at http://www.goldbar.net Discover the exclusive members only website that will propel your business to dizzying heights. The Ultimate Marketers Resource

Restaurant Management Software - An Overview

2008-01-01T22:06:00.001-08:00

There are several types of software that can help your restaurant run more efficiently. Here is an overview:

POS Software

POS stands for Point Of Sale. Point Of Sale software is basically a program that combines many aspect of restaurant management including order taking, order entry, billing, staff supervision and account organization tasks into one program.

Most restaurants will need a Point Of Sale station at several points in the restaurant including the front of the restaurant, the back office area and the kitchen.

POS software can handle complete order and customer management including tracking the number of orders and customers, table information, billing transactions and more.

POS software can also provides excellent organizational abilities to help monitor and report every aspect of order taking and customer interaction and do proper timekeeping, inventory tracking, stock management, security tasks and much more.

Restaurant Inventory Software

Restaurant inventory software is much more of a database style of program that helps to keep track of your food stocks, can alert you to foods that are required or will be required soon and can even assist in replenishing the needed stocks by recommending the correct amounts according to the database history and its forecasts for future usage. Inventory software will also help save money by reducing the spoilage of food by telling you to order only the amounts you should need.

Costing Software

Costing software can be very important to a restaurant. Costing software can help you track and maintain your food inventory, like restaurant inventory software, but it has the added benefit of calculating the costs of your menu items through its analysis tools. This helps the restaurant owner to properly price their food in order to make maximum profits and also provide value to the customer. Costing software can also be invaluable for catering companies, so they can properly price their events.

Suites

There are also suites of software available that combine one or more of the above types of restaurant management software. These suites will be much more optimized to work together properly and to help your restaurant run to the best of its ability or to improve the efficiency of an existing restaurant.

Whatever restaurant software you choose, your restaurant is bound to benefit from the many advantages in ordering, customer management, inventory management and costing services they will provide. Technology is now an important part of restaurant management, and used wisely, reaps great benefits for the savvy restaurant owner.

Lydia Quinn writes for Cost Genie, leading maker of restaurant costing, restaurant inventory and menu costing software. Visit us at: http://www.costgenie.com

Restaurant Inventory Software

2007-12-29T01:30:00.000-08:00

Marketing is the buzzword when talking about restaurant inventory software. Marketing starts with the determination of consumer wants and ends with the satisfaction of those wants. The concept puts the consumer both at the beginning and at the end of the business cycle. It stipulates that any business should be organized around the marketing function, anticipating, stimulating and meeting customer requirements. The customer, not the corporation has to be the center of the business universe.

Restaurant inventory software cannot succeed by supplying products and services that are not properly designed to serve the needs of the customers. It proclaims that the entire business has to be seen from the point of view of the customer. In a company practicing this concept, all departments will recognize that their actions have a profound impact on the company?s ability to create and retain a customer. Every department and every worker and manager will ?think customer? and ?act customer?.

The other distinguishing feature of restaurant inventory software is integrated management action. Integrated management action simply means that all the different functions of the business must be tightly integrated with one another, keeping marketing as the pivot. This is essential because every function has a bearing on the consumer, and the aim is to see that all the functions lead to a favorable impact on the consumer. For this to happen, all functions have to be integrated and properly aligned with marketing.

In organizations that do not practice integrated management, the different functions of the organization are preoccupied with the optimization of their specific activities, often at the cost of optimization of the overall result. Consumer satisfaction, which is a major theme of restaurant inventory software, is again not an end in itself. The concept does not preach that a firm must generate consumer satisfaction and forget the other goals of the organization. Instead, it treats consumer satisfaction as the pathway to the attainment of all the goals of the organization.

Inventory Software provides detailed information on Home Inventory Software, Inventory Accounting Software, Inventory Management Software, Inventory Software and more. Inventory Software is affliated with Fleet Maintenance Software Reviews.