Point of Sale Revolutionizes Business
When was the last time you went into a store to make a purchase and the cashier wrote your sale down by hand into a receipt booklet, handed you the top copy and kept the carbon copy for himself or herself? It doesn’t happen very often, though the fact that it stands out so much to us when it does occur points to how pervasive computerized Point of Sale (POS) technology is in our society. The conversion from manual recordkeeping to computerized POS technology has absolutely revolutionized business. Businesses of every type and size have always needed a system for recording sales, inventory, and accounting. This technology impacts everyone from owners and managers to employees, customers, and vendors.
Every POS system has different features, strengths, and intended uses. Increased speed, fewer data entry errors, and the ability to easily track trends are some of the greatest benefits it offers. A wide variety of POS equipment allows for streamlined data entry, data display, and data storage in many different work environments. Hardware provides the means for extremely quick and accurate input and output of data, but the heart of the system is the POS software.
POS software takes information entered in the normal course of transactions and stores it in a database. The real power of the software resides in being able to retrieve and rearrange this information in a format that is helpful for analysis. Good reports can clearly show the overall health of a business at a glance. These results are not based simply on general business trends, but on numbers generated from your own real-world transactions. The data is reliable and relevant to your business; you collected it!
For example, a store manager might be interested in comparing sales with inventory levels for each department. Data entered from sales transactions and inventory input is retrieved from the database to create this report. If for example, one department represents 25% of all inventory value but only accounts for 5% of overall revenue, this indicates a problem. No new data was required for this report to be generated; data from daily sales and inventory simply needed to be retrieved and rearranged.
There is so much to gain from the use of a POS system. Speed, accuracy, versatility, efficiency, and multi-faceted business analysis are some of what POS can offer your business. POS systems easily perform:
• Automated inventory adjustments
• Reviews of customer buying habits
• Comparisons of vendors, items, and departments
• Reports for audits, sales margins, sales taxes, inventory, time cards, and more!
• Exception reporting, detailing actions that impact cash drawer reconciliation. Review can help detect poorly trained or dishonest employees.
• Multi-location information exchange for: inventory, personnel, customers, vendors, and company mail.
• Reports for timing of sales spikes to monitor marketing effectiveness.
• Automatic posting of receipts to general ledgers and producing monthly financial statements.
Sometimes managers or owners are reluctant to invest in POS equipment, either for the first time or to upgrade, because they don’t know where to begin. There are many questions to ask when researching and deciding on a system. Here are a few general points to keep in mind:
• Choose software first. Find which software can do what you would like and need, then purchase hardware which supports it. Starting with the hardware first could potentially limit your choices for software later on.
• Look for industry specific software. The more tailored the software is to your industry, the more useful the reports you can generate and the more suitable the information you will have for your use. Relevant information helps you make smart business decisions.
• Ask the right people for help. Seek advice from people who deal with POS systems everyday. Whether you purchase from them or not, you will get information that will help you make the best decisions for your particular situation.
Switching to a computerized system may seem daunting at first, but the benefits are so far reaching that the investment in time and effort is well worth it.