Retail POS Systems
A retail POS system (Point of Sale) is simply a system that assists the owner in managing the business. These systems are comprised of both hardware and software. In a retail POS system, the behind the scenes activity takes place at the time of 'check out' by the customer.
The automated tasks done by a retail point of sale system vary depending on the type of business and the number of things the owner wants to automate or track.
Today there are specific POS systems designed for just about any type of business. These systems can make the management of a business a lot easier too. A few of the more popular types available are:
Bar POS systems
Pizza POS Systems
Restaurant POS systems
Retail POS systems
Salon POS systems
Each of these systems are designed around the specific tasks involved in running and managing that type of business.
When POS systems were first introduced they were little more than inventory tracking systems. They would automatically adjust inventory levels when an items was sold or returned. At the time, this was quite a leading edge technology. Since then, these systems have evolved into very sophisticated systems that can track a lot more than just inventory levels.
Today they can assist in employee scheduling, function as a time clock for monitoring and recording when an employee arrives and leaves. They can automatically calculate the correct amount of taxes to collect. So if some items you sell are taxed at different rates than others, these systems will save you a lot of bookkeeping time. They can print out your sales tax returns. They can calculate employees payroll checks along with automatically deducting the correct taxes and then send the company payroll taxes directly the proper authorities. They can account for 'sales' and 'discounts'. If you have a list of 'preferred customers' these systems can automatically know if the customer is a preferred customer and then give them their discount.
Todays systems can even collect the contact information from the customers and allow the business owner to send them 'special offer' via email or regular mail.
The list could go on and on but you get the picture.
There are a number of companies that offer POS systems. Some specialize in certain types of businesses and others make their system flexible enough so that they can be programmed to handle just about any task regardless of the type of business. The most popular type of software is actually sold by Microsoft in their Microsoft Point of Sale Software. Their system is quite flexible and with a company that large, you don't have to worry much about them going out of business.
That's not the case for some other vendors. There have been a lot of companies marketing and selling POS systems that have gone out of business. In many cases, customers of these companies were forced to buy new POS systems. In such cases, it's not just the money involved, it's the programming and learning of a new POS system. Be sure you are comfortable with the company you are buying your POS software from and be comfortable they will be there in the long run to support you.
