SMB IT | Curtis Franklin » How to Pick a Pack of Pickled POS Systems

November 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)

How to Pick a Pack of Pickled POS Systems

TAGS: SMB Hardware

Let's take a little break from the Vista/Office 2007 stuff. Still have a couple to go there, but I'll get to them. Just need something else before I OD on Windows.

POS=Point of Sale. Means cash register. Which is why many SMB managers treat it like an appliance. And it still can be if you just hop into Staples and pick a cheap one off the rack.

But with a little care, you can turn your cash register into a fount of information--and if you're using it in more than one location, that information bennie just multiplies.

The key is inventory management. All PC-based POS systems can handle the cash & credit card stuff. The reason to turn a computer into a cash register is inventory management. The PC in your warehouse stays in touch with the PCs running your cash registers. It lets sales people know what's left in the warehouse, how much it costs and when you can expect new stock.

The combination can let managers know what's selling, what's selling the best in which locations, see what's on back-order and how to manage it--all the stuff you'd expect.

Which one to pick is the next question. There are many of them. Both from big companies (Microsoft) all the way down to open source packages that are entirely free and run on the Penguin (check Freshmeat or SourceForge and you'll find dozens). How to choose?

Figure in growth. If your retail outlets are set to expand, make sure your POS vendor can supply your growth.

Figure in your customers. How do they pay. If it's credit cards and cash, that's one thing. If it's credit cards, cash and debit cards, that's something else. Make sure your POS vendor can support all the ways your customers want to pay.

Make sure the POS can talk to your warehouse. If you've already got a barcode-based warehouse inventory system, make sure the POS system can communicate with it. Barcodes are fairly well standardized nowadays, so there's little reason you should have to replace an existing warehouse inventory system simply because you're adding a POS front-end.

Think accounting. Making sure your cash register can talk to your corporate accounting system is pretty much the whole point, but there's talking and the there's talking. I've seen some POS platforms that consider printing an end-of-day sales report for hand-keying into the accounting app "communicating". That just won't do today. Whatever POS system you choose, it MUST be able to fully update your accounting system electronically and on a scheduled basis. No exceptions.

Once you've made a list of all the POS systems that meet these criteria for you then you can worry about price.

Posted by Oliver Rist on November 7, 2006 06:37 PM

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