Start out the year right for your restaurant POS system. Let’s tackle some of the most common and crucial mistakes that retail business owners make in regard to some very basic configuration aspects of the computer system. Mistakes can badly damage a restaurant or any other retail establishment, not to mention the huge amount of time and money on repairs. Even worse than that… it can frustrate you, your customers and employees.

Whether you already have a computer system or you’re going to configure a new one yourself — it’s important for you to make sure everything is done accordingly.

Don’t let me give you the wrong message. I don’t always recommend configuring your own computer system! I recommend letting a professional do it for you. But I know some of you will do it yourself no matter what I say. So this is for those of you that insist on doing your own system installations and for everyone else to double check and make sure everything was done properly. This could help you avoid some major problems and save hours of precious time.

So here are some simple retail computer system configuration checklist for a Windows network you could follow:

1) Using a UPS
The main cause of electronic component failure is from fluctuations in electricity (up and down). Having a proper UPS can solve this problem by regulating the power. I recommend that you at least put a good UPS on your server. And it’s also a good idea to use them on all your workstations too.

2) Plugging All Cables Into the UPS
Check if all cables that power your computer and network are plugged into your UPS. It’s also important to check if cables that can carry electrical charges are plugged into a surge protector or UPS. For example, the phone line for your modem can heat up and fry your computer if you don’t plug it into a surge protector. So make sure your modem line, network cables, and power cords are all plugged in properly.

3) Tightening Up Security
It is advisable that you lock your server with a hard-to-break password on all Windows accounts so that no one will be able to access it especially hackers who will [intently damage your server].

4) Install Anti-virus and Anti-Spyware Software and Configure For Automatic Updates
It’s also very important to configure that software to update automatically every day, so you don’t forget.

5) Limiting Employee Internet Access
Employees will surft on anything they can on the internet. Anti-virus and anti-spyware software does help but if an employee inadvertently downloads the wrong program or accepts the wrong message, it can shut down your system down. You may limit them by disabling internet browsing on their computer stations. Or you could password protect internet access.

For restaurant owners, this is very important! In order to protect secured files from the hands of the dirty minds, limiting employee internet access is a must. A retail business owner has to enforce rules to protect his business as well as his profit. Otherwise, what good will a restaurant POS system do if it’s run by a misbahaved or ignorant personnel.

6) Configure Your Back Up To Run Every Night
As well proven in many situations, it’s still best to configure your back up to run automatically after work hours. But you still need to remember to change your back up device (like tapes) every day.

7) Test Your Backup By Restoring Files Once A Month
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve chatted with people that have hard drive failure and think they have a good back up plan to restore. But when they try to restore they find it hasn’t been working. That’s why you need to do a “real” test restore once a month to make sure it’s working. By the way, you should restore to an alternate file location so you don’t mess up your existing software.

So please, start checking your computer systems now and do the neccessary updates, configurations and back ups.

With over 20 years of restaruant experience, the author and Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-for-Restaurants.com, helps you use your technology to be more efficient and more profitable.

Tags: Point of S, Point of Sale, POS, restaurant automation, restaurant computer, restaurant hardware, restaurant point of sale, Restaurant pos, restaurant pos equipment, restaurant pos quote, restaurant software

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 9:36 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.