How Can a POS System Help My Business?

I know a lot of you may think “Is a POS system really effective?”. You may not mind relying on your cash register and sales ledger for your transactions because it’s affordable and reliable. But is it really the most efficient way to run your business?

While it is true that POS system requires expenses, it is very important to take into consideration the vast benefits it can offer to your business. Regardless of what industry you are in, the goal is to have more sales and generate more revenue. POS can help set the groundwork for achieving those goals – and many others. Below are some of what POS systems can do for your particular business:

Allows you to concentrate more on your business - POS systems allow companies to concentrate on growing the business. When you’re not worrying about how your transactions are processed, you can spend more time working on new techniques, promotions, and other initiatives to take your company to the next level.

Improved Functionality - POS systems are more than just sophisticated cash registers. They can also hold reservations, take special orders, get in touch with other locations, and provide guest beeper systems to maintain the flow of your business.

Work Efficiently With Your Operations - Using a POS system, there’s little room for error. Everything is entered in clear, intricate detail so the lines of communication are always clearly outlined. With a POS, orders are quickly served to customers with improved accuracy! In return, it also improves your productivity and level of customer service your retail business can offer.

Improve inventory management - One of the most important task in food service industries is to check whether your supplies, perishable goods, are still in good state before you serve it to your customers and be sure to stock enough supplies without letting them to go to waste when soldunsold. With POS systems, you’ll always be informed when certain stocks are running low and which are your best sellers so you can plan ahead.

Lessen Shrinkage - Implementing POS can keep your employees honest. With paper receipts and an old-fashioned cash register, the temptation will always be there to pocket a few dollars or give friends a free meal or two. POS curbs these activities tremendously, providing an accurate account of where your merchandise (and money) are going.

Reduce The Chance For Errors - If you’re in the food service industry, you no longer need to decipher cramped hand-written orders from busy wait staff! POS allows you to key in orders, including specifics, to decrease the chances that it will come out wrong. By this, you can keep your customers happy by serving them the right order. You will never have to re-cook orders and waste food, plus it’ll save you a great amount of money.

Track Costs - If you don’t have prices clearly entered in a database, you might as well let customers shop with their own pricing gun. Placing price stickers on items can make it too easy for thieves to swap labels. Using a POS, all items is bar coded and tracker so you can always know and input an item’s right price. And if changes are needed to be done, you can do them all at once direct from your POS terminal!

Increasing Customers That Patronize Your Restaurant - By quickly and accurately serving customers in line, you can have more customers coming in your front door. And when customers no longer waits for a staff to bring their checks, collect payment and clear their tables, your waiter can servce more customers and increase your sales.

Getting Accurate Reports - With POS, you can do more than what you could with multiple ledgers and spreadsheets. You can record, track, sort, and organize data in any format and make revisions whenever necessary. The value of reporting is such a key component to a POS system. It allows you to track what is sold, see what products needs to be restocked and reordered, and help you plan for the next few months of business and beyond. You can use it as a reminder tool when supplies are running low.

Track Customer Data - Build your customer loyalty and let the POS be your guide. Consider this, every customer that enters your restaurant will be entered into your POS system when they order something. Keep tabs on what they order and how often they visit your restaurant. Then using this information, you can target for sales and advertising campaigns. This inforamtion is also helpful to limit the poor selling item you keep in stock and assign funds for more popular items.

There are several critical things in restauratn POS systems purchase in any industry. Make sure to meet with at least 3-4 qualified POS vendors before making any decisions. In any case, you can always request for a free POS system quote, where vendors will be able to meet your needs once you’ve given them enough info about your POS needs. Provide them with the details of the information you wish to track and the features that can help you ease your job. Always be aware when the software appears to MAKE you do things differently. This is often the recommended set of procedures that allow the software to improve your business efficiency. With the proper POS solution at hand, makes your business more efficient, more profitable, more enjoyable, and keep your customers happy!

Need more information or an online resource?

You may visit POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

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.