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Selecting the best retail point of sale
system
Small and mid-sized
business traders require retail POS
systems which have the capability of
payment transaction management,
purchasing and inventory management,
pricing, product and sales promotions
for a single store or for multi-store
setting. Apart from this, traders who
have small and mid-sized businesses will
require a platform fir managing
procurement, Business Intelligence or
BI, customer relationship management or
CRM, sales management, production
management, service or project
management, and warehouse management.
Open source groups have come up with
free point of sale systems for
restaurants and retail stores. Traders
can download POS software at no extra
charge by paying the 3rd
parties a small charge for installation
and configuration. The system can be
customised based on personal needs and
is on the basis of proven Model Driven
Development or MDD, and Model, View,
Control or MVC development frameworks.
The software highlights
for a POS system are as follows:
Master Data Management:
This includes categories and its
subcategories, products, procurement
management, images, warehouse
management, restaurant locations with
their table layout, role and user
management.
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Organise and centralise the key
information points correctly.
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Guarantee the tracking and adherence of
essential business processes.
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Organise products and inventories based
on attributes for managing similar items
easily.
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Availability in several languages.
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Support various currencies.
Cash, Refund and Sales
Management: This includes printing and
editing of receipts, tax management,
promotions, discounts, payment
acceptance, bar coding and tax
management.
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Editing a number or receipts from a
single or multiple terminals all at
once.
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Allowing multiple payment schemes such
as cash transactions and card-present
transactions, and also accepting
payments for those that require Chip/PIN
PCI Standards, EMV Standards.
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Easy integration of point of sale with 3rd
party peripherals.
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Effective management of refunds.
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Flawless integration with payment
gateways.
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Managing internet, restaurant and retail
store with the usage of a singe payment
gateway merchant account.
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Inclusion of business merchant accounts.
Warehouse management –
This includes product receipts,
inventory count, product movements and
product properties.
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Seamless management of several
warehouses.
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Keeping the inventory updated.
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Tracking stock in real time.
Charts and Reports: This
includes sales forecasting and sales
reporting in real time.
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Monitoring the current state of the
retail business.
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Getting required information well within
the time limits.
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Improving the process of decision
making.
Restaurant Module: This
includes occupation management,
customisable restaurant locations, and
reservation management.
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Managing consumer reservations
efficiently.
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Personalising the various restaurant
areas for easy identification.
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Getting an insight of the occupation
levels in a restaurant in real time.
Security: This includes
users, roles, and access restrictions.
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Managing users with well-defined access
levels.
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User profiles and multiple roles
management.
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Protection of sensitive data.
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Embedded support with ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning) applications.
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Scalability for supporting
configurations that ranges from a single
terminal, to several terminals in each
store, to several terminals in several
stores.
Open source solutions
need to be investigated to get a
customised business model. |
