Business Incorporation

The responsibility of choosing which retail point of sale system to use would be best decided by the business owner, since it is vital and very important for the success of a business. The core system where everything in your business revolves. You should have confidence in – and receive satisfying performance from – the system that’s responsible for all transactions, managing your inventory and all other action responsible for organizing and tracking.

Let’s point out some of the important questions you should be asking yourself when choosing a Retail System:

What Type Of Business Do You Have?

There are two categories of Point of Sale systems: The Restaruant/Hospitality and Retail. Restaurants are a bit of a different breed – the focus of this article is Retail POS Systems.

At the retail part, pricing on Point Of Sale Systems can range from hundreds to tens thousands of dollars. There are POS systems customized for every type of business under the sun, from Gift Shops and Mall Kiosks to Pet Stores and Computer Shops.

Many custom POS features are great BUT what is the important feature for your retail system is that it should be easy to use. Besides, what good does a custom feature be if it’s too hard to use or it got buried among the other “so-called” great features that your business doesn’t really need? Many business owners are choosing a much simpler, stream-lined retail POS systems that focus on the fundamentals and deliver them flawlessly. This is why more and more entrepreneurs are using web based POS systems to meet their retail computer needs.

What POS Computers & Software Are Best For Me?

Still deciding whether to use Windows, Mac OS X or Linux? There are great POS Systems that has the same power as any of these platforms, so you can choose the platform with which you’re already the most comfortable.

Several years ago, POS systems were typically installed as software packages and installed on business computers, similar with MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint come packaged on Windows computers. Unfortunately, software based POS Systems present many problems and is exposed to vulnerabilities that several small and medium sized business have found worrisome.

About software updates? What if my computer had a breakdown? How do I backup and save all my business files? What if the platform needs reformatting or weaknesses in the system suddenly emerge that you don’t know how to handle?

For business owners, afterall, you shouldn’t have to deal with these questions, so why waste money in a POS System that creates even more questions and doubts? Web based retail systems that can solve these problems for most small retailers.

With Web-Based Retail Systems:

• Automatically add and update features and do software patches. You will never have to make manual updates your software, downloads and changes. Someone else takes care of it for you.
• Because this POS solution is web based, you are able to access your inventory from any internet enabled computer in the world. A computer that breaks becomes an incredibly minor problem.
• What will you do if your computer had a breakdown and it cannot be fixed? Using a web based POS {your business info is continuously saved to a remote location that can easily be recovered even if your actual computer crashes}.

Do You Have a Dedicated Retail IT Department?

I guess not! Read further down so you can know how important it is having a retail IT personnel taking care of your systems.

When something goes wrong with your system, how long can you endure your business shut down its operation? How long will it take to lay down your problem via telephone or e-mail and to be walked through the steps? And how long do you think it will take their technician to fix your problems?

That is why a web based POS is more widely used – the experts can log into your system and fix the problem for you. This alleviates many of the support problems inherent of typical desktop software based retail POS systems.

POS Packages or By Parts?

If you have a brand new business and/or implementing POS systems for the first time, you can buy a package that that has every component essential in running immediately… from the computer to your barcode scanners and printers. Discounts and special offers comes from buying POS bundles, and for many entrepreneurs this is a great idea.

Other retail businesses may prefer to use their existing hardware with their new system. Or, they may be cost conscious businesses that are looking to achieve affordability by purchasing refurbished hardware and use of existing hardware.

So What’s The Right Choice to Make?

While companies seeking POS Systems are typically looking for customized hardware and traditional software bundles, small and medium sized businesses “in the know” prefer web based retail point of sale solutions because of their flexibility, affordability and overall ability to deliver fast and accurate results.

Want to have a qualified POS professional discuss your needs?

You can have more details at Retail-POS-Solutions.com

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Imagine wasting tons of hours of work – or imagine losing your restaurant menu database, employee records, financial records, and all of the data your restaurant has ever produced or compiled.

What if a major disaster hits your restaurant destroying all your files? Or if a virus wiped out your server… do you have an emergency recovery plan in place that you can immediately enforce to save your files? How quickly do you think you could recover, if at all?

A lot of restaurant owners tend to ignore or fail to notice about taking steps to secure their company’s network from these types of catastrophes until disaster strikes. By then it’s too late and the damage is already severe.

After working with very many restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic area, we found that six out of ten businesses will experience some type of major network or technology disaster that will end up costing them between $2,000 to $20,000 in repairs and restoration costs on average. That doesn’t even include lost productivity, sales, and lost customers due to their down POS systems or network.

I find most restaurant owners doesn’t realiaze the importance of regular preventative maintenance and disaster recovery planning because they are already occupied with more immediate day to day fires which demands more of their attention. If the POS system and network works properly today, it goes to the bottom of the pile of things to worry about. In most cases, no one is watching to make sure the back ups are working, the virus protection is up-to-date, or that the network is in good shape.

Below Are The 4 Most Important Things You Should Do To Be Sure Your Company Is Protected From All Types Of Disasters:

While it is impossible to plan for every potential computer disaster or emergency, there are a few easy and cheaper ways you can do instead that will help you prevent the vast majority of computer disasters you could experience.

Step#1: Be Sure You Are Backing Up Your System

It just amazes me how many businesses never back up their computer network. Imagine this: you write the most important piece of formula you could ever write on a chalk board and I come along and erase it. How will you be able to get it back? No way! Unless you have memorized it, or if YOU STORE A COPY OF IT, you can’t recover the data. It’s long gone. That is why it is very important to create a back up for your network. There are numerous things that can cause you to lose data files. If the information on the disk is important to you, make sure you have more than one copy of it.

Step #2: Perform A Complete Data Restore Making Sure Your Backups Works Properly

This is another big mistake I see. A lot of restaurant owners sets up a backup system, but then never care to check to make sure it’s working properly. It’s not uncommon for a system to APPEAR to be backing up when in reality, it isn’t. We have seen companies pay out huge amount of money to regain data they THOUGHT they’ve backed up? Don’t let this happen to you.

Step #3: Keep A Back Up Somwhere Other Than Your Office

What happens if a fire or flood destroys your server AND the backup tapes or drive? What happens if your restaurant had a break in and they take EVERYTHING? Keeping an off-site back up is simply a smart way to make sure you have multiple copies, so you’d never loose your important files ever.

Step #4: Make Sure You Install and Regularly Update Your Antivirus Software

You would have to be living under a rock to not know how extremely damaging a virus can do to your network. With virus attacks coming from spammers, downloaded data, web sites, and even e-mails from friends, you cannot afford to not be protected.

Not only can a virus destroy your office files and bring down your network, but it can hurt your reputation. If you or one of your employees accidentally spreads a virus to a customer, or if the virus has penetrated your e-mail address book, you’re going to make a lot of people very angry and disappointed.

The author Michael Tash is the Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants. With over 20 years of restaurant experience, POS-For-Restaurants helps you use your technology to be more efficient and more profitable.

POS-For-Restaurants.com is your online source of information about restaurant POS system hardware, software and support.

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