POS software guide

In this article you will find information regarding the pos software, how it works and how to buy the right one.

If you want to understand what POS software is, you should first get familiar with the definition of POS. POS means point of sale or point of service, which is practically any place where transactions occur, like the cashing register of a retail shop or a checkout counter. As it follows from the definition,pos terminals can be found in restaurants, hotels, bars, shops, stores, malls. POS stands for both the hardware and software which make up the whole system.

When we consider a POS system, it has to be divided into hardware and software. Since this article is focused on the software part of it, let's examine the history of pos software. Some of the early electronic cash registers had a special computer program loaded on them, providing additional functionalities, although quite limited according to our standards nowadays. Programmability made way for a lot of new concepts, as it allowed developers to be more creative and embed whatever features they can think of, including real time labor and food cost reports.

It's a well known fact that computers as well as pos terminals, communicate by using some kind of a protocol - a predefined set of rules followed by all machines when exchanging information. The protocol is like the language which computers speak. There are several protocols that are typically included in the pos software to control the peripheral devices, such as POS printer, a bar-code scanner, and a credit/debit card reader. Protocols such as AEDEX, Ultimate, DSP-800, UTC Enhanced.

In an attempt to guarantee the compatibility between the different devices, pos software developers have to meet certain standards. Microsoft, NCR, Epson, and Fujitsu-ICL developed the first pos software standard, called OPOS. People know it as "OLE for POS", because it's based on Microsoft's COM technology, which makes OPOS language independent. The next industry standards was made by SUN, IBM and NCR, under the name JavaPOS. JavaPOS is programmed on JAVA, so it's platform independent.

This article wouldn't be complete unless we examine the benefits of pos software. The first and obvious benefit is the increase of your profits as a result of using pos software. Benefit number two is that it will reduce the inventory costs. On top of that, it will improve the overall customer satisfaction, because of the higher level of customer service. It will also maximize the efficiency of your business with at least 20% thanks to repetitive task automation.

There are a lot of Point-of-Sale software systems available on the market, so choosing the right one is never easy. There are several factors that should influence your buying decision. The first one is the turnover of your business. Second one is of course the industry in which your business operates, whether it's antiques, appliances, auto dealerships. Remember that the best way to see if a pos software really works is to check with the retailers already using it.

The majority of POS software solutions are designed to operate on Windows. Linux and MAC machines are probably more reliable, but you will get a much more limited amount of choices in terms of software available for such UNIX based operating systems. When configured properly, Windows systems can work for months and even years without any intervention. POS software can support Windows 95, 2000, or XP, although some will only work on XP.

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Visit POS Hardware for more information. Author - Steve Arbor Jones.
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