_
_
HOME REVIEWS CONTACT ABOUT January 14, 2010
"Point of Sale" (POS)
Systems
___
Point of sale (POS) is the technology of financial
transactions at retail establishments. A POS system includes the hardware and
software used for checkouts, the computer-age equivalent of a cash register.
The most significant difference between a POS system and a
cash register is communication. When a
customer processes a transaction at the supermarket, automated response
includes an automatic update of inventory. If necessary, a reorder to replace
the item is processed, tax record is maintained, and the store management
system is informed.
Computer
Revolution Expands to Point-of-Sale
The main component of a point of sale system is the
computer. It is wise to use the POS computer for only sales transactions,
reports, and inventory control, and isolate use of POS computers from general
purpose activities. Use a separate
computer for surfing the web.
Two standardized software systems in common use for POS
are JavaPOS and OPOS.
These standards conform to the UnifiedPOS that
is advocated by the National Retail Foundation.
JavaPOS was designed by Sun Microsystems, IBM,
and NCR, and is a JAVA compatible standard.
OPOS (OLE for POS) is a standard followed by Microsoft, NCR, Epson and
Fujitsu. OPOS is a Windows compatible standard (COM). Celerant, Intuit,
MICROS Retail, Microsoft, NCR, Oracle, and SAP are the most popular POS
software solution providers.
Security is an issue for POS systems. Poorly implemented systems are one of the
leading causes of credit card data compromises. A well designed system will encrypt wireless
transmissions, and will not retain full magnetic stripe, credit card validation
code, or PIN numbers. All sensitive
traffic over public networks should be encrypted.
Examples of
Point-of-Sale Specialities
There are several subsets of POS systems, each of which is
worthy of further study. Industry
specific POS packages are available for auto repair shops, beauty salons,
pharmacists and more.
The restaurant industry is well served by many different
POS systems. Kitchen monitors are used
to view orders, and manage the operation. Systems are often enhanced with
wireless systems which enable communications.
This allows servers to send customer orders to the kitchen from any
place within the restaurant and can be used to make credit card transactions
more secure because the customer's credit card is never out of their sight.
A new trend in POS, especially at supermarkets, is
self-checkout. In a self-checkout
system, the customer scans the barcodes on the individual items. In the case of produce, a scale is employed,
and the customer enters a code from a menu.
Usually some kind of validation is utilized to compare the items scanned
with the weight of the product. Payment
with these systems is similar to using an ATM machine. The benefits of this system include reduced
overhead for staffing and also from reduced time that the customer must wait
for checkout.
RFID (radio frequency identification) is a technology that
shows promise for self-checkout. With
this technology, the POS process could eliminate the reading of bar-codes. Since RFID does require line of sight (LOS), the
customer could bag their purchases as they make their choices, and not need to
remove their items from the bag in order for an inventory of purchases to be
compiled. Integration of RFID readers
into POS systems is not complicated. The
interface is comparable to a bar-code reader.
Retail POS systems cost between $1,500 and $20,000. Options include bar-code scanners, credit
card readers, and receipt/invoice printers. POS systems often are offered with
integrated accounting modules and inventory control systems. Reports can be
generated to include sales, costs, and profits by item, salesperson, category,
or time-period.
The computer is an excellent tool for retail
industry. By marrying the cash register
with a well-implemented system, significant enhancements to the process are
realized.