Posts Tagged ‘Point of S’
What Are The Advantages I Can Get From My POS System?
I know a lot of you may think “Will a POS system really help increase my profits?”. 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 huge benefits it can offer to your business. Regardless of what industry you are in, your main goal is to have more sales and generate more revenue. POS can be your first step when achieving your goals – and a whole lot more. Here’s a sampling of what POS systems can do for your particular business:
Concentrate 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 your valuable time working on new techniques, promotions, and other initiatives to take your company to the next level.
Functionality - Your POS system is more than just a cash register! With its advanced features, it can take reservations, process special orders and provides guest beeper systems to keep your business running smoothly.
Work Efficiently With Your Operations - With a POS system, there’s little room for error. Every detial is entered and recorded accurately 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.
Proper Inventory Management - One of the most important task in the food service industry is to check whether your supplies, perishable goods, are still in good state before serving it to your customers and be able to stock enough supplies without letting them to go to waste when not. With a POS, you know what’s in stock, what you’re running low on, and what your best sellers are so you can plan ahead.
Lessen Shrinkage – Having a POS system can help you 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 exact records which traces your merchandise (and money) and where they are going.
Reducing Errors – If you’re in the food service industry, you no longer need to decipher chicken scratch from busy wait staff! POS allows you to easily input orders, including specifics, to decrease the chances that it will come out wrong. You keep customers satisfied and save money by serving them the right orders.
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. Slapping price stickers on items can make it too easy for thieves to swap labels. Using a POS, each item is bar coded and tracker so you can always know and input an item’s right price. And if there are changes needed, you can do them all at once direct from your POS terminal!
Increase Patronage - Get more customers in the door by limiting the time other customers wait in line. When customers don’t have to wait for wait staff to calculate checks, collect payment, and clear tables, you can serve more customers and increase profit.
Getting Accurate Reports - POS allows you to do more than 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. It’s also a helpful reminder tool when you’re running low on supplies.
Tracking Customer Data - Build your customer loyalty and let the POS be your guide. Consider this, every customer that enters through your door will be entered into your POS system when they order something. Make tabs on what they order and how often they visit your store. You can use this data to compile information for targeted sales and other future plans. This data is also helpful to limit the poor selling merchandise you keep in stock and earmark funds for more popular items.
There are several critical things in restauratn POS systems purchase in any industry. Just be sure to meet with at least 3-4 qualified vendors before making this important decision. In any case, you can always request for a free POS system quote, where vendors will be able to provide your needs once you’ve given them enough info of your POS needs. Provide them with the details of the information you wish to track and the features that are vital to you. Keep an open mind when the software appears to MAKE you do things differently. Follow this simple procedure in order to find the right software that can improve your business’ efficiency. With a proper restaurant POS solution at hand, makes your business more efficient, more profitable, more enjoyable, and keep your customers coming back!
For more information or an online resource:
Go to 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 systems. Let’s tackle some of the most common and critical mistakes that restaurant 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 waste of time and money on repairs. Worse than that… it can frustrate your guests and staff.
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 properly.
Please don’t let me be guilty of giving you the wrong idea. I do not always recommend configuring your own computer system! I recommend letting a professional do the work. But I’m sure some of you will do it yourself no matter what I say. So this is for those that insist on doing your own computer installations and for everyone else to double check and make sure everything was done properly. This can help avoid major problems, be aware on the proper installations and save hours of precious time.
So here are some simple retail computer system configuration checklist for a Windows network you could use as a guide:
1) Install a UPS
The number one cause of electronic component failure is from fluctuations in electricity (up and down). A good UPS can solve this problem by providing clean 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 each of your worstations too.
2) Plug All Your Cables Into the UPS
Make sure 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 easily fry your computer if you do not 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
At the very least, I suggest locking down your server with a password on all Windows accounts so your employees and hackers have more difficulty messing with your server.
4) Install Anti-virus and Anti-Spyware Software and Configure For Automatic Updates
It is gravely important for you to make sure that these security tools are configured to updating automatically, so you would never forget.
5) Limit Your Employees’ 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 damage your system down. You can avoid this by disabling internet browsing on your computers. Or another option is to 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 strickly implement 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) Configuring Your Back Up To Run Regularly
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
Can’t remember how many times I’ve chatted with restaurant owners 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 for months or years. 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 your existing software won’t be affected.
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.
Boosting Sales
Today’s economy, every cent counts and adding them to your bottom line is possible despite the economic crisis. These steps helps you increase your profit and decrease expenses, as well as blocking theft so your business can grow much bigger.
For businesses in the food service industry, running a restaurant point of sale system, this can greatly help you!
Take Checks
Checks may not seem that appealing to you, but their still widely used by older customers. So if you have not been accepting checks, better start soon. There’s equipment that will scan the check as quickly as a credit card, check out and measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, deposits the money electronically, and guarantee you receive your funds within a few days. In addition, it costs lower than for credit cards and adds up 10-15% to your sales—and possibly more if you have many senior customers.
Accepting All Cards
Of course, you’re already accepting cards like Visa and MasterCard. Do you also accept Discover and American Express? The latter, in particular, generally accompanies larger transactions. If you’ve hesitated because the fee is higher, reconsider—you may also think that it’s not worth it even a 1% difference, and since American Express transactions are often larger than those of other cards, you’ll make it up in gross profit. Furthermore, if you’re known for accepting all forms of credit and debit cards, your customers will probably be more likely to come back.
Do A Research
Many merchants think their fees are 1.69 percent plus $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a tiered pricing program. Though fewer than 20 of 100 transactions receives low qualified rate and all the rest downgrade and cost one, two, or even three percent. By researching for alternate programs that offer different interchange rates that may save more than what you expect.
Insist of Understanding Rather Than Having a Conflict
Neither you nor your bookkeeper would have to scratch the back of your heads over a complex credit card statement that just doesn’t fit. A few companies have made extraordinary efforts to simplify these reports. You should be able to come into terms with your statement and rates in no more than 15 minutes.
Get Reports Over The Internet
The post office is slow, don’t wait any longer for them to deliver you a letter of disputing a charge. With Internet reporting, you will know within 24 hours, which ables you to aggressively defend against chargebacks. With a quick response, it can increase your success rates and reduce your losses.
So no more scratching of the head for both you and your bookkeeper over complex credit card statements.
Use the Card Validation Value and Address Verification System. They are highly effective fraud screens proven to reduce losses, and by using them the right way, you can obtain the lowest possible discount rate.
In addition, avoid by being PCI compliant. There are mammoth fines charged to merchants who are hacked, and even drives them out of business. Take the time to read Visa’s report on noncompliant systems, be alert at all cost.
Reduce Chargebacks
If you run an online business, either by internet orders or by phone, it’s always a great idea to implement the “Verified by Visa” or “MasterCard Secure Code” plug-in on your web site. This helps eliminate the chargebacks on cardholder nonauthorization. The state of being legally obliged and responsible for these chargebacks is shifted away back to the issuing card bank, and you qualify for the lowest discount rate available. By doing so, you could possibly eliminate up to 80% of all chargebacks and increase your profits.
The author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com with over 20 years experience helping restaurants nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits with restaurant point of sale systems.
You may visit POS-For-Restaurants.com for further understanding of how our national network of restaurant point of sale professionals can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.