A POS system, also known as a point-of-purchase system, is composed of two main parts: software, and hardware. Due to the diversity of the retail industry, different POS system features are required for different types of retailers. In assessing these features, the following have emerged as the best practices core components, or must-have features, regardless of the intended application of the POS system. Salon & Spa 8 includes all of the core components plus many other features used by the Salon and Spa industry.

Core Areas of POS Systems Software

• Transaction management:

The transaction management component includes all the information required to complete a transaction. This component should capture key transaction data, such as sales, sales cancellations, voids, refunds, purchase of gift certificates, service transactions, creation of special orders, and the like. The transaction management component should validate item information, automatically calculate the total purchase amount, and process the payments. This enables staff to give their full attention to properly serving the customer, since processing a sale would then only require them to scan in the barcode and to ask the method of payment.

• Price management:

The price management component allows a store manager or store employee to modify the retail price of an item. POS systems should allow modification of a retail price for different reasons, such as discounts on damaged items, discounts after negotiations, or competitive price matching.

• Register management:

The register management component includes processes for cash opening procedures, cash closing procedures, and cash balancing procedures. Moreover, this module consists of the management of register opening funds, paid-in transactions, paid-out transactions, tenders, currencies, and taxes. Register management should track the cash flow within the business day, and should flag any unusual events. This enables a store manager to monitor and reduce employee theft.

• Inventory management:

The inventory management component includes physical inventory procedures, and inventory adjustments. This ensures that the store’s inventory is up to date. It also helps employees to have accurate information about the quantity on hand, this component allows employees to close sales and to increase customer service and satisfaction.

• Customer relationship management:

The customer relationship management (CRM) component has the functionality to manage customer interactions, customer sales histories, customer contact information, customer preferences, customer characteristics, customer loyalty programs, and so forth. For a retailer, customer purchases are the most important avenue of revenue. To make things more challenging, today’s customers are more educated, more skeptical, and more demanding than before. With the advent of the Internet, price transparency has become a major threat to retailers. Thus, offering a personalized service to customers is crucial. Having a good CRM module which tracks customer behavior and preferences will ensure healthy relationships.

• Reports and inquiries:

Store employees use this component daily, to extract information on inventory, sales summaries, or commissions (if applicable). Reports and inquiries enable organizations to analyze the performance of the store by day, by week, by month, or even by year. It also shows the performance of items on numerous levels (such as color, dimension, size, characteristics, or attributes). Reports and inquiries also allow store managers to identify anomalies and to take corrective action if necessary. Reports and inquiries are widely used to obtain loss and prevention information.

• Purchase orders:

The purchase order feature enables buyers to communicate a purchase to vendors, and to receive the goods ordered.

• Price changes:

The price change feature is used to manage the retail (selling) price of goods. This feature can offer tools for lowering or raising the retail price. A POS price change component allows permanent or temporary markdowns and markups.

POS Hardware

As mentioned earlier, a POS System is composed of software and hardware components.  The devices in a computer based POS hardware system typically include a monitor, a cash drawer, a keyboard, a mouse, a receipt printer, and sometimes a barcode scanner. Compared to the cash register, a computer based POS system allows retailers to compute more extensive sales analysis, track “hot items,” or track customer preferences, all with only a few clicks. More on using POS Hardware with Salon & Spa.....