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The Point of Sale (POS) or Point of Service (PoS) is the location where a transaction occurs. POS systems are used in supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, stadiums, and casinos, as well as almost any type of retail establishment. The POS often refers to the hardware and software used for checkouts – the equivalent of an electronic cash register.
Where POS Systems Came from and Where They are Now
POS systems evolved from the mechanical cash registers of the first half of the 20th Century, which recorded data on journal tapes or paper tape and required an extra step to transcribe the information into the retailer's accounting system. Later cash registers moved to operation by electricity, and much later computer-based machines. At this time, barcode readers for POS systems were also introduced into the market.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, manufacturers developed stand-alone credit card devices to securely and easily add credit-card processing to POS systems. These relatively simple devices evolved to handle multiple applications, such as credit card processing, gift card activation, age verification, and employee time tracking on one device. Nowadays, some wireless POS systems for restaurants not only allow for mobile payment processing, they also allow servers to process the entire food order at tableside.
Most retail POS systems do much more than just "point of sale" tasks. Even for smaller retailers, many POS systems can include fully-integrated accounting, inventory management, open-to-buy forecasting, customer relation management (CRM), service management, rental, and payroll modules. Vendors sometimes refer to POS solutions as retail management software or business management software because of this wide range of functionality.
A number of restaurant chains employ systems that use computer networks. In more recent technological developments, registers are virtual computers, sometimes using touch screens. They will connect to a server, often referred to as a "store controller" or a "central control unit", and will have printers and monitors on that same network. Additionally, remote servers will connect to store networks and monitor sales and other store data.
In the fast food industry, a number of configurations may be used to aid in the speed of operations. Registers themselves may be in front counter, drive through or walk through cashiering and order-taking modes. Front counter registers will take and serve orders at the same terminal. Drive through registers will allow orders to be taken at one or more drive through windows and cashiered and served at another. In addition to registers, drive through and kitchen monitors may be used by store personnel to view orders. Once orders appear they may be deleted or recalled by "bump bars", small boxes that have different buttons for different uses. Drive through systems are often enhanced by the use of drive through wireless (or headset) systems, which enable communications with drive through speakers.
Wireless POS Systems
Wireless POS (WPOS) is the use of wireless devices to facilitate order-taking or payment for products or services. It is particularly useful in restaurants and other food service establishments. As a general rule, a wireless point of sale system consists of a base station directly connected to a central server computer and one or more handheld computers or other devices, such as PDAs, which communicate wirelessly.
WPOS can streamline many processes and may include the ability to record and track customer orders, finalise sales, connect to other systems in a network, and manage inventories. By enabling a vendor to make a transaction or adjust it anywhere within range of the wireless network, WPOS can ensure seamless delivery of the desired product or service. It allows servers to send customer orders to the kitchen from any place within the establishment – at a table, in a stadium seat, by the pool, and so on. WPOS can also be used to make credit card transactions more secure because customers never lose sight of the credit card and, therefore, do not risk anyone copying the data from their credit card while it is out of their sight.
POS Hardware Interface Standardisation
Vendors and retailers are working to standardise the development of computerised POS systems and simplify interconnecting POS devices. OPOS and JavaPOS are two such initiatives. OPOS, short for OLE for POS, was the first commonly-adopted standard created by Microsoft, NCR Corporation, Epson and Fujitsu-ICL. OPOS is a COM-based interface compatible with all COM-enabled programming languages for Microsoft Windows and was first released in 1996. JavaPOS was developed by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and NCR Corporation in 1997 and first released in 1999. JavaPOS is for Java what OPOS is for Windows, and thus largely platform independent.
Self Checkout
Self checkout machines are automated alternatives to the traditional cashier-staffed checkout at retailers. Some retailers have introduced self checkout machines, others portable barcode scanners, though these two systems are largely found in the US and the UK and have not yet become popular in South Africa.
With self checkout machines, the customer is permitted to scan the barcodes on his or her shopping items and place them into a bagging area, where the weight observed is checked against previously stored information to ensure that the correct item is bagged. The customer may proceed only if the observed and expected weights match.
A portable barcode scanner is used by the customer to scan and bag items while shopping. When the customer has finished shopping, the scanner is brought to a checkout kiosk where the information from the scanner is downloaded to the kiosk, usually in conjunction with a customer loyalty card. The customer pays and receives a receipt at the checkout kiosk. Random checks are done to ensure truthfulness of shoppers
The benefit of such systems to the customer is in the reduced checkout time because stores are often able to efficiently run two to six self checkout units where there would normally have been just one cashier. The benefit to the retailer in providing self checkout machines and portable scanners is in reduced staffing requirements, as one attendant is all that is required to run four to six checkout lanes at one time.
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