29 Facts About POS terminal

Some point of sale vendors refer to their POS terminal system as "retail management system" which is a more appropriate term, since this software is not just for processing sales but comes with many other capabilities, such as inventory management, membership system, supplier record, bookkeeping, issuing of purchase orders, quotations and stock transfers, hide barcode label creation, sale reporting and in some cases remote outlets networking or linkage, to name some major ones.

In 1986, IBM introduced its 468x series of POS terminal equipment based on Digital Research's Concurrent DOS 286 and FlexOS 1.

Wide range of POS terminal applications have been developed on platforms such as Windows and Unix.

Key requirements that must be met by modern POS terminal systems include high and consistent operating speed, reliability, ease of use, remote supportability, low cost, and rich functionality.

POS terminal systems are one of the most complex software systems available because of the features that are required by different end users.

Related searches

Many POS terminal systems are software suites that include sale, inventory, stock counting, vendor ordering, customer loyalty and reporting modules.

POS terminal systems are designed not only to serve the retail, wholesale and hospitality industries as historically is the case.

Currently POS terminal systems are used in goods and property leasing businesses, equipment repair shops, healthcare management, ticketing offices such as cinemas and sports facilities and many other operations where capabilities such as the following are required: processing monetary transactions, allocation and scheduling of facilities, keeping record and scheduling services rendered to customers, tracking of goods and processes, invoicing and tracking of debts and outstanding payments.

The complexity of a mature POS terminal system extends to remote networking or interlinking between remote outlets and the HQ such that updating both ways is possible.

Some POS terminal systems offer the linking of web-based orders to their sale window.

OPOS terminal was the first commonly adopted standard and was created by Microsoft, NCR Corporation, Epson and Fujitsu-ICL.

OPOS terminal is a COM-based interface compatible with all COM-enabled programming languages for Microsoft Windows.

JavaPOS terminal was developed by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and NCR Corporation in 1997 and first released in 1999.

JavaPOS terminal is for Java what OPOS terminal is for Windows, and thus largely platform independent.

EPOS terminal systems based in the cloud are generally subscription-based, which includes ongoing customer support.

Cloud-based POS terminal systems are created to be compatible with a wide range of POS terminal hardware and sometimes tablets such as Apple's iPad.

Cloud-based POS terminal systems are different from traditional POS terminal largely because user data, including sales and inventory, are not stored locally, but in a remote server.

The POS terminal system is not run locally, so there is no installation required.

Cloud-based POS terminal systems are often described as future proof as new applications are constantly being conceived and built.

Such contingency, a more innovative though highly complex approach for the developer is to have a trimmed down version of the POS terminal system installed on the cashier computer at the outlet.

Many retail POS terminal systems include an accounting interface that "feeds" sales and cost of goods information to independent accounting applications.

Typical restaurant POS terminal software is able to create and print guest checks, print orders to kitchens and bars for preparation, process credit cards and other payment cards, and run reports.

In hotels, POS terminal software allows for transfer of meal charges from dining room to guest room with a button or two.

Mobile POS terminal is growing quickly with new developers entering the market almost on a daily basis.

POS terminal systems are often designed for a variety of clients, and can be programmed by the end users to suit their needs.

Related searches

In some cases, POS terminal systems are sold and supported by third-party distributors, while in other cases they are sold and supported directly by the vendor.

Selection of a restaurant POS terminal system is critical to the restaurant's daily operation and is a major investment that the restaurant's management and staff must endure for many years.

The selection of a restaurant POS terminal system is a complex process that should be undertaken by the restaurant owner and not delegated to an employee.

News reports on POS terminal system hacking show that hackers are more interested in stealing credit card information than anything else.