The past twenty years of retail has seen huge changes to the ease with which any retail business or restaurant does business. Before 1991,IBM held the market for all point of sale software and hardware.The IBM 3650/3660 Store Systems were the first use of client-server technology, peer-to-peer communications and local area network simultaneous backup. This technology has come a long way since the IBM punch cards of the late 1930’s.
Point of sale software was developed at the same time as the Universal Product Code, both becoming widely used in the 1970’s. These two developments, the POS software and UPC adaptation, has helped the commercial industry to become a smooth flowing machine, providing customers with their needs faster than a customer can supply the funds!
McDonald’s Restaurants can be credited with employing the first micro-processor controlled cash register system in 1974. This greatly reduced human error and increased the ease of working for employees.
Eugene Mosher is the creator of touch-screen point of sale software and hardware. He first developed the software for use in his Old Canal Café in 1979 to take a customer’s order and supply the kitchen and bar with the order electronically. This development has revolutionized the restaurant industry, making it simple for servers to input customer orders and deliver the orders to bartenders and cooks at the same time, with the touch of a button.
Today, there are many manufactures of the software and hardware required to smoothly run a restaurant or retail store. An ebay guide states that if a business, retail or restaurant generates more than $700,000 US annually, an investment in the point of sale software and hardware would be wise. The package of software and hardware usually starts at $4,000 US. The software is not only about customer-server ease of doing business, but can also handle inventory control. There are many point of sale software products available for Windows and Mac.
POS software records sales for business and tax purposes. Combined with inventory controls, this has had an excellent effect on a businesses ability to stop fraud, theft, till skimming and general customer or employee cheating. In North American restaurants, a server can catalogue and track the tips they receive for tax purposes, using the point of sale terminals located in their restaurant.
Now, point of sale software and hardware can include electronic signature capture devices, pagers, credit and other payment card processing. Depending on the industry one is working in, there are units available that are battery powered, wireless and internet ready machines.
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