Discuss About The Automated System And Method For Evaluating.
The point of sale involves place and time whereby a transaction of retail is finalized without the remainders of dues in the parties engaged in the business. It enables the seller to compute the amount a customer owes them and afterwards make an invoice and offer several options for the various ways of paying. The system of POS currently is becoming more popular since it eliminates the need of the use of tags of prices and if present, the window of inventory may be used to deal with it. The POS also assists in implementing various types of programs of royalty and discounts which help in attracting customers in purchasing of commodities or products.
The use of the new system of the POS is advantageous in that; it allows its custodians to keep track of important data of the business from transaction of sales immediately during the sale hence doing away with manual tracking of the sales. It also processes data and stores it from selling and at the same time updates the inventory and also compiles the history of the sale. This does away with relying on entry of transactions sales manually and reduces the units of inventory of the sold items. Besides the provision of the register of cash, the POS also provides more functionality of robust in tracking distributing, inputting and tracking of the data so as to offer helpful information for operating and managing businesses. The POS also provides reports that are used by the business people to determine the real cost of items and their profitability. (Lum, J, 2008)
Besides being advantageous, the POS also has some draw backs such as; it relies mainly on connection of network which is continuous and also an ISP for maintaining it when it’s web-based. Hence, if the internet fails, one cannot access the POS system. Another problem is that, the system needs updates of the software frequently which can be very expensive and also consumes a lot of time. Another thing also is the few required for licensing and for the purchase of the software if one needs to expand it. There is also a fee charged monthly as fee of subscription that can lead to reduction of the earnings of a business. (M.Weber & P. Kantamneni, 2013)
Systems that are software-based are less convenient to use since they are complicated and are not available easily. The hardware associated is also mandatory which is needed to make the connection between the terminals of the hardware and the internet. There is risks of security of the finance when it comes to the payments made online since debit cards’ and credit cards’ details may be exposed which may lead to fraud. (Edwards et al., 2016)
Despite of the disadvantages of the POS, it will assist companies in gaining advantages of competition whereby the owners are able to comprehend their businesses by reviewing of reports and realizing which products were offering good profits and the ones lagging behind. Through that, the business is able to shift to the products offering good profits and price the products effectively. Since those reports are offered accurately and at the right time, the business is able to plan and run effectively and compete with other organizations.
The POS also offers a centralized database which offers a lot of benefits to the business such as efficiency. The business is able to maximize the analysis and making of reports of the data accessible efficiently. This comes as a result of integrating the separate data from several departments such as the portal of e-commerce, department of the customer service and the POS. Retrieval of answers needed to respond to queries raised is easily done. Also, centralizing the data can assist in realizing the behavior of the customer based on the reports made from different domains such as the history of purchase, responses to campaigns among others. The reporting is done efficiently. (Falzone, L. & Ciabarra, 2012).
Another benefit is that, centralizing data reduces the cost of processes carried out by the business and making them more efficient. Marketing and data of the customer is controlled in a good way when data is centralized and time and effort spent to reconcile and manage the data is reduced. This helps in better resource utilization which plays a good part in the management of the cost involved. The money and time that is saved when integrating the data may be utilized for productive activities such as initiatives that are strategic which can lead to better savings for businesses. The commitment in line of centralization of database may results in good fruits of optimizing operations of a business and enhancing the experience of a customer at the end.
Another advantage of the centralized database is that it offers quality data. Since the records of customers keep on changing and require to be quickly updated, the need for data centralization becomes vital in order to maintain data quality. The process of managing the quality of data may be complicated since it requires merging and matching of the records of the customers using various criteria. The aim of the process of consolidation is to eliminate duplication of data and can help in the improvement of efficiency and quality. The routines of management so as to maintain the data quality is a process that is ongoing. Depending on the business type, the audience targeted and the capability of the operations, the procedure may not be similar. However, regularly updating the data may help the business in unlocking its potential fully towards marketing at the end. (Swartz, J, 2014)
The POS also helps in making of the decisions regarding the business operations. This is achieved since the POS is able to maintain data of the inventory which is accurate. Decisions regarding the number of units of a product to order can now be based on counts of inventory that are accurate which are made possible by the POS. (Deaton, D.W. and Gabriel, R.G, 2009). They no longer need to be based on speculations regarding the units of the inventory. The businesses are able to operate with units of inventory that are leaner. The reports of the system offer transactions’ details for an item of inventory, for example the number of items purchased, wasted and sold. The reports also provide information regarding the products offering profits and also the products that are less profitable. The owners are able to make a decision regarding those products and they can move to the products that are more likely to boost their business.
With the knowledge of the costs of the products, the owners are able to price products with a price that will bring more profits to the business. (Steckel, J.H., Gupta, S. and Banerji, A., 2009). The changes on the price can be done on permanent or temporal basis and still maintain margins of products which are acceptable. Information reporting that is timely and accurate helps owners to be effective in managing the operations of the business. The system is also able to process inventory, sales and transactions of sales immediately which helps in reduction for the need of entry of data on the paper which saves time that may be used in proper management of the business. This enhances proper decision making. (Nichols et al., 2015)
The POS system should use the Local Area Network (LAN) since the software is used within the same physical area hence it LAN would be more appropriate. The wired technology is preferred and the cables to be used should be the ethernet cables. (Seflova, P. et al., 2012).
The POS system is exposed to various security threats which include insecurity. This can be experienced from the network whereby hackers can inject setups that are weak and steal information, for example the number of the credit card the data contained in the account of the business. (Higgins, G.M., 2014). Skimmers may also install a hardware inside the system of Point of Sale and steal confidential information such as the details of a credit card and send it to the hackers. Devices that are suspicious should be checked out in the system to avoid that. Workers handling the systems should also be monitored and measures of security put in place so as to avoid access of the system which is unauthorized (Stoutenburg et al., 2012). A check of the routine that is regular should be performed on the system so as to evade the attacks of security by skimmers. Privacy may also be compromised when hackers acquire information from the manufactures since they are the ones who provide default passwords.
The business can be protected against the risks mentioned above by the use of passwords that are strong and changing passwords that are default immediately after installation of the POS system. (Barton, B., 2010). Keeping of passwords in a network that is protected using a password can also help in reducing the risks. Update of the applications of the POS may also protect the business since latest applications may be more secure. Restriction of the access of the internet to the system of POS terminals or computers may also help in preventing the users from revealing confidential data online. Finally, the use of authentication of two factor offers an additional security layer to the process of authentication. (Valliani et al., 2013)
Conclusion
The Systems of Point of Sale have helped a lot in reduction of the workload of human and also assisting in reaping of advantages of efficiency of the systems by the proprietor. Disadvantages associated with the system are still present but they will be dealt with soon.
References
Barton, B., 2010. Point of sale automatic savings program contribution system. U.S. Patent 6,164,533.
Deaton, D.W. and Gabriel, R.G., Catalina Marketing International Inc, 2012. Method and system for selective incentive point-of-sale marketing in response to customer shopping histories. U.S. Patent 6,424,949.
Deaton, D.W. and Gabriel, R.G., Credit Verification Corp, 2009. Method and system for selective incentive point-of-sale marketing in response to customer shopping histories. U.S. Patent 5,687,322.
Edwards, T., Skoog, L., Babu, A. and Dorogusker, J., Square Inc, 2016. Point-of-sale system. U.S. Patent 9,424,721.
Falzone, L. and Ciabarra, C., Revel Systems Inc, 2012. Point of sale system. U.S. Patent Application 13/227,397.
Higgins, G.M., Swiss Reinsurance Co Ltd, 2014. Automated system and method for evaluating insurable risks at point of sale. U.S. Patent 8,725,540.
Lum, J., Logic Controls Inc, 2008. Point-of-sale system. U.S. Patent 6,546,441.
M.Weber & P. Kantamneni, 2013. POS and EDI in retailing: an examination of underlying benefits and barriers. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 7(5).
Nichols, H.R. and Hills, R.R., LML Patent Corp, 2015. Check writing point of sale system. U.S.
Patent 6,354,491.
Seflova, P., Sulc, V., Pos, J. & Spinar, R., 2012, July. IQRF wireless technology utilizing IQMESH protocol. In Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP), 2012 35th International Conference. IEEE.
Steckel, J.H., Gupta, S. and Banerji, A., 2009. Supply chain decision making: Will shorter cycle times and shared point-of-sale information necessarily help? Management Science, 50(4).
Stoutenburg, E., Mollett, C.J., Price, J., Fillinger, C.A., Nelson, E.M., Seifert, D.A. and Singleton, J., First Data Corp, 2012. Systems and methods for utilizing a point-of-sale system. U.S. Patent 6,827,260.
Swartz, J., Symbol Technologies LLC, 2014. Point-of-sale system with real-time database access and printing of human-readable price information. U.S. Patent 6,736,315.
Valliani, A., Kareemi, N. and Bunn, E., POS COM Inc, 2013. PCMCIA-based point of sale transaction system. U.S. Patent 6,234,389.
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