Are you ready to computerize?

What do I consider when purchasing a Point Of Sale (POS) system for my coffee shop or specialty coffee retailing business?

Imagine this!

It is Sunday night. Your Coffee Shop has just closed. It is the last business day of the month and monthly taxes must be post marked by the end of the day on Monday. What do you do?

If you are running a simple cash register to track your daily transactions, you are probably taking the daily Z Report totals and entering them manually into a spreadsheet and then reentering them into some kind of accounting software. Before you can proceed, you have to unravel the mysteries of why there were so many over and under rings on the register. Things just don't seem to add up! If you have not been keeping up with this task daily, you have many hours of work ahead of you. Time to pull a couple of shots of espresso for the long night ahead.

When you are done with the taxes, you need to produce a report for your business partner with sales analysis information. Where are you going to get that data?

It is about this time that you say to yourself, "There must be a better way"!

There is! Using a computerized Point of Sale (POS) program would solve these issues for you and give you up to the minute information to base important financial business decisions on.

Other benefits of running a POS system would be; Accuracy of Orders, Security of Cash Handling, Ease of Training, Theft Reduction, Barista / Cashier Control, Increased Sales, Sales Reporting, Credit Card reporting.

The decision is made. You are going to investigate the purchase of a POS system for your shop.

What do you need to look for in procuring a pos system for a Coffee Shop?

A coffee shop is a hybrid type of business. It is not exactly like a restaurant, although food and beverages are being prepared. It is not like a hard goods retailer, but you will find many coffee shops selling gift items.

The POS has to be flexible. Here are some things to consider when purchasing a POS system for your coffee shop?

• Can it handle the set-up of all your drink items in an organized and easy to follow way?

• Will it track the ingredients of those drinks so that you will be able to have food costing information.

• Can you easily train yourself and your employees?

• Does the system allow for the easy addition of non coffee related items.

• Does the system allow for you to integrate with an accounting software package such as QuickBooks.

• How does credit card processing work? Is it easy to switch from standard transactions to restaurant style, where tips are required?

• Does the System have a Loyalty / Prepaid / Gift Account system allowing you to track your customer activity and automatically provide rewards to your customers?

• Does the system have full reporting, including sales analysis reports and Z / X-reports, sales tax reports, and inventory listings. Export reports to Word or Excel documents, email or HTML pages.

• Will the system allow you to run multiple registers and multiple locations? Can this information be easily consolidated?

• What kind of password security does the system have?

• Can the system be accessed remotely (from off site)?

• Does the system have internet capabilities?

• What are the hardware requirements for your system? Can the system be run on your own computers? Are POS peripherals easily available for the system?

• Does the system allow for employee check in and scheduling functions?

• Does the system provide for an effective way for you to get data back-ups?

• What are the support policies of the software / hardware vendor's)?

• How much can the system be customized to fit your specific needs?

• How much does the software and hardware cost?

These are just a few of the things to consider prior to the purchase of a Point of Sale (POS) system for your coffee shop.

This article was provided by Lee Alexander (lee@coffeeshopmanager.com) and David Johnson (david@coffeeshopmanager.com) who design and develop applicatons for coffee shops. They are eager to respond to your specific software questions and your inquiries are invited.