Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Selecting a cash register question #6

So question number six that you should ask yourself when buying a new cash register is simple but very important. Do I need more than one machine in the store? It is simple of course however the answer drastically changes which machines you should be looking at. I'm approaching these answers as yes you need two registers or more in your store and what features you should be looking for in a register.

The number one feature you should be looking for in a cash register when you are going to have more than one register in your store is Inter-Register Communications otherwise known as IRC. With IRC you will be able to network your cash registers together for the purpose of a single program and consolidated reports.

A single program allows you to change prices once on one register and download it to the other machines in the network, which can save you a ton of time and possible errors. If you have a register system with IRC and computer interface you can change items/prices etc on the PC and the registers will distribute those changes via the IRC. If you use kitchen printers the registers will share the kitchen printer via IRC (with a few exceptions in lower end models). If you use interfaced credit card payments most registers will share the interface via the IRC.

Reports are made much easier with IRC as well. When you run reports on a register system with IRC you can do all your reporting at one register and it will use the IRC to collect data from the other registers and produce a consolidated sales report of all the registers as well as individual reports for each register again saving you a lot of time.

So when buying more than one register for a single store you will want to investigate IRC which most advanced SAM4s cash registers as well as mid level and advanced level Sharp cash registers include.

In the case where you can't cable for IRC in your space the feature that might be most important to you would be whether the register has a SD card port. Many newer registers include a SD card port that will allow you to back up, store, and transfer programming databases in most cases. Many of the registers with SD card ports will also allow you to download reports to the SD card and transfer to a PC. Another very important function is many machines with an SD card will allow you to upgrade the firmware of the register to the newest version!

To wrap this question up you should answer the following questions when buying multiple registers for the same store.

Question: Are my registers going to be programmed the same? Is it a medium to large program?

Answer is Yes: You should select a register with the IRC feature or SD card as a minimum.

Answer in No: Than IRC maybe not be useful to you at all unless you want to consolidate reports still?

Question: I'm I going to be sharing and peripheral devices like kitchen printer, kitchen video, or maybe credit card interface?

Answer is Yes: You will be much happier with your system if you get a system with IRC. In some of the options listed in this question you will have to have a register with IRC.

Answer is No: IRC maybe overkill unless you are looking at the programming/reporting issues addressed in the first question

Think it over before you make the purchase. If not having IRC cost you even 10 minutes a day than having IRC could save you an hour and ten minutes a week, four hours forty minutes a month or fifty six hours a year!

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