Thursday, September 20, 2012

Selecting the right cash register question number 3 out of 10

The third important question you need to answer in order to find the correct cash register for your business is "How many sales tax rates to I need to charge/track?"

Maybe it has not affected your local area yet however many cities, counties or States have multiple sales tax rates. In the county I work in we have one sales tax rate for retail goods and a higher sales tax rate for restaurants and bars. So in the case of the restaurant or bar that sells shirts or hats they must have a register that calculates two tax rates in the same sale. Grocery stores face the same task as ready to eat prepared food from the deli is one rate, taxable non-grocery is another and than of course the non-taxable grocery items and in my counties case it also differs on whether or not your business is on a public bus route. So first check with your local/State department of revenue regarding your sales tax rates.

Most SAM4s cash registers and Sharp models can handle 4 sales tax rates and we have not yet encountered a taxing problem we could not solve with one of those two cash register lines. I know there are many smaller consumer grade registers on the market that can only calculate one or two rates so be aware of your needs and the features of the register you are looking at.

We will be blogging more tomorrow about selecting the correct register for your business.

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