“Be prepared” is, admittedly, the Girl Scout motto. But given such recent occurrences as Hurricane Irene, which caused problems for retailers and restaurant operations up and down the East Coast this past August, merchants should follow it as well with a few simple disaster preparedness strategies.

One such strategy entails acquiring an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Obtain one for each point of sale station, as well as for any back-office workstations and servers. If the latter are not done, data loss, incomplete data polling and/or backups, “fried” CPUs, lost transactions and upset customers may ensue. Test the back-up unit regularly.

Proper system backup is also key. Buy the best backup hardware you can afford, and replace backup tapes as needed. Perform a daily full system backup, verifying this weekly with “full restore”. Keep tapes offsite in a fireproof safe.

A reputable point of sale software manufacturer like pcAmerica can assist with disaster preparedness. Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Visit, pcAmerica to learn more.