Already commonplace in Europe and now gaining popularity in the United States, mobile POS offers the functionality of a traditional point of sale package in an affordable unit that fits into a pocket or apron.

pcAmerica’s new mobile restaurant point of sale solution, Restaurant Pro Express™ Mobile (RPE Mobile), is ideal for a variety of hospitality environments including restaurants, bars, nightclubs, stadiums or any environment where wireless POS capability is needed. By using RPE Mobile, business owners will find all of the features they expect on a stationary point of sale terminal on an Apple® iPod touch® or iPhone®.

RPE Mobile allows servers to take orders and payments tableside, reducing wait times and mistakes made due to improperly inputted orders, making it a complete restaurant point of sale solution. The time saved lets servers spend a few additional minutes at each table, giving customers a higher level of service and allowing the wait staff the chance to up-sell desserts, drinks and sides.

The stylish, intuitive interface is easy to learn and use. Servers have the ability to take orders tableside, split checks and securely process credit card payments through an attached encrypted credit card reader. Wait staff may print receipts with Epson’s Mobilink™ wireless mobile printer or email diners a paperless receipt option. The mobile ordering system also supports various taxation rules, discounts and happy hour pricing.

Restaurant Pro Express™ Mobile works in conjunction with traditional pcAmerica restaurant POS terminals and synchronizes guest checks and menus in real time, so servers can place orders tableside but also view their open tabs and make changes at the POS station.

For more information about Restaurant Pro Express™ Mobile, please visit www.pcamerica.com.

With the right tools and human capital in place, top-notch customer service can help a retailer or restaurant gain widespread recognition for its efficient workforce, drive business and turn a profit.

It’s not a secret that great customer service has a positive impact on the bottom line. A happy customer means repeat business and referrals. No one likes to be caught short-staffed or, on the flip side, to watch employees play SuDoku during their shift because there isn’t enough work to go around.

Whether you have three employees or 300, Cash Register Express™ and Restaurant Pro Express™ make it easy to manage your employees, set the schedule and ensure than everyone is doing the right job, in the right place, at the right time.

The point of sale software’s labor scheduler is an easy-to-use interface that offers a snapshot of how many employees will be working in certain time slots and what jobs they will be performing at that time. By offering a clear picture of which employees will be covering which stations, employers can be reassured they won’t be under- or over-scheduling, which will help control payroll costs.

Retail managers can take advantage of the job code function to set up responsibilities for employees, which makes assigning work tasks easy and fast. Employees can only select job codes assigned to them, so this function helps ensure that the right employees are performing their assigned duties, helping the business run more efficiently and ensuring that all stations are covered.

Business owners can also use the new Labor Cost Percentage Report to help them determine how many employees they need to schedule during certain shifts. Once they are created, the schedules may be printed for employees or copied from previous weeks, which saves managers time and money spent otherwise re-creating past schedules.

An integrated time clock allows employees to securely clock in and out of any point of sale workstation. For an added level of security, employers may opt to issue ID cards that eliminate “buddy punching.” The time clock function also enables supervisors to easily correct or input forgotten time clock entries.
For more information about workforce management options and other POS software features within Cash Register Express™ and Restaurant Pro Express™, please visit www.pcamerica.com.

Loyalty to restaurants and retail stores is a two way street, but it can be a lucrative one for retailers that choose to cultivate relationships with their customers who tend to stick with particular brands. To keep customers wanting more, Cash Register Express™ and Restaurant Pro Express™ offer a built-in loyalty program option that supports a variety of currencies, including points, birthday rewards and frequent visitor discounts.

pcAmerica’s retail and restaurant point of sale systems allow retailers to offer exciting promotions that will help draw in new shoppers and turn them into repeat customers, including percentage discounts, buy one, get one free and time-sensitive sales.

The point-of-sale system also allows business owners to retain and access detailed customer information, including a customer lookup for the store’s loyalty program. This lookup is especially important for forgetful customers who, despite leaving their loyalty cards at home, can still have their rewards applied to their account.

The system also stores historical data on what items customers have bought. This information is an integral part of direct mail or targeted email marketing campaigns based on previous purchases.

Cash Register Express™ can also integrate with the Social Network Appreciation Platform (SNAP). SNAP allows customers to associate their social network accounts to brand point of sale loyalty programs and rewards customers with extra loyalty points in exchange for electronic endorsements. These digital endorsements, tweeted or posted on Facebook walls, are generated automatically after the customer makes a purchase. The result is the viral sharing and promotion of a brand, which translates into increased visibility and sales.

For more information on how you can connect your business with all of your customers and their friends and followers, please visit pcamerica.com or snapforbusiness.com.

Digital signage—attractive electronic displays that show menus, in-store promotions, advertising and other messages—has historically been an expensive proposition for retail and restaurant owners looking to enhance their locations.

It’s an effective marketing tool: business owners are able to directly convey their most important messages to clients, including in-store specials, upsell or cross-sell promotions and advertising, which helps generate additional revenue for the store or restaurant.

However, this service often carries a hefty price tag. Digital signage packages require pricey equipment, coordination of different vendors and steep monthly maintenance fees.

Cash Register Express™ and Restaurant Pro Express™ make this cutting edge technology affordable for even the smallest business, with its built in digital signage functionality.

The only thing that’s better than affordable is free—and end users also have the option to sell advertisements to vendors or suppliers, to help offset the cost of the POS system. In some instances, the system pays for itself!

Customers who integrate pcAmerica’s digital signage function into their businesses will see the benefit almost immediately. Clients may store their own graphics and update the signage as often as they wish, reducing the cost of re-print materials for advertising flyers, inserts or brochures. This hands-on approach eliminates the need for pricey third-party hosting or maintenance.

The attractive interface is the first point of sale package to display transactions and digital signage on the new Logic Controls LV3000 LCD Pole Display. The software could also be used with a standard LCD monitor or pin pad.

For more information about digital signage and how to start using it in your business with Cash Register Express™ or Restaurant Pro Express™, please visit www.pcamerica.com.

Agonizing over giving the perfect gift is no fun for anyone, nor is returning the gift when it turns out to be less than ideal, especially if it didn’t come with a receipt.

Shopping for a gift for the person who has everything is easy for businesses using Cash Register Express™, which offers retailers the ability to sell and redeem gift cards, issue gift receipts and create and update registries.

Gift cards are cringe-free to buy and redeem—for the giver and the receiver—at participating restaurants and stores. These cards, which can be customized for retailers and restaurants, are sold and redeemed through the point of sale software system with no activation or transaction fees.

Wondering how much is left on the card? No problem—Cash Register Express™, retail POS software, and Restaurant Pro Express™, restaurant POS software, make balances and transaction information available in real time, either at the store it was originally purchased in or between multiple locations. Franchisees or chain locations that issue gift cards can elect to use a processor-based gift card system that will allow multiple stores to claim the redemption.

Retailers that offer customized gift baskets and other sets—known as kits—for special occasions can take advantage of the software’s “kitting option.” The basket or gift set bundles a group of items from the store’s inventory to be sold together at a discounted price.

The system’s kitting option enables retailers to sell any number of items to a customer for a set price while tracking the individual inventory levels of each item that makes up the gift. The system will deduct each item from the inventory when the kit is sold.

Returns and exchanges are easy for retailers using Cash Register Express™, which gives the option of generating gift receipts. These receipts, which omit purchase prices, may be presented as proof of purchase in lieu of the original receipt.

Cash Register Express™ also includes a registry function, which allows customers celebrating milestones including birthdays, weddings, baby showers or other special occasions to create a customized “wish list” of items from the store’s stock.

When the item is purchased, the point of sale system will update the registry automatically. By giving shoppers the option to select gifts from a registry, Cash Register Express™ helps prevent the receipt of duplicate or unwanted gifts, reducing the number of returns to the retailer.

For more information about these essential point of sale system features and how to leverage them using Cash Register Express™, please visit www.pcamerica.com.

In the two most recent installments of this blog, we explained the value of certain essential restaurant point of sale software features. However, we’re not quite finished.

Consider this: In today’s competitive environment, operators must go the extra mile to compel, and make it simpler for, “takeout” customers to order from their establishments. Consumers are now gravitating toward online ordering capabilities and, given the chance to patronize a restaurant that offers it and one that does not, will almost always go for the former. Internet order acceptance capability stacks the odds in restaurants’ favor via an interface to the point of sale system that enables customers to not only place orders online, but to pay for them at the same time. Such a feature also adds efficiency and eliminates accidental omissions on the order processing side because employees need not “walk” orders from the point of sale to the back; rather, customer orders are automatically printed out in the kitchen.

Speaking of the kitchen, operators see equally significant advantages when restaurant POS systems tout enhanced order display capabilities. Printing orders transmitted from the point of sale to a kitchen printer, or displaying them on a kitchen video monitor, reduces theft and loss due to incorrect orders.

Finally, restaurant operators can eliminate long lines and speed up order processing at the point of sale when their point of sale system features integrated transaction processing for credit, debit and gift cards. Such integration means card-based transactions can be completed in as little as two to three seconds, versus up to a minute or more with systems that handle card processing as an entirely separate function.

pcAmerica is a restaurant operator’s source for the most feature rich restaurant point of sale software in the business. For more information, visit www.pcamerica.com

Modifying restaurant orders and transactions isn’t always easy, but it can be—providing that operators leverage the enhanced capabilities of sophisticated, but-easy-to use point of sale solutions such as pcAmerica’s Restaurant Pro Express™.

It’s no secret that employees, when taking orders, sometimes forget to ask customers whether they would like to add or eliminate a condiment or the like from the menu items they are purchasing—and that customers themselves occasionally forget to initiate the requests. Either way, such errors result in frustration on diners’ part and, in situations where the mistake is an employee’s fault, operators must incur the expense of replacing the item with the correct version.  Such problems can be entirely eliminated with a restaurant point of sale system wherein servers are prompted to select the modifiers for each item in customers’ orders and walked through the selections one at a time, leaving no room for error. Modifier groups may be configured to allow more than one selection when applicable.

To minimize waste and the unnecessary expenditures that come with it, operators also need to maintain a better handle on the modification of orders that have already been placed. A restaurant POS software feature that requires manager permission before any order that has already placed may be changed or canceled does the trick perfectly. And there is the added bonus of time savings when multiple items can be selected at the same time, freeing up servers from performing the same operation more than once.

The handling of special situations, too, is better executed leveraging a comprehensive restaurant point-of-sale system. Such situations include managers’ desire to “comp” items for VIP customers or void incorrectly ordered items, as well as the buyback of items by bartenders for  regular customers. Tighter control over “comps”, buybacks and voids is the end-result when, because of the software configuration, they become permission-based exceptions that require a reason code to be selected and all exceptions can be identified via an exceptions report broken down by server ID, date, time and reason code.

For more information visit, www.pcamerica.com.

Next up: the final menu of essential restaurant point of sale software features

Just as retailers now require highly functional point of sale software rather than solutions that do little more than allow them to process transactions, so, too, do restaurants. Only a point of sale system with a variety of useful features will enable operators to reach their true profitability potential.

Among the most valuable “must-have” restaurant point of sale system features are those that streamline order-taking, with simple menu screens topping the list. Menu buttons in different colors, with each color corresponding to a different category of items (for example, green for beverages, red for burgers and blue for chicken sandwiches), help employees quickly locate and ring up order components. Buttons with images of menu offerings and, on the bottom of the screen, an arrangement of buttons corresponding to best-seller or the most commonly used point-of-sale functions provide the same benefit.

Operators can also benefit greatly from restaurant pos features that save time and enhance accuracy by eliminating the need to manually switch menus to reflect individual days or special events. With these capabilities, managers can configure different menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with the system automatically switching between menus on a set schedule.  Such a “multiple menu” function can also be used for holiday menus. For example, a Valentine’s Day menu can be planned and programmed in advance for February 14th; the menu will automatically turn on and off at the correct times.

Restaurant Pro Express™ from pcAmerica offers these and other critical features. For more information, visit www.pcAmerica.com.

Next up: Another menu of top restaurant point-of-sale system features

As important and advantageous as capabilities like “bulk pricing,” “transaction suspend” and other sophisticated features mentioned in the first two parts may be, today’s retailers also need point-of-sale systems that can handle the different requirements of the vertical market in which they play.

For clothing, shoe and accessory retailers, being able to track inventory that comes in many sizes and colors is a must. Otherwise, it will be impossible to maintain a true picture of what is selling, rather than a distorted one, and in turn to ensure that the “right” merchandise is in stock, at the “right” time. New software capabilities afford retailers such a “perk” by allowing them to assign individual product SKUs to groups by size and color, then view and manage all items within any given group on a matrix-style screen to clearly ascertain what is in stock for each variation—with no guesswork or added labor. It also adds a measure of convenience, efficiency and accuracy because it lets retailers automatically generate new purchase orders only for inventory that is really is out of stock.

In another vein, with a feature for handling commissions in place, management can take the hassle out of paying employees on a commission basis by using the point of sale software to automatically determine which salesperson gets credit for each item on an invoice. Another advantage of this feature is that commissions may be automatically split, permitting multiple salespeople to receive commission on the same invoice and rendering any unpleasant disputes about who is entitled to payment obsolete. Keeping tabs on commissions also becomes a painless, flexible process via a commission-tracking capability that allows retailers to monitor commissions by a percentage of the gross sale, percentage of the gross profit or a set actual dollar amount.

For more information about these essential point-of-sale system features and how to leverage them using Cash Register Express™, visit pcAmerica.

In the last installment of this blog (and the first in this series), we listed several features that are essential to viable point of sale systems and explained how they benefit retailers. However, the list represented only the tip of the iceberg.

The roster of today’s “must-have” point-of-sale system necessities—such as those available from  pcAmerica—also includes those whose benefits center on easier, faster handling of more complicated transactions that involve special pricing; complicated steps and/or multiple calculations are replaced with a single automated process. For instance, instead of having employees remember sale prices and sale price validity—not to mention compelling management to configure and re-configure point-of-sale systems to reflect temporary “deals”—feature-rich solutions allow time parameters for sales on individual items to be automatically administered. A feature for handling bulk pricing helps the employees because multiple items can be sold at a discount merely by pre-selecting quantity and special pricing to offer “2 for 1” or “3 for 1” sales on the same item; a “mix-and-match” feature is valuable in that it allows retailers to offer a special price for quantities of multiple items.

Retailers can also reap considerable gains in the form of enhanced customer service and faster throughput from the ability to temporary place one transaction in “suspend” mode while executing another, then recall and tender the previous sale. This feature prevents bottlenecks at the point of sale should a customer realize, after his or her purchases have been rung up, that he or she has left a wallet in the car or forgotten to pick up an item. It is a great alternative to being forced to cancel a sale.

Learn more about pcAmerica’s Cash Register Express™ Software by visiting www.pcamerica.com.

Next up: Still more essential retail point of sale solution features.