The CEO of pcAmerica, David Gosman, recently participated in a podcast with Vertical Systems Reseller magazine (a publication offering technology insight on point of sale and other topics) discussing how VARs, including pcAmerica, can provide complete point of sale solutions to retail stores and restaurants.  pcAmerica’s strategy focuses on working with restaurants, retail stores and channel partners to identify the needs of each customer and provide them with a package including point of sale software, POS hardware such as (receipt printers, touch screens, bar code scanners, cash drawers), installation assistance, user training and 24x7x365 technical support.

pcAmerica concentrates on offering complete point of sale systems, for both small businesses and medium\large chains, that encompasses all the components and services required to successfully install a point of sale system in a retail store or restaurant that meets the needs and goals of the business owner.

pcAmerica will be displaying its retail and restaurant point of sale systems at the RSPA Retail NOW Show in Las Vegas from July 14-15.  Both the Cash Register Express retail POS and Restaurant Pro Express restaurant POS will be displayed at the Bluestar and Metropolitan Sales booths.  Retail Technology professionals meet once a year at RetailNOW to display new products to hundreds of dealers and resellers along with participating in dozens of education sessions for all levels of industry professionals. RetailNOW also provides first class networking events for all attendees.

RSPA RetailNOW Convention

Point of sale systems originally started out as computerized cash registers with basic inventory tracking. They’ve come quite a long way.  Most POS software packages have adopted some “beyond the register” functionality including a varying degree of inventory tracking, customer history, and employee labor tracking. Recently, new marketplace trends have emerged, and point of sale ISVs have been introducing new software features to address these trends.

In the July issue of Vertical Systems Reseller Magazine, the CEO of pcAmerica outlines some of the emerging trends and how they expand the role of point of sale beyond traditional register checkout.  Topics include self-checkout for retail stores, self-ordering terminals for quick service restaurants (as well as food service within retail stores), and personalized marketing initiatives.

Vertical Systems Reseller cover July 2009

The Restaurant Pro Express point of sale system has an industry-leading pizza ordering screen — it’s the easiest Pizza POS on the market.  Other POS systems make it confusing to order custom pizzas with half-toppings, quarter toppings and various sizes and crusts.  The pizza screen in the RPE POS, made specifically for pizza restaurants, has a visual layout of a pizza.  For example, to add a pepperoni topping to the left side of a pizza, simply touch the left half of the pizza and touch the pepperoni button.  The point of sale systems also allows you to create specialty pizzas ahead of time, such as ‘Meat Lovers’ or ‘Veggie Lovers’ — and when you ring it up inside of the POS, it loads the specialty pizza but allows you to easily add or remove toppings to further modify it (such as Veggie Lovers with no onions.)

POS screen for ringing up pizzas

pcAmerica’s Pocket Inventory handheld inventory tracking solution, which runs on portable Windows mobile devices, is a great addition to your retail point of sale system.  The unit with Pocket Inventory can be used to count inventory, receive products away from the register, adjust inventory levels (ex:  remove 8 out-of-date milk gallons from the shelf, record the adjustment), and perform direct store deliveries.  Discrepancy reports can be generated to help you identify missing or stolen inventory.  pcAmerica recommends the Honeywell Dolphin 7600 with Pocket Inventory to be used in conjunction with your Cash Register Express retail POS.

Cash Register Express, the retail point of sale system from pcAmerica, has been integrated with Honeywell’s imaging EasyID scanners to provide a complete age verification system.  U.S. law requires business establishments to verify the legal age of all customers at the point-of-sale for all compulsory products, including liquor and tobacco related products.  The ground-breaking interface within Cash Register Express enforces age verification by forcing cashiers to scan the customer’s licence upon ringing up liquor or tobacco products.  The POS system from pcAmerica will instantly check the age, and only allow the products to be rung up if the customer is of age.  pcAmerica’s CRE and RPE point-of-sale systems with age verification functionality are currently compatible with EasyID-enabled MS7580 Genesis™ and MS1690 Focus® scanners from Honeywell.