With the rising gas prices, you may find your business being effected negatively. What can your POS Software do to help? Enter ProphetLine, POS Software with integrated Web Shopping. ProphetLine for Windows allows you to quickly and easily setup an online store your customers can shop from the comfort of their homes 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

Call ProphetLine Sales at 800-875-6592 ext. 310 or send an e-mail to sales [at] prophetline [dot] com for more information

- By Jeff Haefner

After helping thousand of retailer businesses select POS/Retail Management Software over the last 12 years, guess what I’ve found to be the most common (and critical mistake) that retailers make when choosing their software?

They don’t spend enough time evaluating the company!

Surprised?

Don’t be. It’s easy to overlook the actual company that will be providing you with service and support.

Most retailers fall into the trap of simply evaluating the actual POS software and considering the price, but they don’t come close to spending enough time evaluating the company.

So why is this so important and what should you be doing about it?

For starters, just recognize that you’re buying a relationship, not just a product. You’ll be in continual contact with your POS software company for software updates, support, training, hardware and consulting.

This is extremely important!

There are thousands of POS software companies, and dozens come and go every year. It’s important to find a company that has been established and has a solid customer base.

In addition, the company’s level of support could be the difference between a good experience and a bad one. When computers are involved, you’re bound to have problems. There’s nothing more frustrating than implementing software and having problems that the software company can’t help you with.

Let me ask you a few questions to help you understand why the company is so important...

• What if the POS software company went out of business? What would you do then? How much money would you have lost?
• What if the company doesn't give you software updates when you need them?
• What if it takes 2 days to get your technical questions answered?
• What if the software has a bug and they don't fix it?
• What if they didn't give you sufficient training? And as a result, your sales reports are showing the wrong totals!
• What if you can't print receipts and it takes 6 hours to get help from a support technician?

Trust me; it’s not fun to work with a software company that doesn’t have good service.

How to select the right type of company

In order to choose the right company, there are several important questions to ask your self…

Is the POS Software Vendor Financially Stable?

It’s extremely important that the software is supplied by a solid vendor who will be around for many years.

If the software vendor has financial issues, that could affect their ability to deliver new products in a timely manner. In addition, you need a company that will be around a long time.

How can you tell if the company is financially stable? Here are a few items to consider:

• Years in business.
• Profitability.
• Increasing license sales.
• Good credit history.
• High percentage of satisfied customers.

What is the POS software vendor’s vision and future direction?

Every business has a vision and an idea for their future direction. Does that direction include marketing to your industry? Will the company continue to provide software enhancements for your industry?

You should find out the vendor’s vision and future direction. This could tell you whether this company is a good match for you.

Does the POS software vendor provide great customer service?

Many times too much focus is placed on the functionality and technology of a software company and not enough on its character. One of the first things that happen after purchasing POS software is you establish contact with the support staff.

Will the support staff answer your questions in a timely manner?

What are their hours?

Is there a manual or on-line help?

Do they have a service oriented attitude?

Does the company have honorable ethics and character?

Is this a company you will feel comfortable doing business with?

In addition, I would ask the POS software vendor all of the following questions, and then ask some of their references the same questions:

• What hours do you offer telephone support?
• How many technical support people do you have during normal business hours?
• What is the average time for a caller to speak with your technical support people or to receive a call back?
• Do you provide on-site installation assistance?

Jeff Haefner is a nationally known author and retail software consultant. He has past experience as a programmer, business consultant, network administrator, and POS software salesmen. He's also the author of "The Point of Sale Software Buyers Guide - How to Choose POS Software and Avoid Problems”. You can learn more about his consulting services and software selection tools by visiting: www.possoftwareguide.com

I received the following Dilbert panel (click here for full Dilbert)today from a friend stating 'this is you’.

He’s right, but how many times have we all receive that documentary e-mail with more pages than War and Peace, no paragraphs or line breaks and is a massive clump of plain text? Then to top it off, once you finish reading it you are still unsure what it said, why you received it or even if it was to you. Miscommunication, lack of a common terminology and vague information can cause/cost lots of damage. Here are some tips from Lee Froschheiser of MAP (Management Action Programs) Consulting on communicating clearly. Read the full article and get more detail on the below points by clicking here.

Here's the primer and some of its salient points:

1. Prepare how you will communicate.

• Clarify the goal of the communication.
• Plan carefully before sending it or having the meeting.
• Anticipate the receiver's viewpoint and feelings.

2. Deliver the message.

• Express your meaning with conviction.
• Relate the message to your larger goals.
• Identify the action that needs to be taken.
• Confirm the other person is understanding.

3. Receive the message.

• Always keep an open mind.
• Identify the key points in the message.
• Value constructive feedback and use it to grow.
• Confirm your understanding.

4. Evaluate the effectiveness of the communication afterwards.

5. Take corrective action as necessary.

While printer drivers are becoming available for Windows Vista, a faster turn around is often needed. If you are trying to print to an Epson TM 88 POS printer and running Windows Vista, use the Windows 2000 drivers and have the abiltity to print now rather than waiting

The drivers can be downloaded by going to Epson's support site. The site requires free registration.

When moving to a new Point of Sale (POS) Software system, most people want to move/convert data from their ‘old’ system to the new one. While this is possible with most POS Software systems, there are some things to consider and watch out for in order to make the move as easy as possible.

Label/Name fields for clarification – Although when you look at your data, it is easy to see which column is a department code, a retail price, cost, etc never assume other people will be able to distinguish the columns the same way. Always clearly label the columns to avoid confusion.

Verify data types between applications – If you used alpha-numeric values for such entries as department code, customer numbers, vendor numbers, etc. Make sure the new system can also use alpha-numeric. If it cannot, make a list of mappings to be used in the data conversion – A10 = 100, A11 = 101, etc.

Verify data as it is moved from one application to another – a common problem with data conversion is the data ‘changing’ as it is moved from one application to another. One common cause of this is data being exported to a text file, opened in Excel to verify/modify the data and then saved. Unless care is taken, Excel will set data the ‘appears’ to be numeric as a number field. This will remove leading zeros and cause issues if any of the data is alpha-numeric.

Verify hardware formatting with data – Barcode/UPC/EAN codes can be converted correctly and still not work as desired in the new POS Software application. This is usually due to hardware setup or (as stated above) data changing between applications. Barcode scanners can be setup to read or ignore check digits (as well as many other formatting options). An easy way to tell how a barcode scanner is ‘reading’, is to open Notepad, scan several items and compare the output with the barcode on the item.

In summary, verify your data and communicate in detail with your POS Software company before the conversion. You will benefit and save lots of headaches in the long run.

In our fast paced globally connected world, I find myself asking potential meeting attendees 'what time is it where you're at?'. This is just a common question these day with us conferencing/doing demos of POS Software with others in multiple time zones and/or on the other side of the globe.

This year could make that question a little more difficult to communicate as the change to Daylight Savings time has been moved. Although the effect sounds minor and most computer systems already have an update available to keep your time correct, the update may or may not be applied to all computers involved.

When you schedule that conference on March 11th to demo the new ProphetLine POS Software, will it be at 11 CST, 10 CST or both (if some computers are unpatched and don't change the time correctly)?

Want to make things worse, what about your VCR and the recording you are counting on of 'Heroes' or 'CSI'. Will the time be right or will you get to find out what comes on after the show you wanted to see?

Install updates for your computers and cell phones if available. Verify the date on the computer, in your POS Software, your calendar software and other time sensitive applications. Most vendors will have some utility to check/update the dates you already have. Microsoft advises heavy calendar users to download a small program known as 'tzmove' (time zone move). It is designed to retrofit all previous appointments to the new daylight saving rules.