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In This Issue

June 26, 2009
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This month we're focusing on Point of Sale and Retail Management add-ons that integrate with QuickBooks. As outlined in the Managerial section of this newsletter, there are huge benefits available when you combine POS software and bar code scanning.

You can get an even better understanding of how POS software, bar coding and QuickBooks work together by reading the three case histories in this issue. Even without bar coding, there are many advantages to using POS software.

Remember, no matter what your problem or need, you can find just the right solution among the hundreds of add-on programs that integrate with QuickBooks. The trick is sorting through the abundance to find the one that exactly fits your company.

Call us for more details.

 
Managerial Mentor
Advantages of POS Software & Bar Coding

Most POS software is designed to be used with a bar code scanner. Although bar codes are not essential, they do offer a number of benefits, such as:

Save time and improve efficiency. You'll be checking out customers faster, implement mark downs instantly and eliminate the need for price tag switching.

Quickly count your inventory at any time. This can be done with a PDT (portable data terminal). It will store your inventory count and quickly upload it into your POS software or an accounting program such as QuickBooks.

Reduce pricing and inventory errors. Bar code scanning is far more accurate than typing a SKU. For example, the typical error rate for humans is one error per 300 characters. Barcode scanners can obtain an accuracy rate of one error per 36 trillion characters.

Improve inventory accuracy. Bar coding can reduce errors at both the receiving and point of sale.

Wondering how to find the best POS software to integrate with your QuickBooks? Let us take the frustration out of your search by giving us a call.

 
Techno-Visor

What New Technologies are on the horizon in POS Systems?
From a technical standpoint, there are a lot of POS changes coming down the pipeline. Here are two new technologies you might want to be looking for if your company is considering installing or upgrading a POS system.

Biometrics: This technique has been around a while but is new in retailing. It is used to identify someone by measuring a unique human characteristic such as a finger print.

Cash registers are being designed to identify an employee by using a finger print scanner. It automatically logs them into the POS system and prevents unauthorized employees from using the cash register.

Consumers may soon be using biometrics at self-checkout lanes. Their fingerprint would be used to automatically debit or charge a credit card. Not having to search for cards, checks, wallets or purses is expected to speed up the checkout procedure.

Advanced CRM: POS systems are now being designed with an email autoresponder. For example, when a customer comes into the store and purchases a particular product, the system would automatically send them an email thank you note. Then, perhaps on day seven, the customer would get another email asking if they were enjoying their purchase, provide helpful suggestions and recommend other products that would complement it.

Does all this sound like a lot more work for company techies?
Yeah! But having been forewarned, you can keep ahead of the curve.
 
Case Study # 1 - Retail Pro Furnishes Nest Casa with E-Commerce Benefits

Nest Casa is a luxury furniture and home accessories retailer with two retail locations and a separate warehouse in Miami Florida.

Problem
With separate warehouse and stores, Nest Casa needed help in finding the best way to combine both inventory and point-of-sale needs into one system.

 
Solution
Retail Technology Experts provided the answer with a QuickBooks add-on called Retail Pro. It not only provides inventory and point-of-sale but also directly shares information with the retailer's QB Accounting System.

The program has enabled Nest Casa to increase efficiency, provide a rapid response to customer inquiries, help increase profitability and proactively manage inventory, pricing and resources.

Benefits

Nest Casa was so pleased with the results that they are planning to expand their e-commerce operations in the future as well as open additional retail locations. As Sara Colombo, President of Nest Casa, stated, "The team at Retail Technology Experts was always very knowledgeable. They were honest about selling us only what we were really going to use and they let us know what would be cost-effective and what wouldn't be."

 
Case Study # 2 - Wasp Barcode Ends Inventory Clutter for Closets and More

Closets and More, Marietta, GA, has been serving the Atlanta area with customer closet installations since 1992. The company evaluates each customer's closet space, manufactures a customized solution, including shelving and cabinets, and installs them on site.

Problem 
Closets and More installs about 10 closets a day, each of which involves around 100 individual parts. Because each job is customized, the parts needed are different with every installation. After pulling the parts, 15 to 20 minutes were spent checking to make certain everything was included. But with over 1,000 parts needed per day, occasionally one was overlooked. This required a costly return trip to the factory.

Solution 
The company purchased Wasp Countit inventory software and a Wasp portable data collector. The portable barcode scanner is used to quickly catalog the items needed for each individual job. After all items are counted, Countit software feeds the data to a PC or an accounting program such as QuickBooks, for inventory control and an exception report.

Benefits 

Closets and More has cut job parts checking down to only 2 minutes with a clean exception report. This amounts to a savings of around two to three hours a day, plus human error is practically eliminated.

 
Case Study # 3 - AccuPOS Rings Up Sales for Goodwill Industries

Wabash Valley Goodwill Industries, Terra Haute, IN, needed a sales software program that didn't depend on having their merchandise bar-coded. The system also had to be reasonably priced with the information easily transferred to their QuickBooks accounting system.

Problem
Most Point-of-Sale software is geared for businesses that use bar coding on their merchandise. Also, according to William Tennis, Executive Director, Wabash Valley Goodwill Industries, "A lot of the software we looked at was way too expensive and it didn't work very well."

Solution
Goodwill found AccuPOS. The program did everything the expensive POS software did and for a lot less. They found that it tracks inventory and customers, can handle mass e-mailings to customers, allows the acceptance of credit cards and offers customized gift cards.

Benefits
AccuPOS has increased the speed of customers moving through the checkout lines. Another benefit was having the line item detail of customer purchases quickly and easily transferred into the store's QuickBooks accounting program. It also allows for the configuration of messages into sales receipts and ties-in with a digital surveillance system so that every transaction is recorded on video. This has reduced theft.
Leaving You With A Little Humor

A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.
"House" in French, is feminine -"la maison," "Pencil" in French, is masculine "le crayon."
One puzzled student asked, "What gender is computer?" The teacher didn't have a clue so she decided to let the class decide. She split the class into two groups by gender and told each group to come up with four reasons for making computers either masculine or feminine.

The men's group decided that computers should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because:

  1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
  2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else. 
  3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review. 
  4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it. 

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine "le computer") because:

  1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on. 
  2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves. 
  3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem. 
As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer you could have gotten a better model.

 

FREE TIPS

For our latest tips on setting up your chart of accounts so that you have the processing and reporting capabilities you need for these tough economic times, please refer to http://www.seeclearlyaccounting.com/22/index.html

While you are looking at the tips about your chart of accounts, if you are responsible for the accounting for an estate, you may want to read 22 of the Best Tips for Trust and Estate Accounting. This sets out how we do this work using QuickBooks, with a little help from Excel.