EPOS - Buyers Guide
EPOS Guide - Helping you choose the right system
A basic electronic cash register will meet the needs of many small startup businesses with small product lines and low turnover. However, few purchases can have as dramatic an effect on your retail or hospitality business as a carefully selected EPOS System (Electronic Point Of Sale). These are also often referred to as Point Of Sale systems, Tills, EPOS Tills and POS Systems.
An EPOS system chosen to suit your business needs will offer a new dimension and level of control over day to day operations, allowing you to react quickly to competitors and changes in customers buying habits. It will bring a host of business benefits, boosting profitability, controlling costs, increasing efficiency, and helping you fine tune your business model and processes.
Choosing to upgrade from a basic cash register to an EPOS system can be time consuming and there are many decisions to be made, however the benefits of an EPOS system and potential ROI (return on investment) will make it time well spent.
To help you understand the differences we have broken down the different types of products into three broad categories:
Cash Registers
Apart from the most basic cash registers, modern cash registers, now come network ready and allow you to connect the cash registers together so data and customer bills can be moved or shared between machines. They also support devices like barcode scanners or kitchen printers and you can even link them to a PC-based back office software package such as EPOS Sales or EPOS Backoffice to form a basic low cost EPOS System with stock control.
EPOS Systems (Embedded)
These are highly sophisticated POS terminals well suited to high volume operations where speed of service is essential, like bars, nightclubs, stadiums, general retail, quick service restaurants, pubs etc. Designed to be networked together on standard PC-based networks they are available with either an operator keyboard or a touch screen, where items are sold by pressing buttons displayed on the screen.
Systems like the E-tek's e-Retail, e-Fast, e-Restaurant with market leader touch-screens may be installed on their own, but are typically networked together and often supported by back office software. Packages like e-Backoffice offer stock control, ordering, reporting, daily & weekly cash sheets, product maintenance, price management and give you full control over your POS terminals.
These EPOS terminals offer greater functionality than cash registers plus more system integration options such as CCTV cameras, loyalty software, kitchen order printers, cashless smart card devices and hand held order terminals.
Embedded EPOS systems do not have a PC engine inside them, do not require a Windows operating system or hard disk drive (HDD) and there is usually no cooling fan, so with no moving parts they are ultra reliable and resilient.
Often selected for their robustness, they are less susceptible to overheating problems, data corruption, computer viruses or hacking and usually they aren’t reliant on a central server so down-time is minimal. They also have the added attraction of being energy efficient and startup in just a few seconds rather than a few minutes. Embedded EPOS systems can be turned off mid transaction without losing any transaction information or corrupting any sales data.
With low maintenance and longevity they have an overall lower cost of ownership than many PC-POS systems and can provide an excellent ROI. If you are looking for speed at the point of sale or hand held Ordering terminals then you won't get much faster than the e-tek touch screen system.
Multiple outlet operations are well catered for with e-Headoffice web based reporting software.
e-tek -EPOS Systems (computer based)
EPOS terminals traditionally consisted of a computer, a monitor, keyboard and mouse, however many modern e-tek EPOS systems now embrace touch screen technology and are manufactured as an all-in-one unit, they are specially designed for Point of Sale (POS) use increasing speed of operation, robustness and ease of use.
The e-tek IBM Surepos Series and J2 580 are good examples, their modern designs also allow them to be wall or pole mounted along with a receipt printer and other devices such as a credit card terminal, or customer advertising screen, freeing up valuable counter or bar space.
In addition to choosing your PC-POS hardware you will also need the e-tek software package, along with a cash drawer, receipt printer, order printer, scanner etc. e-tek offers a bundled solution to ensure seamless compatibility and a one-stop solution.
e-tek systems can potentially offer the highest levels of features and functionality and are by their nature more suited to running multiple applications or software packages on the same machine if this is what you require. So you may have your retail or hospitality EPOS software on the same machine as your restaurant booking system for example.
With a range of operating systems and EPOS software solutions they provide choice, flexibility, industry standard networking, user friendly operations, speed and many integration opportunities to third party applications or devices such as biometric fingerprint readers, point of purchase advertising screens, postcode lookup software etc.
e-tek systems allow individual and multi outlet retailers alike to capitalize on latest technologies, and benefit from solutions such as a remote log-in software that allow you to access machines remotely or to view live data on the POS system. Suppliers too can take advantage by offering remote support, software upgrades or product, price and menu changes.
Choosing your EPOS system
When deciding if you need a Cash Register or EPOS System it’s worth spending a little time understanding your business requirements to make sure you select a system that's right for you and that helps you build your business
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