Consider, for instance, a “combo meal” feature. Such a feature guides cashiers through the steps entailed in taking orders for “combination” meals, saving time and increasing order accuracy. Individual items that are ordered separately may be “packaged” together so customers can receive an automatically calculated discount, without adding any time to the process or introducing any margin for error.

Yet another new, highly desirable point of sale system capability paves the way for easy, effective, simultaneous price-changing on multiple goods. Even better, mass updating of prices can be set to take effect at a certain date and time; lists of items, departments or goods with specific properties can be selected for price change action.

Recent installments of this blog have focused on the addition of different software modules to retail and restaurant point of sale systems to bolster their capabilities. But forward-thinking vendors like pcAmerica aren’t stopping there.

If you’re like most retailers and restaurant operators, labor scheduling ranks among your least favorite tasks. Slotting staff members into shifts can be extremely time-consuming, and confirming just how many employees are slated to work a particular shift and the roles to which they’ve been assigned often necessitates a significant effort as well.

Tick tock…is it time to upgrade your retail or restaurant point of sale system? While the answer is not always cut-and-dried, here are a few indicators that this is indeed the case.

As if that weren’t enough, you can utilize historical point of sale information to set minimum and maximum “stock-on-hand” levels. This will prevent overstocks and, in turn, minimize the need to ever tell a customer that you are “out” of a product or menu item.

Remote log-in program. Once this type of program is installed, you can access your store, restaurant, or home computer from the software provider’s Web site by entering your user name and password. This type of software can be provided by pcAmerica.

Internet security solutions, including antivirus software, antispyware software, and firewall software. The antivirus piece ensures that your computer cannot be maliciously destroyed by outside hackers. With antispyware, unwanted ads will not pop up on your screen. Most importantly, firewalls prevent outsiders from stealing your data.

It’s no secret that the key to any successful communication is reaching the right audience, at the right time, with the right message. For some retailers and restaurateurs, this means not only deploying “freestanding” digital signage applications, but running digital signage software on kiosks.

“Support” and “maintenance” are nebulous terms, but when it comes to these two elements, retailers need to be very clear about what they’re getting from their POS systems vendor.