The Point of Sale (POS) refers to the area of a store where customers can pay for their purchases. The term is normally used to describe systems that record financial transactions. This could be an electric cash register or an integrated computer system which records the data that comprises a business transaction for the sale of goods or services.

Retail Point-of-Sale(POS) system are used to perform: file maintenance, promotional offer set ups, inventory transfers, menu update, order processing for multiple buying locations.

Below is an architecture of a retail POS system.

Each store contains POS systems connected to a site server, which in turn is connected to the corporate system via internet. A typical retail IT setup is described below:

1. Each store has a dedicated site server.
2. Site server is used to update the store POS
3. POS (Point of sale) machine is used to take the orders.
4. KVS or any display device is used to display the orders.
5. There would be many POS machines connected to site server via VPN. 

Information is distributed overnight to all store locations without disrupting regular business, using various communication formats and maintaining an up-to-date, accurate information network for operations in the above architecture. 

Proactive Detect and Fix can address some routine POS issues to avoid negative impact on Sales and Customer experience besides reducing cost of physical remediation. Some examples are illustrated below:

Issue 1- Site server goes Offline

Reactive physical support- Engineers run a batch file on the site server to restart the service when server goes offline.

Automated Resolution- Monitor if essential services are running in the site server and bring them up if they are not running.

Issue 2- Central Server connection issues

Reactive physical support- Manually restart the connection, by performing the necessary actions by taking remote control of the server.

Automated Resolution- Automatically establish the connection by running the necessary applications.

Issue 3- Product and Price updates not going through

Reactive physical support- Manually update the products and price on the site server and restart all the POS machines.

Automated Resolution- Run the updater once(as and when the update is required) on the site server and products and prices are updated in all the POS machines, at one-go.

Issue 4- Display is not working

Reactive physical support- Manually restart the service, to ensure display is working again.

Automated Resolution- Ensure the essential services required for the display to be working properly are running, by monitoring it periodically.

Anakage provides self-heal solutions for Windows Laptops and Desktops and for anything that can’t be automated there is CoBotic Self-Service (guide users inside Live applications), you can read more here.

The ability to monitor as per a checklist of essential running services and standard settings you can ensure your critical processes are always up and running. The solutions can be extended to headquarters, manufacturing units and warehouses as well covering user and usability issues with an intelligent overlay to guide users, you can read more here.

Benefits of using Anakage automated proactive solutions-

1) Monitor periodically and automatically fix any detected issues in the server , thereby reducing the downtime of the entire retail store.

2) Automatically establish the connection to the central server, enabling transparency to the headquarters.

3) Easy product and price updates across multiple systems and stores, at one-go.

4) No need for manual interventions for most of the issues like display not working etc. across multiple retail stores.

5) Easily handle IT related issues of multiple retail stores, using the combination of Anakage self service solutions and automated proactive solutions.

Click here to get in touch with us to know more about how we can help you implement a successful Retail POS systems Automation.

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