POS software or point of sale software is software that paves way for automated processing by integrating the physical devices in a point of sale system with computer programming language. The introduction of the first POS software is credited to IBM, the software being IBM 3650. POS software finds itself extremely useful in several industries. Of late, POS software are specifically designed to meet the needs of a particular industry, for example, the hotel POS software incorporates features that are useful in the hospitality industry.

The advantages of POS software

In general, POS software helps increase the speed and accuracy of day-to-day activities like maintaining an account of expenditure and income, transaction records, billing, stocks and clearance, customer interfacing through vending machines and kiosks and so on.

Without taking into consideration any particular industry, here are the advantages of POS software.

1.Retention of customers: Increased customer satisfaction guarantees the loyalty of customers. Tracking down the customer likelihood and preferences also aids in the retention of customers.

a)Custom price/offer levels: Discounts or offers for regular customers.

b)Targeted advertising: Ads to customers are sent on the basis of customer habits or trends.

2.Inventory control: It helps in the better utilization of the capital. Inventory orders, profitability reports, hot lists, purchase orders and shrinkage reports are included in the inventory control. The account of stock available and the efficient utilization of the stock can be effectively done using POS software.

3.Security: Losses (by malice) are prevented by the security features of the POS software.

4.Consumer trends can be assimilated, analyzed and the conclusions of the analysis can be incorporated in the business to enhance the productivity of the business.

5.Automation with bar codes is another notable feature of POS.

Given in the above advantages, POS Software indeed proves beneficial to almost every business that sells! (Ironical, since there's no business that does not sell!). Further, certain features (the ones meeting the particular needs of an industry) are added to the POS software to make it more industry-specific. For example, the software helps in paging in restaurants and hotels by taking online orders for food and rooms and delivery of food items.

The article is contributed by a professional content writer, having experiences of working in different industries. For further information on POS Software, Point Of Sale Software and Restaurant point of sale software to improve your sales, please visit www.anandsystems.com