Are you a retailer or a restaurant owner ready to upgrade from a cash to a point of sale computer-based solution? If so, you may have questions about what you need in your point of sale, also called POS, and what each option provides. Here's the 411 on what's what in the world of POS.
So you can identify what your solution may be made up of. Point of sale system consists of a PUC software and peripherals specially bundled to work in a retail environment. These here are the Dell OptiPlex line of machines. They run our point of sale systems and they run on an Intel-based platform CPU for optimal performance. We need a good CPU in order to make sure our retail software runs correctly, properly and quickly.
Also another thing to consider is the ports on the back of the machine. We need to make sure that we have enough ports available to plug in all of our peripherals. They're all based on either USB, parallel or serial. So make sure, when you're picking out a machine, you've got enough ports to properly plug everything in. Next part we want to talk about is our monitors. You've got two main options when it comes to monitors.
You can use the traditional flat panel monitor. With flat panel monitor you'll need a keyboard and mouse into the system. Or what a lot of people are going to these days are our flat panels with touch technology. This allows you to input your information through the screen through a series of touches instead of having to use the keyboard and mouse. On this particular model we do have the MSR for magnetic strip reader on the side for reading credit cards and stuff like that.
Next up on the list we have keyboards, two choices of keyboards. We've got the traditional keyboard with no MSR technology. With this you would need to go with a separate MSR. Another option available to you is the keyboard with MSR built in. That way you can slide right from here and you don't have two separate units and two separate sets of cords. Cash drawer is one part that's going to be used every day multiple times a day.
We need to make sure we've got a good, thick, sturdy unit that will work for us for years and years. Many different sizes are available. Look at the footprint that you're putting your machine into and pick the one that's the right size for your location. After we've picked our cash drawer, we need to look at receipt printers. We've got, here we've got two examples of receipt printers.
One is our traditional receipt printer. These use a thermal paper usually. Allows you to add designs, logos, print coupons and stuff like that from it. Additionally we have the kitchen printer. These will print out your orders to the back, to the line cooks, right from your POS software. This allows the order to get back there quickly and filled even quicker. Next up is our bar code scanners.
The bar code scanners come in traditionally two ways. You've got your hand-held ones. Very easy to scan your bar codes there. Or we've got a stationary unit. They're both doing the same thing. They both allow us to quickly and efficiently scan our item in for sale and register that. One option that you have that you might not see everywhere is a labels printer. These label printers are good for printing up bar codes, UPCs, and coupons from your point of sale software. These will allow you to bring customers back with coupons and gift certificates.
Here we have a traditional PIN pad as well as a signature capture device. We've all been to one of the big box retailers where we've used the signature capture device. It's becoming more and more common as people want to reduce waste with paper and have an electronic version of it. Here we have our traditional version of the PIN pad where we slide our debit or credit card and enter in the PIN.
Both of these are very good options for any retail solution. Required in some states by law, the pole display here will allow you to show your customers pricing information as well as advertising and messages. You want to make sure you have enough ports on your desktop to support the number of POS components you choose. And most connect via USB. If you need additional information or have questions, Dell has a dedicated retail sales team and website at www.dell.com/pos.
