Advantages as well Disadvantages of Point of Sale System
Discuss about the POS System for Exact Financial Transaction and Costly System.
The Point of Sale, commonly known as POS is that exact time when the transaction for retail sale is fully completed. That particular point of time when the merchants evaluates that exact time that the customers owns and therefore, gives an exact time and an exact amount for the transaction (Falzone and Ciabarra 2016). At the time of POS, the customer is given an invoice for the amount and then the customers proceed to payment for completion the POS. After making the payment, the customer actually gets the product from the seller and then the whole process is being completed. All the retail organization, from small to big, has a POS system with every transaction it proceeds.
There are several advantages as well as disadvantages that the POS system includes in an organization. The case study that is provided for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery have different advantages as well as disadvantages for POS system. The advantages are as follows.
- Rapidity as well as Efficiency- The foremost advantage that the Point of Sale system involves rapidity as well as efficiency (Madden and TAN 2015). The efficiency of the system is improved by using of POS system in the organization. All the efficiency related to transaction is increased with the organization. The transaction system becomes faster with the implementation of the POS system.
- Manage the Inventory- Another advantage that the POS system provides is that the inventory of the organization is managed efficiently with the implementation of POS system (Edwards et al. 2016). The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery faces major problem regarding the inventory of the system. The inventory of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is maintained manually for which the organization needs to implement POS in its system.
- Exact Financial Transaction- The system of POS provides exact financial transaction that are carried out in the system. The POS system helps the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to keep a proper calculation on all the transaction that is not always possible with the manual process.
Along with all the advantages, the POS system also comes with some disadvantages. The disadvantages that the system includes are stated below.
- Costly System- The system of Point of Sale is mainly costly. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a small sized organization and the company is facing issue regarding its inventory and maintaining its transactions manually (Orr et al. 2015). But as this organization is a small sized company, it is difficult for the organization to implement the system of Point of Sale as the system is costly. There is no possible ways to reduce the cost of the POS system and thus it becomes unaffordable for most of the organization. Thus, implementing the POS system night lead to financial crisis for the organization.
- Maintenance- There is another disadvantage that the Point of Sale offers is the maintenance factor (Van Horn et al. 2017). The POS system needs regular maintenance. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a small organization and might face issue while maintaining the POS system.
The transaction system of the company is generally increased by the Point of sale system. Point of Sale makes the system of buying and selling easier compared to other similar systems. All the details related to the business transaction can be identified by the Point of Sale system. As the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a small sized organization that deals with transaction of buying and selling of different items, POS can help the organization to simplify its processes. All the system in the organization does the work manually, which leads to many error. To mitigate those errors, the system of POS can be implemented in the organization (Orr et al. 2016). All the transaction process does not need manually involvement after implementing the POS system. The system of POS makes to increase the decision making system in the organization. With all this advantages, the system POS will increase the competition in the market with all such similar organizations. More revenue can be collected by the organization with the implementation of the POS system making the system more efficient.
The centralized database system is a simple database or is a centralized database of computer (Rese, Schreiber & Baier 2014). The information is accessed in an organization with the help of centralized database. Smaller sized companies as well as medium sized companies can use the system of POS. The advantages that the centralized database provides are listed below.
- 1. Helps in Data Preservation- The foremost advantage that the centralized system offers is preventing the data that associated with the organization (Januzaj, Ajdari and Selimi 2015). The data is also enhanced and improved with the centralized database.
- 2. Improves Physical Security- The next advantage that the centralized system provides is improving the security related to data. Physical access is therefore restricted with the confidentiality of data.
- Provides Data Security- Another advantage that the centralized database offers is provide security of data. The data is secured with the implementation of centralized database.
- 4. Cost Effective- The last benefit that the centralized system offers is that the system is cost effective (Coronel and Morris 2016). This centralized database is easily affordable by all organization from small to medium at a very cheap rate.
POS System Help in Gaining Competitive Advantages
The decision making process can be made much easier by implementing the system of POS in the organization. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery uses the system of handing all the processes manually and then maintain the track of orders manually by the employees. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery wants to change its system to POS for making the system automated (Meagher 2014). The business process can be made efficient by implementing the POS system in the organization. The information that are involved with the organization is to be stored properly by the POS system. The decision making process is easily improved by the POS system implementation in the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery.
The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is to select a proper telecommunication process in the system. The recommended telecommunication system that can be suggested for the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a WAN (Wide Area Network) for the system. This WAN network helps to improve the network of the over a wide area (Wang et al. 2014). The WAN is very different from LAN (Local Area Network) or MAN (Metropolitan Area Network). As the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery wants to expand its business and network LAN cannot provide that network for the organization as it can provide a network only in local or smaller areas. MAN network is also appropriate for the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery as it provides network for extremely large areas. So, the organization is recommended to use WAN to produce network in the organization.
For Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. The most appropriate technology is the wireless technology. The wireless technology does not have any type of complication or any kind of complexity because they are basically wireless (Yang et al. 2015). The involvement of wire is an extra cost for the organization and thus to cut the cost of telecommunication, the organization is suggested to use wireless technology. Wireless technologies are faster than other communications. On example of wireless technology is the Wi-Fi technology that can be used by the organization by improving its telecommunication.
The risks that the Point of Sale may face are stated below along with their mitigation processes.
- Security- The POS (Point of Sale) system comprises of security risk or the threat that the network possess (Dai 2015). If the network is not secured, there is high chance for the hacker to hack the system. This would lead to data theft of the organization. This can be mitigated with the use of proper antivirus within the organization. The antivirus will detect the hacker and can prevent attack from the hackers in the system.
- Privacy- When there is a malware attack in the system, then there always remains a risk of privacy within the system. All types of malware that are faced by organization are common and these attacks of malware can only be removed by the adding of passwords in the system. The employees or the staffs who are involved with the system of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery should have a unique user ID as well as a unique password.
- Confidentiality- There should be a proper confidentiality maintained in Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. The employees should not share the data with any outsiders as that may be prone to data breach within the organization. The confidentiality within a system can be maintained by the implementing a firewall in the network of the organization.
Conclusion
From the above report it can be summarized that POS, centralized data, a proper telecommunication process is very essential for the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to improve its system. This report clearly gave the description of Point of Sale that is based on Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. The basic system of the POS was illustrated in this report related to the case study. All the advantages as well as the disadvantages that the POS system possess were described in brief and some recommendations were also provided for the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery regarding POS system.
References
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Madden, C.A. and TAN, G.P., VeriFone Inc, 2015. Point of sale system. U.S. Patent Application 14/103,298.
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