Point of Sale general overview
What is point of sale?
Point of sale (POS) is your first stop for transactions with customers. This could be anything from a sale to a rental to just providing a proposal. Point of sale transactions can be completed for a customer account that is stored in your database, or as a Quick Cash sale for customers whose information you might not need, or want, to save. Each transaction between you and any customer is saved in your AIMsi history until you're ready to archive or delete it.
AIMsi's point of sale options
You have two distinct options for using POS in AIMsi. You can use one, or both, depending on your needs. One is AIMsi's "classic" POS solution that requires a keyboard and mouse. The other is a touchscreen option (which you can also use with a keyboard and mouse).
Classic POS
The classic POS option has a layout similar to a traditional paper invoice, making input and navigation flow naturally. This is an ideal solution for businesses that conduct a variety of transaction types because it can be used for new sales as well as to bring special orders into a sale, turn proposals into sales, sell merchandise that was released on approval or demo, and more. You can also take advantage of the classic option to release inventory on approval or demo, create proposals, take in consignments and trade-ins, initiate and complete repair and service tickets, and collect payments all in one transaction.
Touchscreen POS
The touchscreen POS option is fully customizable to suit the needs of your business. You are in control of the layout, appearance, and functions of any buttons you create. Each button you create represents a menu or submenu item (such as Keyboards > Yamaha or Food > Snacks > Chips/Candy/Fruit) and you may choose to create as many or as few buttons as you'd like. This POS option was designed to be used with a touchscreen monitor, but a touchscreen monitor is not a requirement.
Customer Account sales vs. Quick Cash sales
In AIMsi you have the option to associate your sales with customer accounts or not. Creating accounts for your customers allows you to do many different things with that information. You can set up separate pricing levels (perhaps teachers receive a discounted rate on certain inventory items), track buying history, send mailings and emails, save shipping and billing information, record credit card information, and much more.
In cases where you don't need or want to save customer information, you can complete sales using the Quick Cash option. This will still give you all of the sales information you need to track your inventory and sales performance, but the sales are not tied to specific accounts. This might be a useful option if an individual purchases something small, such as sheet music, or if the customer is vacationing and you don't expect him or her to be a regular customer.
Analyze your sales
You can use AIMsi to analyze your sales using reports like the Daily Activity report, the Invoices by Time report, and the Sales Management report. These reports track your daily activity so that you can balance cash drawers and update your accounting software solution, track your sales by hours so that you know when your heaviest sales patterns are and staff accordingly, and track your sales for a given date range.
Monitor the profitability of your inventory
AIMsi provides you with many different reports to help you analyze your inventory. You can run reports based on inventory aging, inventory sold, inventory that is currently leased or rented, and so much more. Using these reports can help you know what is and is not selling and make decisions about inventory purchases based on those findings.
Track your sales staff performance
If your sales staff works on commission, you can track that through your sales. You can even split the sale with different percentages, if the need should arise, right from the Sales Invoice. In addition to commissions, you can also use spiff incentives for inventory items you'd like to add an additional incentive to. All of your sales are recorded and include the inventory sold, who sold it, the cost of the sale, and so on. If you choose to, you can run reports, such as the Sales Staff Performance Analysis report, to track how your staff members are performing on the sales floor.
Purchase Orders
Purchase orders (PO) can be an important factor in your business. For example, if you do business with schools, a school may create a purchase order with your store for $10,000 for the school year. As teachers make purchases at your store, the purchases can be charged to the school's PO. As purchases are made against the PO the balance is reduced. You can verify PO spending limits and balances directly from the Sales Invoice as you are entering your sales.
Security
The POS button menus are customizable by workstation and employee login, offering flexibility and security.
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