EPOS, an abbreviated form Electronic Point of Sale, is a form of technology that helps keep the system records all the goods and services provided to the customers. Earlier, people were dependent on cash operator registers to know the exact sales of the particular year. It was rather difficult to note down each, and every service and goods supplied and also they had to tally these prices at the end of the year. The cashier was given the work of tallying after which these tallying notes were input in to the accounting ledger. Thus all the finances and inventory records were to be done manually. It was a difficult and lengthy task to not down every goods sold and purchased and the services provided later.
IBM invented the first EPOS system in the year 1986. Initially EPOS system was just a Computer and display unit but later on as the technology was advanced monitors with touch screen were introduced. Barcode scanners and printers were also attached to the EPOS system to take the check the barcode and take the printouts of the all the bills which the made. It became a lot easier and saves a lot of time in the process. There are two types of EPOS system in market nowadays namely Modular system and Integrated System. The display unit and computer are attached as a single device in the Integrated systems. In contrast, in modular systems, the computer is separately connected to various peripheral devices such as printers, barcodes, etc and the display device.
Many other devices such as barcode scanners, printers, chip and pin, barcodes, mobile PDA, tablets, customer displays, cash draws and weighing scales can be attached to the integrated systems to perform various other functions. EPOS systems are well designed systems and these are designed according to customer's needs and specifications.
Earlier it was not easy to send data between cash registers and between the manufacturers as there was lack of portals which could allow the proper transfer of data between different software and EPOS systems. But nowadays with the introduction of various management tools it has become a lot easier to solve this problem of data transfer between two EPOS systems.
Some of the benefits related of EPOS systems:
It becomes easy to manage the records of every assignment. It doesn't require you to feed every detail of the prices and transactions of the services provided to the customers. They also helps in maintaining the inventory management, managing customer relations, service management, and pay roll modules. EPOS system combines the technology and business management and due to this, it is also referred to as Retail management software. It helps in managing every day cash and bills systems. You don't have to note down everything manually. A manager can look at any figures he wants to see such as profit earned, day's income or any other figures without asking any of his employees.