[ms_accordion style=”simple” type=”2″ class=”” id=””][ms_accordion_item title=’What is POS software?’ icon=’fa fa-chevron-right’ status=’open’]Electronic point of sale systems (EPOS systems) have been used by major retailers for many years and have helped them improve their businesses by tracking everything from inventory cycles to customer loyalty. Many of the same features and benefits of EPOS systems are now available to smaller retailers. POS software or POS systems are located wherever a transaction occurs, which generally tends to mean the terminal that is used for checkouts. Some systems are the equivalent of an electronic cash register, used to make and record a sale in a restaurant, cafe, retail store or supermarket and also in hotels, stadiums and casinos. Point of sale systems can also be used as part of a more sophisticated IT system, linked into back-office stock control, ordering, and customer relationship management (CRM) applications.[/ms_accordion_item]

[ms_accordion_item title=’What operating systems do POS systems run on?’ icon=’fa fa-chevron-right’ status=’close’]POS systems are manufactured and serviced by a range of firms and tend to run on a range of operating systems, including DOS, Windows, Linux and Unix.[/ms_accordion_item]

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POS equipment can use a variety of physical layer protocols, although Ethernet is currently the preferred system, being fast, flexible and inexpensive.

However, wireless technology is increasingly being used, these often use wireless or headset systems which enable communication between the kiosk and the main POS system.[/ms_accordion_item]

[ms_accordion_item title=’What are vendors doing to standardise POS systems?’ icon=’fa fa-chevron-right’ status=’close’]POS vendors and retailers are working hard to standardise the technology behind POS systems, to drive down manufacturing and product costs.OLE for POS (OPOS) was the first commonly-adopted standard in 1996, and was created by Microsoft, NCR Corporation, Epson and Fujitsu-ICL.An alternative open standards system, JavaPOS, was developed by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and NCR Corporation in 1997 and first released in 1999. JavaPOS is for Java what OPOS is for Windows, and is largely platform independent.[/ms_accordion_item]

[ms_accordion_item title=’What are the latest advances in POS software?’ icon=’fa fa-chevron-right’ status=’close’]Wireless POS is becoming popular because of the flexibility it offers.

Web based POS systems are also on the rise. These offer even more flexibility because they can run on any computer with an Internet connection and browser, which means most smart phones and PDAs as well as mobile terminals.

The web-based software does not require any software installations or updates, and runs on secure servers in multiple data centres which have real-time backups.
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[ms_accordion_item title=’How can I secure my POS system?’ icon=’fa fa-chevron-right’ status=’close’]It is possible to secure your POS application by using ‘whitelisting’ security software so that only approved applications or devices can access the network.

The “whitelisting” software, which is from Bit9, stops malicious, illegal and unauthorised software from running, thereby preventing data leakage.
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