Regular Ticket Entry

The heart of Point of Sale is Ticket Entry. A checkout person only needs to learn one simple screen. Because the screen is designed to look like a sales ticket, training your clerks is quick and easy.

Touchscreen Ticket Entry

In a Windows environment, CounterPoint provides a simplified user interface for Ticket Entry that is based on large buttons and is suitable for touchscreen, mouse, keyboard, and scanner input.

Touchscreen Ticket Entry is user-configurable, so you may control button placement, the number of button rows and columns, the button text, and even the graphic that appears on each button. You can set up one touchscreen layout to be shared by all registers, or create unique layouts for particular registers.

Touchscreen Ticket Entry also allows you to associate image, audio, or video files with each item and/or customer that may be optionally or automatically displayed each time the item is sold or returned or the customer is referenced.

Customers

You can select a customer by entering the customer's number, company name, telephone number, ZIP code, customer card, or just a portion of the first or last name. You may also designate a walk-in customer with a single keystroke. For charge sales, the customer's credit limit is checked, and only authorized users may override the credit limit.

You can zoom in on the customer's account to see balance owed, credit limit, last payment date, account aging, and even detailed sales history.

New customers can be added on-the-fly from Ticket Entry, and customer numbers can be assigned automatically. Unlimited pages of notes can be displayed for a customer. A specially identified page of notes can be automatically displayed whenever you access the customer.

Inventory

Sales and returns can be entered on the same ticket. Items are identified by typing the item number or scanning a barcode. Items can also be looked up by entering a partial item number, partial description, vendor number, vendor item number, category, subcategory, alternate lookup number, or any keyword in the item description.

You may zoom in on inventory to see what is on-hand, committed, on order, backordered, and in-transit for your location or other stocking locations. If an item is out of stock, you may select one of up to eight substitute items, or items may be shipped from an alternate location.

You can define prompts for different items that will display whenever the item is sold. For example, when item A is sold, the clerk must enter a valid date for Birthday, but when item B is sold, the clerk is prompted for Gender and must select from a list that includes BOY, GIRL, or EITHER.

Unlimited pages of item notes may be defined for an item and viewed during Zoom. This allows the clerk to more fully inform the customer about the product. A page of notes can be automatically displayed for an item to encourage the clerk to power-sell related items: Would you like some tennis balls with that racquet?

Pricing

Merchandise is priced accurately and automatically, based on list
price, quantity breaks, customer discounts, a markup on cost, or even
a two-fer.

Sale prices can be date- and time-activated for limited time item promotions. Sale prices can specify a price for a particular item or a discount percentage for an entire category/subcategory of items.

Contract pricing can establish special prices for certain customers on

certain items for a specific time period. A contract price can specify a price for a particular item or a discount for an entire category.

Items can be priced and sold by alternate selling units. For example, you can stock an item by EACH and sell it by either EACH or the CASE.

Grids and Apparel

Full support is provided for soft goods, and one- or two-dimensional color/size (or width/length) grids.

Store Credits, Gift Certificates, and Shopping Cards

Full Multi-Site support is provided for store credits and gift certificates. Credits and certificates can be issued, printed, partially redeemed, reissued, voided, and combined with other documents.

Rechargeable gift cards and shopping cards (stored value cards) with magnetic stripes are also supported.

Commissions

Sales commissions, if used, are calculated for each item on the sales ticket based on either sale amount or gross profit. Commissions may be tracked by ticket or by line item, and may be split across multiple salespeople on one ticket. Commissions can be paid on sales or on paid invoices only.

Commissions due are reported daily in Point of Sale and historically in the Commissions Due Report in Sales History

Orders

A complete ticket or selected line items can be placed on order for later delivery. An optional deposit can be accepted, and an order document can be printed for use as a customer receipt, packing list, or work order.

Full support is provided for orders, backorders, and special orders. A direct link to Purchasing allows you to place vendor orders to meet customer requirements, including drop-shipments from vendor to customer.

Reference information can be entered for each line on an order to indicate purchase orders placed with vendors, or as internal control notes for warehousing or manufacturing. Open orders reports can be organized by order number, customer, inventory item, ship date, sales rep, or reference.

An order can be retrieved by customer name, order number, or even the customer's P.O. number. Once an order is retrieved, you can accept an additional deposit or print a copy. Order lines can be added, changed, or removed; serial and lot numbers entered or altered; kit components edited; prices changed; or the entire order cancelled (with or without a refund). Orders and backorders can be batch-invoiced or individually invoiced, or selected line items can be released. At release time, a copy of the original order can be retained if the customer wishes to have a standing order. Backorders can be automatically filled from available inventory.

Order processing works for pure retail, as well as for retail delivery, retail-assembly-delivery, retail-special order, retail-wholesale, wholesale, and wholesale-manufacturing operations. CounterPoint provides the tools necessary to convert Point of Sale orders into Order Entry orders. Additional wholesale order processing capabilities are available using the Order Entry Option.

Multi-Currency

Sales commissions, if used, are calculated for each item on the sales ticket based on either sale amount or gross profit. Commissions may be tracked by ticket or by line item, and may be split across multiple salespeople on one ticket. Commissions can be paid on sales or on paid invoices only.

Commissions due are reported daily in Point of Sale and historically in the Commissions Due Report in Sales History

Register Readings
An instantaneous summary of store-level or register activity is available on the manager's inquiry screen. This inquiry displays the day's sales activity, and shows the exact amounts of cash, checks, and other tender expected to be found in the cash drawer.

Daily Reports

Multiple daily reports (including X-tape and Z-tape) can be generated for each register and run at any time. Each report's parameters are user-specified and provide end-of-day balancing, summary sales reporting, and sales and profitability analysis by department, user, and salesperson.

Additional analysis is available by tax code, type of payment, time of day, etc. Sophisticated exception reporting allows a manager to monitor danger zones without having to pore through voluminous reports.

Exception reports are available for critical areas such as price overrides, commission overrides and splits, discounts, no-tax tickets, voids, pay-outs, ticket reprints, merchandise returns, and cancelled layaways.

Payment overages and shortages are reported in daily and management reports. Also, the Flash Sales report offers a one-page snapshot of sales across multiple stores.

End-of-Day Processing

History

The system can retain historical information for management reporting in detailed (line-by-line) form and in daily summary form.

Detailed history by customer and item can be retained indefinitely and is limited only by disk space. A complete history of a customer's sales activity can be printed or viewed, showing every item purchased, transaction dates, and prices paid. Similarly, you can review an item's detailed history. A duplicate invoice can be produced months or years after the actual sale is recorded.

In addition to detailed history, date-summarized history can be printed for item categories, users, salespersons, registers, etc. Summary history can be retained indefinitely by compressing history into weekly, monthly, or annual figures. Historical reports can provide valuable information such as a comparison of sales for Easter week this year with Easter week last year.

More information regarding history is provided under Sales History.

Credit Card Processing
Credit card processing under the Synchronics Merchant Program (SMP) is included in the CounterPoint Base System, and is more fully described under Credit Cards (SMP). SMP processors will transfer settled charges to your local bank. Other compatible processors are described in Credit Cards (non-SMP). For complete information on available services and fees, contact your Synchronics Authorized Dealer.

Credit card processing allows you to swipe a credit card through a magnetic stripe reader, automatically authorize a credit card sale from the Ticket Entry screen, verify an address, and electronically settle funds. You may also retain a credit card number in a customer's file to be charged at the appropriate time. Supported cards and services include Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Diners Club, Carte Blanche, and JCB. For receipts and invoices, you may print just the last four digits of the card number.

With the Modem Server Option, multiple registers may share a

telephone line and process multiple credit card transactions more quickly by maintaining an active phone connection to the processor.

An optional CPGateway service is available for fast (2-second) Internet credit card authorizations.

Benefits
Point of Sale provides valuable benefits to any business that desires to:

• Provide clerks with up-to-date inventory and customer information
• Keep up-to-the-minute inventory quantities
• Keep track of what is selling and what is not
• Update customer balances automatically
• Reduce costly checkout errors and shrinkage
• Improve audit controls and accounting efficiency
• Improve timeliness/accuracy of sales analysis reports
• Electronically authorize credit cards
• Automatically calculate commissions due
• Track sales and employee performance by time of day
• Operate profitably and securely