Handbook

© COPYRIGHT 1990-1991-1992-1993-1995-1999-2000
COMPUTER SOLUTIONS
2201 S. Halsted
Chicago Illinois 60608


The Positive Point-of-Sale Retail Software program handbook

This document will outline the steps required to make sales and to receive merchandise. These steps are the regular day to day activities required to do business with your computer at your Point-of-Sale.


Thank you for purchasing our software which we believe will help your business, save time and money.

Now lets get started….
Table of Contents

Introduction                              4
Sign on Screen                          6
Owners Main Menu                    8
Item master                             10
Main System Menu                     4
Sales and Sales Reports    Menu 15
Invoicing Menu                         16    
Making Sales                            17
Merchandise Lookup                 23
Special Orders
Sales Returns                            26
Receiving Merchandise              29
Returning Merchandise   

Soundscan                                36
Record Entry                            53
Quick Report Querys                 68
Error Messages                          92

Backup- The best backup scenario for you system will be
discussed and set up at installation

Reports Reports that summarize sales and inventory will be
covered durin training and may vary with your stores
customizations





Introduction











10 QUESTIONS
YOUR POSITIVE POS SYSTEM WILL ANSWER.


1. IS MY STORE MAKING AS MUCH $$$ PROFIT AS POSSSIBLE?
2. DO I HAVE EXCESS $$$ MONEY TIED UP IN DEAD INVENTORY?
3. WHO IS STEALING $$$ FROM MY BUSINESS?
4. DID I FORGET TO ORDER PRODUCTS MY CUSTOMERS WANT?
5. CAN I SPEND LESS TIME $$$ DOING PAYROLL?
6. HOW MUCH $$$ MONEY DO I HAVE INVESTED IN MY STORE RIGHT NOW?
7. WHAT PRODUCTS ON MY SHELVES WILL NEVER SELL?
8. WHO IS MY BEST $$$ SALESPERSON (NOT WHO DO I LIKE THE BEST)?
9. HOW MANY CUSTOMERS WALK OUT OF MY STORE DISAPOINTED?$$$
10. WHAT ARE MY BEST SELLING $$$ ITEMS?







Computer Solutions can install a Custom retail Computer System.This system will give you the answers that can mean the difference between :
Staying in business or closing your doors.
Running your store today and opening a chain of stores tommorow.

Our system has been refined over the last 10 years. We have incorporated concepts and added programming based on the experience of over 100 retail store owners like yourself as well as current business school techniques. Our system can give you the answer you need.

Important features of the Positive Point-of-Sale System:
Best Seller - Dead inventory - Total Inventory - Reorder report - Daily Sales - Register Reports
Daily Sales - Register Reports - Items Sold by Date - Sales Totals by Salesperson - Timeclock

New Module Reports in Payroll and
Checkbook Manager
Check Register Reconciliation
Payroll Summary Print Checks
Print Payroll Checks




Routines that make your business better
Look up Inventory from the same screen you use to make sales.Capture Customer Name & Address when making a sale.Take special orders from customers with you and not in some other store.Cash Payouts from the sales screen.Dead Inventory report.Audit reports designed to catch cashiers who steal.Re-Order reports for each vendor on demand.Best Seller or Product Reports.Customized End-of-Day Checkout procedure.

Retail Point-Of-Sale Systems
Network Administration
Custom Database Computer Programming
Repair & Maintenance
Inventory Control Systems
Time & Attendance Systems








Sign On
The first thing that you need to do after accessing the Point-of-Sale system from your Program Menu (click start) is to sign on using your user name and password.

Here your will enter your user name and then the password to gain access to the system.
After signing on to the system, you will see the following ttitle screen.



You will hit the F2 key and then the space bar to continue as prompted on the screen

After sigining on as the Owner, you will see the following "OWNERS MAIN MENU" There are three levels of security on the basic system. Owner, manager and cashier.

Follows is the "OWNERS MAIN MENU" You may access any of the choices on the menu by pressing the corresponding number; or you may use your up and down arrow keys to highlight your choice by pressing "ENTER".




Owners Menu

The Owners Menu has 9 options; as shown above they are;

1 POS SYSTEM -                   cashiers menu
2 REORGANIZE FORMS -       ix problems w/ files
3 ITEM MASTER-                   access and change your
                                        file of saleable items
4 PASSWORDS                     add and delete passwords for your staff
5 REVIEW SALES                  review and edit sales info
6 REPRINT ANY INVOICE   
7 THEFT CONTROL               catch store staff who steal
8 SALES TAX REPORTS   
9 FINANCE MENU                  Accounts Payable and payroll


We will discuss the Item Master first and option 1 will be covered later in the handbook        

The owners menu of the Positive Point-of-Sale system allows the owner to acces and change the items in your Item Master file without a compute record trail (audit trail) because you are the owner of the business and you have full control. The ITEM MASTER is a file of all of the different products for sale in your retail store. An example of the ITEM MASTER is shown below:

Item Master


and the same screen with data



Any items with a zero re-order pt will not be reordered.


Item Master fields

Item Number             UPC or assigned Item Number
Item Name                 Description of merchandise
In this case "Aretha's mazing Cd.
Cost                         Your Cost (note on screen above the cost is 18.05 and there is no description on the screen. This is in to hide the cost from customers.
Std Price                 Yes / No - Yes-you will price No-             System will markup be a pre-set         percentage.
Order QTY               When re-ordering this is the order qty size.
Re-Order Pt            When On Hand quantity on an item is displayed. In this case the re-order pt is 0 therefore this item will not be re-ordered.
Vendor Number        The number of the vendor where this item is distributed from.
Packaged                 The department, for example CD for compact disk or CS for cassette
Shelf Location        Sub category for departments.




Note to Owner: A operator who knows your OWNERS PASSWORD has the KEYS TO THE CANDY STORE or and could easily steal merchandise without any computerized trace.

A person with owners level access will be able to add and delete passwords for managers and cashiers, as well as use the AUDIT theft control procedures on option 7 on the Owners menu. See items 3 and 4 on the Owners Menu above.

Main System Menu

Pressing 1 from the Owner Menu will Owners Menu will access the Main System Menu or the menu htat the cashiers get when they sign on.

This menu allows the cashier to perform the following functions:

1 - Invoicing / Point-of-Sale        Selling and Sales Reports
2 - Inventory Control                    Receiving and inventory management reports
3 - Customer & Contact                Customers
                                                maintenance
4- Sign in or Out                         Timeclock program

If the operator wants to sell mercahandise then press 1 for Invoicing / Point of Sale.
Sales Menu


The operator will press 1 to continue toward the sale work screen or press 2 to ru various sales reports detailing sales reports for money or reports that report what merchandise was sold. Option 3 is a screen that will help the operator check the cash drawer at the end of the day.

Operator presses 1 to continue toward the sales work screen.
Invoicing Menu




This menu is self explanatory and the operator can sell on option 1 or take a special order on choice 3.

Option 4 is the same as option 1 but the sale will be printed on the report printer.

The operator presses option 1

Making Sales

How to make sales with the POSITIVE-POINT-OF-SALE System.

The is the sales work screen. Sales data is always entered in the POS invoice screen. First the operator enters his or her initials in the area at the upper right hand corner of the screen. Then the operator will enter the quantity of each item sold. The quantity field will default to 1. Next the operator will scan the Item using the Bar Code Scanner. The Item Number will be entered and the Item and price will be looked up.



then the lookup



this procedure is repeated until all of the items to be purchased are scanned.




Once everything is scanned then the oerator will press the F2 key to complete the sale.

This will move the cursor to the Amount tendered field
The operator will tell the customer the sale total and then the customer will indicate how they will be paying for the product.





In this case the operator is paying by check.
Optionally the operator can ask the customer for their phone number, name and address. Studies show that 90% of customers will give your cashier all of thin data. This information can be used to offer benefits for when customers reach certain sales levels and also for mailing and other advertising.

Once the operator enters thin information and presses f2 the receipt will print.



some shortcuts that will speed data entry

If the UPC Item number is obstructed with a price tag or can not be scanned for some reason or if you need to verify stock on an item the operator / cashier can search for an item from the POS Work/ Screen.

Example lets say the oerator wants to search for a Patti Labelle CD. The operator tabs to the description field and keys Patti*     then presses CTRL F10 simultaneously as show below:

       

CTRL F10


then tab



the cashier then arrows to the slected item and press ENTER.



This option is also useful when verifying stock on an item. Notice here that the screen indicates that we are out of stock on this CD.

MORE LINES ?

When you have filled out the first 8 lines of the form and you need to receive additional lines then may press the "END" key which will allow you to stretch this entry screen down indefinitely for more lines of product.

Sales Returns

Sales returns are performed the same way that a sale is performed but the cashier will enter minus 1 (-1) instead of 1 in the quantity as show below:






Special Orders

Below is the Special Order screen, this is used when customers request that you order merchandise that is not stocked but available from vendors.




the operator fills in screen as shown below and then after entering all of the information about what the customer wants and also the customers contact data the cashier presses F2 and the receipt prints.

This printout will list on either the large printer or the small printer, in this case the large printer is being used.




your report is shown below:

Receiving Shipments
These are the procedures for receiving shipments and / or returning shipments to your vendor.

Whenever you receive a shipment of when you are taking inventory for the first time please follow the procedures outlined in this pamphlet.

First a short discussion of the inventory control process and the Item Master file.

Please see the Item Master file below:


Please take a second to review the fields listed here. This form is fairly self explanatory however please refer to the fields "LAST SHIPMENT", "QTY RECEIVED", "VENDOR NUMBER" and "VENDOR NAME".

These fields are entered when you receive a shipment using the "RECV REPORT" form. This form is the 2nd choice on the "IINVENTORY CONTROL MENU"

Please review the 'INVENTORY CONTROL MENU" below.

The operator will select "ENTER ITEMS RECEIVED AND RETURNED" option 2.




After pressing options 2 the "RECV REPORT" short for receiving report will display on the screen as shown blelow.




This is the screen designed for entering shipments that you receive from your vendor. Please enter the Invoice number from your Vendors Shipping Document in the first field on the screen. The press enter and todays date will appear in the invoice date field. The 3rd field entered before you start scanning your product is the Vendor Number associated with the source of your data. Please notice the notation in the upper right hand corner of the screen. It says "PLEASE ENTER THE ITEMS RECEIVED AND RETURNED USE (-) "minus" FOR RETURNS.


At this point you will enter your stock by scanning the items from the box they were shipped in. Once you have completed this process you will save your "RECV REPORT" and exit to the "INVENTORY CONTROL MENU". Finally you will select option 3 from the POS PROGRAM MENUS which will print your RECV REPORT and also this procedure will post the data to the ITEM MASTER file that is shown previously in this document.



IMPORTANT

If you enter a quantity of 10 as shown above then that qty will be added to the quantity currently stored in the ITEM MASTER for that item.


Here the shipment includes just 2 items, however you will have shipments with many more items. The reasons that this method is recommended follow:

1. It takes 75% less time and keystrokes to enter new product.
2. It is unwise to allow employees access to the Item Master because that could change quantities without a paper and computer audit trail.
3. Once product is received and your have printed your Recv Report you will physically attach and staple your printout to the Shippers document. This allows the management of the business to quickly determine, by seeing the stapled copies, whether shipment that arrived at the store were entered properly.

MORE LINES ?

When you have filled out the first 8 lines of the form and you need to receive additional lines then may press the "END" key which will allow you to stretch this entry screen down indefinitely for more lines of product.


NO TIME TO COMPLETE ENTERING A BIG SHIPMENT NEED TO MAKE A SALE.

If you are in the process of receiving merchandise and before completing the entry you need to exit and make a sale, then you will press F2. F2 saves your "RECV REPORT" at that time you may press ESC to return to the Menus where you can then go to the Sales Screen on the "INVOICING MENU". Once you have completed the sale or other computer activity then return to the "RECV REPORT" and press F3. Your incomplete shipment will appear and you can continue entering product.

Again those keystrokes are:

SAVE YOUR RECORD
F2     - SAVES YOUR INCOMPLETE RECV REPORT
ESC     - RETURNS YOU TO THE POS PROGRAM MENUS

RETURN TO YOUR RECORD
F3    - PULLS UP YOUR INCOMPLETE RECV REPORT

ENTRY COMPLETED
F8    - MODIFYS THE RECV REPORT YOU SAVED EARLIER
ESC    - RETURNS TO THE POS PROGRAM MENUS
3 - OPTION 3 PRINTS YOU RECV REPORT


MERCHANDISE RETURNS


Returning merchandise to the vendor or stock transfers aut of the store may be accomplished by using the "RECV REPORT" the same way that you receive merchandise. The only difference if that you will enter a (-) minus sign in front of the quantity as shown below:






Please note the dollar amount of the return. This is the Credit that you should be issued by you VENDOR.


After completing and saving this form F2 - SAVE
then ESC to return to the menu
you must still print the "RECVR REPORT" option 3 from the "INVENTORY CONTROL MENU"



Soundscan

Soudscan reporting is an important part of your retail POS system. This option make syour store part of the nationwide set of store that determine what records are gold or platinunum sellers. These procedures will allow you to participate. If you are not a Soundscan reporter please call (914) 328-9100 ask for sales. Tell them that you want to become a soundscan reporter and that you are a retail music store.


Operator Selects option "2" Inventory Control from the Main System Menu



Now the operator select option 9.






The Operator selects option 8. Soundscan.




Here the operator will run steps 1, 2 and 3.



Step 1 will prompt the operator for a date range, enter dates or press enter and the press f2.




The Best seller report will print displaying the information and sales selected to sent to soundscan.

Step 2.
The operator may correct as needed and record changes by pressing F8.
Complete lines may be deleted by pressing f7 on a line then f8 to update.




Step 3. Creates a file in the root directory of the hard disk and will be transmitted to Soundscan in the next steps.




Procedure Before  2003 Operator clicks Soundscan telephone Icon after 2003 the operator need only click on the send soundscan icon and the transmission occurs automatically