Software > Accounting > 102.2 - Point of Sale System
A digital point of sale System typically consists of computer hardware, computer software with database functionality, a visual display system of some sort and a receipt delivery system.
A manual Point of Sale system might be a receipt book.
And both are acceptable for doing business.
The thing you need to remember is that your Point of Sale system should NOT be directly tied to your General Ledger system in any way shape or form if simplicity and cost of use are of interest to you.
Point of Sale reporting, be it digital or manual, should track day-end and/or week-end activities and those activities should be reconcilable against aggregated deposits an receivables -- albeit only bank deposit values are relevant in your General Ledger.
A Point of Sale system can be as simple or complex as one would like.
Is Google Sheets a potentially good resource for the software and receipt delivery mechanism of a Point of Sale system?
Absolutely.
We've shared just few bits of information about one of our Point of Sale Systems below for gross conversation purposes. This system referenced below was built for Wellness Practitioners, but it could be modified for most applications and/or other totally unique systems could be built for custom needs.
A manual Point of Sale system might be a receipt book.
And both are acceptable for doing business.
The thing you need to remember is that your Point of Sale system should NOT be directly tied to your General Ledger system in any way shape or form if simplicity and cost of use are of interest to you.
Point of Sale reporting, be it digital or manual, should track day-end and/or week-end activities and those activities should be reconcilable against aggregated deposits an receivables -- albeit only bank deposit values are relevant in your General Ledger.
A Point of Sale system can be as simple or complex as one would like.
- It can be comprised of manual or digital ticket generation with no inherent storage of data
- It can be a database storage system as most envision this day in age
- It might just be a data table with sales history
Is Google Sheets a potentially good resource for the software and receipt delivery mechanism of a Point of Sale system?
Absolutely.
We've shared just few bits of information about one of our Point of Sale Systems below for gross conversation purposes. This system referenced below was built for Wellness Practitioners, but it could be modified for most applications and/or other totally unique systems could be built for custom needs.
A Glimpse at a Point of Sale System that might surprise you...
Currently our premier Point of Sale system was designed for Wellness Clinics. Most in retail could use something similar.
Patient and Products Table Integration -- This worksheet is connected to patients and products tables just like a relational database.
Payment Summary Unique Feature -- With this particular system we track both payments and "estimated" insurance receivables in the Point of Sale system. This non-intuitive move is designed to create reporting that all wellness practitioners need and none had for evaluating their daily and weekly performance. We were only able to "create" this easy and powerful system because this system is NOT tied to our General Ledger.
Data handling is like a relational database -- This particular system acts nearly identical to most web based database systems. We split the header and detail records apart and we create a unique key for connecting those records.
Item modification on the fly is second to none -- One very complex aspect of traditional web based forms is the ability to make modifications to line items on the fly. That is typically a cumbersome process. We have utilized inherent spreadsheet functionality and combined it in a way that makes this an incredibly fast system for flexible entries when needed.
Printing Options -- This Sales ticket can be printed and versions of it can also be emailed in plain text or html straight from the Gmail interface you are looking at in the image above. Likewise this can be printed to a pdf and manually attached to an email easily.
For what it's worth, a page with this type of pricing functionality does NOT need to be connected to datatables for data storage for those trying to put together simple low volume systems. For quite a while we used this system to print receipts, and we printed a copy for ourselves and that information was hand entered into a data table during an office day.
Examples of the printed Sales Ticket and the email delivery options for this are included in the Software > Accounting > Accounts Receivable - Invoicing Section. Likewise this entire system is covered in detail in the Software > Wellness ERP section of this website.
Patient and Products Table Integration -- This worksheet is connected to patients and products tables just like a relational database.
Payment Summary Unique Feature -- With this particular system we track both payments and "estimated" insurance receivables in the Point of Sale system. This non-intuitive move is designed to create reporting that all wellness practitioners need and none had for evaluating their daily and weekly performance. We were only able to "create" this easy and powerful system because this system is NOT tied to our General Ledger.
Data handling is like a relational database -- This particular system acts nearly identical to most web based database systems. We split the header and detail records apart and we create a unique key for connecting those records.
Item modification on the fly is second to none -- One very complex aspect of traditional web based forms is the ability to make modifications to line items on the fly. That is typically a cumbersome process. We have utilized inherent spreadsheet functionality and combined it in a way that makes this an incredibly fast system for flexible entries when needed.
Printing Options -- This Sales ticket can be printed and versions of it can also be emailed in plain text or html straight from the Gmail interface you are looking at in the image above. Likewise this can be printed to a pdf and manually attached to an email easily.
For what it's worth, a page with this type of pricing functionality does NOT need to be connected to datatables for data storage for those trying to put together simple low volume systems. For quite a while we used this system to print receipts, and we printed a copy for ourselves and that information was hand entered into a data table during an office day.
Examples of the printed Sales Ticket and the email delivery options for this are included in the Software > Accounting > Accounts Receivable - Invoicing Section. Likewise this entire system is covered in detail in the Software > Wellness ERP section of this website.
From this brief introduction, it should be apparent that Google Sheets can be extended a long ways towards very robust Point of Sale Systems that most presumed weren't feasible in such a system. Below we have briefly touched on some the Data Storage methodologies, primarily for people familiar with relational databases, just so they can get a better feel for how data is managed in a spreadsheet like this.
Point of Sale System - Header Record
This particular Sales Ticket header record is being created automatically, but it can also be created manually. This data table alone is all you need for a Point of Sale System appropriate enough for tax accounting purposes and many consumer needs.
Please note, the unique ID which ties the header record to the detail record is off the screen to the right. It is in the last column of the row instead of the first as is more typical in for database programmers.
Please note, the unique ID which ties the header record to the detail record is off the screen to the right. It is in the last column of the row instead of the first as is more typical in for database programmers.
Point of Sale System - Detail Records
Digitally tracking your sales line items is nice. Everyone would think that is a must these days, but it is NOT required for Tax Accounting, as your Cost of Goods Sold is based off of your initial inventory pluse your inventory purchases less your ending inventory, and once you understand that, it can dramatically change what you want to do with your Point of Sale system, as there are other ways to place inventory reorders that don't require line item tracking in a Point of Sale system.
In this particular system, we are automatically parsing these from the sales ticket above, but this can be manually created or cut and pasted for those seeking details but very low automation.
There is also a way to make this data-table your header and detail records all in one. The true number of options available to those seeking to build their own solutions is plentiful, once you know your true accounting requirements.
In this particular system, we are automatically parsing these from the sales ticket above, but this can be manually created or cut and pasted for those seeking details but very low automation.
There is also a way to make this data-table your header and detail records all in one. The true number of options available to those seeking to build their own solutions is plentiful, once you know your true accounting requirements.
And there is a LOT more to all of this...
This particular Point of Sale system includes Prepaid Contract Tracking, an Accounts Receivable worksheet for IOUs, some very powerful Sales Reporting (approximately 5 different reports) and more. For full details related to this particular Point of Sale System Software > Wellness ERP > Point of Sale.
The primary thing to remember is that as long as the Point of Sale System is NOT connected to your General Ledger, you will have more flexibility to build something that works best for you; and as long as the entire Point of Sale process is done properly, you will have all the reconciliation abilities needed to please all CPAs and the IRS.
With this understanding, it is much easier to realize that custom point of sale systems are just features that lie on top of data tables, and you are only limited by platform limitations and programmer skill sets.
The primary thing to remember is that as long as the Point of Sale System is NOT connected to your General Ledger, you will have more flexibility to build something that works best for you; and as long as the entire Point of Sale process is done properly, you will have all the reconciliation abilities needed to please all CPAs and the IRS.
With this understanding, it is much easier to realize that custom point of sale systems are just features that lie on top of data tables, and you are only limited by platform limitations and programmer skill sets.