POS Repair and Maintenance: How to Spend Your Annual IT Budget

What is a POS System?

POS stands for Point of Sale. POS system refers to the retail technology used to help a customer checkout, whether the process takes place in person at a brick and mortar store, or online. No longer does the phrase refer only to a cash register. POS systems take in a customer’s payment, whether by cash, card, or check and log the sale your business has made.  

Depending on whether the POS system functions in-person or digitally, they can be composed of the following key pieces of software and hardware: a barcode scanner; a tablet or a phone with a camera; a register; a credit card reader; a cash drawer; keyboard; display screen(s); scales; a receipt printer; and software that handles payment processing, inventory management, POS reports, receipts, and/or tipping.

How Do POS Systems Work?

An in-person POS system could include a traditional, hand-held bar code scanner, or your scanner could just be a camera on a phone or tablet.  When the customer is ready to check-out, an in-person or online POS system tallies up the price owed (including taxes) and gets ready to accept payment. It also keeps track of inventory during this process, marking the item or items as sold in your inventory management system. POS Systems also produce a receipt, whether printed, digital, or both.

The Industries that use POS Systems Most:

A multitude of industries use point of sale systems in some fashion. Some of the industries with the highest need for reliable and efficient POS systems include:

• retail,
• restaurant,
• entertainment,
• salons and beauty service,
• healthcare,
• transportation,
• manufacturing / warehousing,
• OEM,
• insurance,
• banking,
• hospitality,
• housekeeping, and
• consumer services industries.

How Much of my Annual IT Budget Should I Spend on Repair and Maintenance?

Do you know what percentage of your IT budget should be spent on maintenance and repairs each year? CEB, a consulting firm, recently surveyed almost 200 businesses around the world, their combined spending on IT budgets amounting to over $50 billion US dollars—and found that, on average, these companies spend 57 percent of their budget on maintenance. “Maintenance spending” included all costs associated with maintaining existing service levels, reducing IT costs, and optimizing existing IT assets.

In contrast, only 25 percent of the yearly IT budget was spent on business opportunities, for example, a new customer-facing system; 8 percent was spent on innovation, and the remaining 10 percent was spent on mandatory, compliance related spending.

The Importance of Including Repair and Maintenance Costs in your Annual Budget:

You know that the success (and sales numbers) of your organization is in large part dependent on the functionality of your point of sale system. If a customer can’t check out in person, you can’t sell them a product. If a customer can’t check out online, they’ll likely just close out your company’s website altogether and buy the same or similar product from another vendor. In either scenario, the long term effects of this negative interaction can far exceed the damage done in the single lost sale: customer frustration can tie a negative image to your brand for years in the mind of the consumer.

To avoid this dilemma, you need to start with avoiding point of sale technology breakdown. Preventative maintenance is absolutely key to getting on track.  A good preventative maintenance schedule helps a business maximize the uptime of its POS systems, lower overall long term repair and replacement costs, and keep up a steady increase in sales. This may seem like more of an IT department concern than a finance department concern, but maintenance directly impacts your organization’s budget. Maintenance needs, whether preventative or corrective, play a part in the overall life span of the asset, and keep them from depreciating faster than they should be.

Performing preventative maintenance on your POS and other IT hardware systems will also help keep them working to the best of their functional ability. A slow POS system or a system that needs a manager called over to help every ten minutes means just one thing: extra-long lines, and mounting customer annoyance. You’ve worked hard to get customers into your stores—whether digital or physical. Don’t lose the sales you’ve earned to long weight times and check-out frustration!

Partner with an Expert in POS System Repair:

Looking for a partner to keep your POS hardware in great shape for years to come? The repair and maintenance experts at Mercom offer a solution to save your internal team time, money, and space for repairs as you gear up for your next busy season. Mercom offers depot repairs on a wide range of hardware, including barcode and POS equipment, handheld devices, laptops, printers, monitors, and circuit boards.

Our repair service is built around you. We offer flat rate repair pricing, or customized maintenance contracts with guaranteed turnaround times. Our technicians have an average of more than ten years in the industry working on all types of IT hardware. And what’s more: we know how crucial reliability and high uptimes are in any industry. That’s why we offer an industry leading warranty with an average repair turnaround time of 5 to 7 days.

Mercom is an industry expert with over 25 years of experience. Retail Chains with 100 to 5,000 stores rely on Mercom for repair and deployment services of their critical hardware. Contact Mercom today.