Sharp Cash Register Keyboard Covers

Keyboard covers are a great way to protect the investment you have made in your cash register. Here is a great place to buy your covers listed for both Sharp machines

• Sharp Cash Register Keyboard Covers

If they don't have you model listed you may want to give them a call. I know they have the popular Sharp models such as

• Sharp ER-A320
• Sharp ER-A330
• Sharp ER-A247
• Sharp ER-A347
• Sharp ER-A420
• Sharp UP-700
• Many more Sharp registers as well

Don't forget to change your keyboard covers which will protect your register and probably easier to see through!

Cash Register Keyboard Covers yes or no?

People ask us all the time if they need a keyboard cover. In most cases that would be yes. Keyboard covers protect your cash register from spills and also help keep dust and other airborne substances out of your cash register. It won't stop everything but they help for sure.

Not every business of course has to have a keyboard cover for example maybe a hardware store where there is never any liquid near the machines (don't forget cashiers soda pops or coffee) and you do a lot of 10 key maybe you could get away without it. I would still install one as they cost about $25.00 in most cases and can protect a $1000.00 cash register from being ruined!

Here are a couple links for keyboard covers. Sharp Cash Register Keyboard Covers or SAM4s Cash Register Keyboard Covers and don't forget the restaurant style registers all have keyboard covers that can be replaced. Don't live with a worn cover you can no longer see through when again they cost $25.00 to $35.00 on average.

Pert 10 of 10 of our which cash register should I buy series

Number ten in our series of the top ten questions to ask yourself before buying a new cash register is "Do I want to track inventory or just sales?"

This is a simple yet complex question for several different reasons. Many people get confused and think sales reports are the same as inventory control reports. Many people also confuse a cash registers stock keeping feature as being the same as true inventory control.

Let's look at true inventory control based on how we would define that from a point of sale system (POS) perspective. A POS system would within a matter of a few minutes be able to tell you item by item , what you have in stock, how many you have sold, how many you need to re-order and some systems even more. A true POS system will be able to tell you based on sales you need to order a case of blue widgets from ACME at a cost of $30.00 per case because last week you started with 10 blue widgets and sold 5 and have a threshold stock of 10 and must buy by the case. The system would then print a PO and when the items came in you could quickly receive into the system which would add the new ones to inventory, update your cost if it had changed and of course your cost of goods sold and profit per blue widget.

Now lets look at what a cash register is REALLY GOOD AT which is sales reporting. Lets for arguments sake say you have a 1000 UPC items programmed into your cash register. Each of those UPC's is programmed to a department for reporting. The cash register will allow you to take a UPC or PLU report based on a range of UPC/PLU numbers, UPC/PLU linked to a department, and a few other ways (different cash registers allow more or less reports) A cash register report will tell you that you have sold X amount of Blue Widgets from the last time you "Z'd" the report. The cash register does not know month to date, year to date, months, weeks, days etc. It knows from the last time you took the report until right now! Even if the register has monthly reports also known as "Z2" reports the Z2 reports are still based on from last taken to right now and the register has no idea what a month is or what month it is regardless of the fact it prints the date. A cash register counts sales and reports very well. It is your job to manage the dates to take the reports to get the most benefit of the reports. Most cash registers have many different daily and monthly reports.

So now you want to keep inventory on a cash register. You want your cash register to tell you that you started with 100 Blue Widgets and sold 75 and have 25 in stock and need to order more. Cash Registers with stock keeping can do most of that, however it would not tell you how many to buy, just how many you have left. The system seems to fall apart however when the store owner buys more blue widgets the end-user must go into programming and tell the cash register now instead of 25 widgets you have 125 although a few registers allow you to program plus 100 instead of entering the new number. Now envision you have 1000 UPC's and do you still want to do this? I would sell to you with a disclaimer that you should buy a software based POS system not cash register or a cash register and a inventory program to interface into.

My boss and I have about 65 years combined experience with cash registers and we know for a fact that people keeping inventory with a cash register seldom ever turns out well. We also know that there are salespeople across the country that tell people what they want to hear "YES it can do it" and than they end up calling us and we have to give them the bad news. The good news is if you have under 100 items and you are dedicated to 2 to 4 hours per week managing the stock control a cash register will make a pretty good limited inventory system.

A computer based POS has built in many time saving features that allow you to manage thousands of items with more detail in the same time a register can track limited info for 50 items. If someone tells you otherwise make them show you how to add inventory to stock. How long did it take? Was it easy? Was it one item at a time? I could go on and on on this topic. We feel passionate enough about it we wish cash register manufactures would remove the stock control features so people are not even tempted!

Not convinced? Call us or go somewhere and take a demo of managing inventory in both a computer POS system and a cash register!

SAM4s and Sharp both make cash registers with stock control features. The SPS-500 series is the first one on the market that have streamlined a little of the process to make it more manageable.

Please take away from this if nothing else that yes many cash registers can run a limited inventory control/stock keeping system however look hard at it and make sure it is for you!

Part 9 of 10 important questions to ask yourself when buying a cash register

Number nine of our series is "Do I need a commercial grade cash register or a consumer grade register?"

First lets look at this question in more detail. Two of the three major cash register companies in the US sell both commercial grade and consumer grade registers. Commercial grade machines are found only through cash register dealers and never through big box stores. Consumer grade registers are sold through big box stores however you will find the rare dealer that sells a few as well.

The biggest problem with a consumer grade cash register is lack of support. If support is not that important to you than maybe that is not an issue. What you should know is every day my office gets calls from people who own consumer grade cash registers looking for support or more importantly looking for free support. When I say every day I literally mean every day without fail we will receive numerous calls from people looking for support for consumer grade registers. The consumer grade registers are most often very inexpensive and some have some great features you may not even find in a commercial grade register. If you are a high volume retail outlet or restaurant it is unlikely a consumer grade machine will hold up to the stress or you will be replacing them every 12 to 24 months. A good commercial grade register in our experience have a work life of 5 to 7 years and often much longer. Sure some don't last that long and the care and environment make a huge difference in lifespan.

Were we see a tremendous amount of frustration is the owner of a consumer grade register that needs to change the sales tax rate on their register. Before you call us you should also know that the commercial grade dealer like we are does not receive factory support from the manufactures of the consumer grade registers which is one reason we elect not to even attempt to support them any longer. Another huge sticking point is replacement parts. In most cases we are unable to get parts for the consumer grade registers and when we do they are outrageously over priced and I mean BAD! This just leads to very angry people yelling at our staff over pricing for a part for a machine that we had nothing to do with so of course we no longer even attempt to look up a part.

Where does a consumer grade register work? Well if you store/restaurant is owner operated, lower volume, not as much security requirements, no need to integrate with options like scanning, software, credit card etc! But most important they are for the person that will be a "Do it yourselfer"

A commercial grade register is for the person that does a little more business, needs interfaces to credit card, gift card, DVR etc. These registers are for people that need more security, or help with understanding the security features built into a machine. They are for people that when the tax changes want to be able to reach out to someone and get support. Commercial registers in most cases are scalable meaning they can grow and adapt with your business.

So really weigh the differences before you buy any register. If you are looking cheap cheap cheap than consumer grade is for you. If you need stability and support than maybe you should look at commercial grade. And please don't get me wrong there are some very successful stores and restaurants operating on consumer grade registers but there are far more using commercial grade.

Remember all of your return on investment from you business is coming back to you via the register or POS system. If used properly a commercial grade or consumer grade register can help you maximise the return!

Part 8 of 10 from our series what to look for when buying a cash register

When you buy a cash register you need to ask yourself this very important question "Do I want to program on my own or have it done?"

Well do you? Regardless of whether you buy a SAM4s or Sharp Cash Register it is going to need some level of programming. Some registers require a great deal of programming depending on what application you will be using it in. Restaurants require more programming in most cases however a retail store that wants to bar code scan can also require many hours of work.

In my humble opinion if you are cost conscience as most of us are than you should do as much of the programming as possible. Doing your own programming will save you money now as well as in the long run. However keep in mind we cash register guys charge for programming because it can take a lot of time! Do you have the time to program the register yourself? Here are a couple of estimates based on my experience for an average end user to program a cash register.

• Simple 10 department machine with alpha, 2 tax rates, discount and text logo = 2 to 3 hours
• 20 departments with alpha, 2 tax rates, 2 discount keys, 4 payment keys, graphic logo, macro key and a few misc items = 4 to 5 hours
• 20 departments with alpha, 300 PLU / UPC's (without software and import file), 2 tax rates, 2 discount keys, 4 payment keys, graphic logo, macro key and a few misc items = 7 to 9 hours
• 20 departments with alpha, 3000 PLU / UPC's, (with software and import file) 2 tax rates, 2 discount keys, 4 payment keys, graphic logo, macro key and a few misc items = 5 to 6 hours
• 100 menu item fast food register with no kitchen printer = 3 to 5 hours
• 300 menu item fast food register with no kitchen printer = 5 to 7 hours
• 100 menu item fast food register with with kitchen printer requiring modifiers  = 8 to 10 hours
• 100 menu item table service register with kitchen printer requiring modifiers = 12 to 15 hours

You get the picture, it takes lots of time to get a cash register ready. Some of the items being programmed are specific to cash registers and you would probably never have encountered any of these items before but a lot of it is just the time consuming work of plugging in hundreds of names, prices, status, etc.

A cash register with a large multi-line display is almost always faster to program. You can accomplish more line of data in one program job opposed to a register with a one or two line display it is one program for name, another for price, another for status, another for link, etc etc.

So one way or another you are going to pay for programming either with your time or with you money! Cash register dealers have to charge for their time or they won't be around long. No one would expect a professional CPA to install Quick Books for a couple hundred bucks just because quick books is cheap!

Help me pick my cash register question number 7 of 10

Here is my question seven of ten from our series "Help me pick the right cash register for my business" Question number seven is"Do I need integrated credit card / gift card?"

In my humble opinion in almost 100% of the case if you take credit card and/or gift card in your business you should interface your cash register with the credit card payments. Why you may be asking since it can be expensive? There are three huge reasons why you want to interface and each one can and should make you more money.

1. Speed, your cashiers have fewer buttons to press and no waiting for a terminal to dial out or another cashier using the credit card machine
2. Reduced errors. Because the cash register and credit card are fully integrated the cashier does not have to re-enter the amount of the sale. They simply press the credit card button, swipe the card and the register gets the auth at high speed. No longer does the cashier have to get a subtotal from the register, move to the credit card terminal and key in the total and swipe the card. More often then you think a cashier will enter a $19.75 dollar sale in as $9.75 or $1.97 etc etc. The customer never seems to notice when it is in their favor. The cashier is not stealing they are just trying to be quick and make mistakes.When interfaced even if the cashier over-ride the amount the cash register will error until the entire amount is satisfied.
3. Reduced Theft. Cashiers will often not ring a credit card sale into the cash register and take out the cash from the register from another sale of the same amount that they did ring in. When interfaced the ONLY way to get an auth on a card is to have a sale rang in. Many merchants are being stolen from like this right now and they have no idea because your register will still balance if a thief is good and believe me some of them are that good!

Integrating a private label gift card is just as important. Most good merchant services companies will offer you a free gift card program when you process with them. That allows you to sell your own private label gift card instead of paper gift certificates. People us gift cards as real gifts far more often than paper certificates, they come in and spend more than the card quite often and often they don't use them and the beauty is YOU HOLD ALL THE MONEY not a credit card company!

So should you buy a cash register that has the ability to interface credit card and gift card YES you should!

Question number six when selecting a new cash register

So question number six that you should ask yourself when buying a new cash register is simple but very important. Do I need more than one machine in the store? It is simple of course however the answer drastically changes which machines you should be looking at. I'm approaching these answers as yes you need two registers or more in your store and what features you should be looking for in a register.

The number one feature you should be looking for in a cash register when you are going to have more than one register in your store is Inter-Register Communications otherwise known as IRC. With IRC you will be able to network your cash registers together for the purpose of a single program and consolidated reports.

A single program allows you to change prices once on one register and download it to the other machines in the network, which can save you a ton of time and possible errors. If you have a register system with IRC and computer interface you can change items/prices etc on the PC and the registers will distribute those changes via the IRC. If you use kitchen printers the registers will share the kitchen printer via IRC (with a few exceptions in lower end models). If you use interfaced credit card payments most registers will share the interface via the IRC.

Reports are made much easier with IRC as well. When you run reports on a register system with IRC you can do all your reporting at one register and it will use the IRC to collect data from the other registers and produce a consolidated sales report of all the registers as well as individual reports for each register again saving you a lot of time.

So when buying more than one register for a single store you will want to investigate IRC which most advanced SAM4s cash registers as well as mid level and advanced level Sharp cash registers include.

In the case where you can't cable for IRC in your space the feature that might be most important to you would be whether the register has a SD card port. Many newer registers include a SD card port that will allow you to back up, store, and transfer programming databases in most cases. Many of the registers with SD card ports will also allow you to download reports to the SD card and transfer to a PC. Another very important function is many machines with an SD card will allow you to upgrade the firmware of the register to the newest version!

To wrap this question up you should answer the following questions when buying multiple registers for the same store.

Question: Are my registers going to be programmed the same? Is it a medium to large program?

Answer is Yes: You should select a register with the IRC feature or SD card as a minimum.

Answer in No: Than IRC maybe not be useful to you at all unless you want to consolidate reports still?

Question: I'm I going to be sharing and peripheral devices like kitchen printer, kitchen video, or maybe credit card interface?

Answer is Yes: You will be much happier with your system if you get a system with IRC. In some of the options listed in this question you will have to have a register with IRC.

Answer is No: IRC maybe overkill unless you are looking at the programming/reporting issues addressed in the first question

Think it over before you make the purchase. If not having IRC cost you even 10 minutes a day than having IRC could save you an hour and ten minutes a week, four hours forty minutes a month or fifty six hours a year!