Point Of Sale (POS) Systems

[Peter Drouin]

Can't you keep all the price the same in a rack of lumber? Like I sell 1x6x8 for x
Or is every piece not the same size?

[Southside]

Lets see, we've sent men to the moon (supposedly )

The moon, why is it always the moon?  Every society shortcoming is compared to "sending men to the moon".  Why can't it be something like "We can saw and dry Sycamore so it will stay flat, but can't fix....."  or "We can make the hydraulics on a Woodmizer work when the head is in any position on the mill, bus still have not figured out how to......" but oh no - the poor guys who had to drink dehydrated water for two weeks and poop into a vacuum cleaner while camping out in a camera studio at Area 51 are forever the butt of our jokes.  Talk about a legacy.  :D      

[Crusarius]

I think bigtrees is onto something. 

I would still be looking into using Excel. But I know my way around Excel very well. Would not be very challenging to have a master DB file with all the pricing that can be changed. The more challenging part would be customer file access. You cannot have 2 ppl working on a file at the same time.

Hmmm, maybe that is the answer? 

My wife uses Google sheets. that solves the problem of multiple ppl editing at same time. She uses it mostly for department scheduling. Wonder if it may have potential to work for you? They even have an invoice template.

[WDH]

" but oh no - the poor guys who had to drink dehydrated water for two weeks and poop into a vacuum cleaner while camping out in a camera studio at Area 51 are forever the butt of our jokes.  Talk about a legacy.  :D      

:D :D :D

[mike_belben]

You had me at poop in a vacuum. 

[YellowHammer]

Southside, that was good.   :D  Remember the movie "Capricorn 1", filmed in 1977?  Seems I can't believe anything these days except what on this Forum. :D :D

Peter, unfortunately lots of our stuff is different sizes.  Most of the smaller stuff is edged to a fixed dimension, and those we put prices on, but not the bigger ones.  We do thickness to fixed dimension, either 4/4, 6/4, 8/4 etc.  However the hardwood is sold RWRL (Random Width Random Length).  We may have to move than direction, standardizing width, but if we edge trim high dollar wood to bring to standard size, we are losing percentages, and as you know, percentages add up.

Bigtrees, thats a good idea, and is actually what Square and some other POS systems have suggested.  They want businesses to sell by the lowest unit.  So if a butcher shop sells by pound, they suggest to change that and start selling by the ounce.  The problem is people are used to certain units and changing it does "make their head explode."  Probably the same reason we are still not using the metric system.  Selling wood by the deciboardfoot does take some explaining to customers.

I've got a very nice Excel file, but what started this whole thing was trying to save money for simply changing credit card accounts, move to a more commercial approach, as well as making things easier.  Well, one out of three ain't bad.

Ideally, I'd lik to have a true POS with little icons on the screen, so tap, tap the product is entered, then taxes and stuff are automatically calculated, (believe it or not, some of the biggest names in hardware (Ingenico) calculates tips but doesn't calculate taxes.  I'd like to eventually have the capability to go to a system with automatic inventory, (some do), auto export to our business analysis software, (most do) and lower fees than Square (depends on the types of cards used).

There are basically three? so far types of credit card accounts out there.  The Square system with a fixed percentage at 2.75%, with minimum customer help, minimum POS, and somewhat pain in the rear connections and startups (Bluetooth not always connecting).

The second type is a true Merchant Account with a local rep (who takes a cut), they come in and set everything up, they plug in the machines, and use the little brown machines you see in every gas station, Quickeee Mart, etc.  There are basis points assigned to each card and card type, (business cards, rewards card, corporate cards, etc have different rates) and the monthly bill fluctuates depending on what cards are used.  We get a high percentage of business cards and even a few world cards, so those are charged at a higher rate, higher than Square.

The third type is a true Merchant account without a local rep, where the do an analysis of your monthly card types and amounts and write a fixed contract about what they would charge.  They fine tune things so that the monthly fee will be less that Square, and since there is no local rep, they can save us about a $150 a month, which is not insignificant.  They would provide the traditional free brown box gas station machine, but no true POS system.  In order to do that its necessary to team with a secondary company, like Clover, or NCR who provides free hardware, but charges a monthly fee which deducts some form the savings they offer.

I have talked to Square so much about their system they have said they will make me a "Beta Tester" on their new software versions.  The ability to do decimals is one of their most requested features and they say they will roll it out in 6 months or so.  Its still leaves issues with they not so good POS system, but I'm providing input there (I always "provide input :D" on stuff I don't like, free of charge.) 

I've used several of the professional merchant accounts, some good, some bad, and am continuing to do so.  I have become accustomed to their rock solid reliability.  The machines work, they always work and require no tuning on or pairing.  The little machines just sit there at idle and do their job, no fuss.

I keep looking at third party touch screen POS systems, some have hardware costs, some have monthly license fees.

So thanks for the input, this has been a learning experience for me.  The bottom line, if I can save money for nothing, maybe a hundred bucks or two a month, then I will keep on plugging along. Maybe reading this mess Ive gotten myself into can save other Forum members money and headache.  

 



       

[RPowers]

YH, I am curious as to why you can't just round up or down to the nearest full board foot. Over time the ups and downs will create an even profit line for you, and even with an expensive wood species .4bdft isn't going to amount to much for the consumer when you round up. I'd just state that at the entrance to the sales area and stick with it. If they don't like that the free .4bdft they got when the Hard maple rounded down was offset by the .4bdft of walnut that rounded up, they'll go to Lowes which sells neither. 

[WDH]

Maybe reading this mess Ive gotten myself into can save other Forum members money and headache.      

My head is aching .  I am still just cash and checks.  Dark ages.  Cash and checks are going extinct, like spalted, curly, quilted, walnut . 

[PA_Walnut]

like spalted, curly, quilted, walnut .

Not here...its what I do! ;D
How much you need?

[WDH]

'Bout a whack.

[PA_Walnut]

Start talking SGU's and I'll load up the wagons!  :D

[Hilltop366]

deciboardfoot? do you mean deciboardmeter?    ;D

[Hilltop366]

As much as it would be a drag to bar code every board I figure that is what will simplify everything on "sale day" by doing the grunt work by calculating the board ft when the store is not busy ( I know, that is when you are doing other things). By simplifying calculating board foot and price during a sale it will speed up customer processing time and it won't matter if the costumer is yacking in your ear.

My initial thought is to have a barcode tag or those square things that also says the dimensions, board foot and species on the tag so you and the customer know what it is at a glance then a separate barcode on the rack that has the price. A quick scan of the board and the price will give a running total for the customer. any change in price will only need to be made on the entire rack all info stays the same for every board. Once the customer is done picking the sheet is sent to a wireless printer at the checkout for payment.  Much the same flow as your current system only streamlined.

Kind of like this.

Barcode     White Oak 1" X 6" X 8'
 or Square    Total 4 Board feet

[YellowHammer]

I think at some point we may go to barcodes, if I could generate them as fast as I  can mark boards with pens.  I really don't know that much about them, how they are generated and added to the database.  I never thought much about them until now.  Thing is, ultimately the system, whatever we go to, if anything, is supposed to be easier and also save me money.  I'm not sure thats possible, now..

RPowers, several years ago we did just as you suggest, it seemed a logical thing to do.  However, it didn't take log for the customers to start to ask questions if front of all the other customers, like "How come this board costs the same as that one, they aren't the same size."  So they we would have to explain it to them, and then they would whip out their tape measures and recalculate the bdftage and then one thing led to another and we just called it quits and mark actual size on the boards to avert that again.  We even hang tape measures everywhere so the customers can c heck if they want.  It adds a lot of confidence to the customers knowing exactly that they are buying actual size, but it certainly complicates things for us.  

At some point, it seems that if I had a laser measuring device that magically measures the length and width of a board, and poops out a barcode that I can stick to the end of the board, I'd have something that would be super fast.  

Barcodes seem to be the way of the future, there is a mill down the road who has 2,000,000 bdft on the yard at any time and they track every single pack of wood.  They even have a laser device that measures by scanning the end of the pack of wood and scans every boards, recording the widest, the narrowest, and the average width.  Its amazing technology.

A couple weeks ago we decided to edge to whole numbers, in an attempt to standardize widths.  We did it for the packs of wood we anticipated selling that week, and the edging waste was stomach churning.  It  seemed like a good idea at the time, but we ended up with maybe a ton, literally, of little bitty 1/2' and 3/4" wide edging strips.  I didn't take a picture, but it was amazing how much its was.  

WDH, my head is aching too.    

[Peter Drouin]

The time to size your lumber is on the mill. A little fat,[1/4] dry then rip, edge to the size.

[WDH]

I have thought about cutting all boards to a standard width, but I decided that I an just not going to do that.  I am not a box store or conventional lumberyard.  I don't want to be, either.  I have customers call and say that they need so many 1x6's and so many 1x8's.  I always tell them that I do not cut to standard lumberyard size and they can come pick out what they want....

[pineywoods]

YH if you get serious about bar codes, be aware that there are multiple standards for bar codes, not necessarily compatible. One system to print the codes and another for reading may not work..