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Quick Sale

Garden Center Software's development team recognizes that there are many times you just want to ring up a Quick Cash Sale so we provided just such a tool at the point of sale so that all you you do is scan in the items, select a method payment and take the cash. All done in less than 10 seconds with everything recorded except who you sold it to.

We also recognized that every smart retailer wants to create a long tem relationship with their customers and so we built the regular sales mode so that you could track who you sold what to. This simple difference takes a little more time at the point of sale if you aren't using our customer ID cards to build a customer loyalty program in your retail operation. With the loyalty cards you won't take any more time than you would with a straight cash sale because we have instant customer lookup every time you mag swipe or bar code read their card. Still allows you to then target customers with personal mailers that are smart enough to send a promotion on Rose Trellises two months after you sell them the rose. Can your present marketing system do that without any real work? Ours can and does and it does more if you get your imagination going. Think big - think small. Think globally but act locally.  Do you really want to blanket the planet with paper advertising that gets wasted on those 80% that never come in or even read your ad or do you want to build that coveted customer relationship with someone who already knows you and your service and appreciates your thoughtful reminders that seem so personal. Only a completely integrated point of sale and marketing system like Garden Center Software can deliver that kind of service with minimal effort.

The first step in setting up your customer tracking transaction is to enter them once at a convenient time like the time of a sale on a slow day or after hours if they have filled out your customer loyalty program form because they want to earn those club points that you offer. The next step is to provide an easy way to recall them as you start the sale transaction. As mentioned earlier you can use your custom customer loyalty cards to bring them up on your screen or you can simply enter their name, telephone number or account code to retrieve them. This is very easy to do and usually locates a customer in less than 3 seconds if you've taken the time to record this information at an earlier date for their benefit. If you can't find them using these three keys then you can easily use our powerful search engine to find them based on any partial data that you feel is unique to them. This also only takes a few seconds more if you need to.

Barcodes provide the most reliable method for identifying inventory stock and customer loyalty cards. Bar Codes are the center of a successful inventory tracking automation system. If your inventory is bar coded to match your inventory records then you won't ever be guessing what it is or what it should sell for again when your customer is impatiently waiting for you to make up your mind. Bar Codes are generally assigned at the time of receiving your stock or when you label your own stock is ready for sale. This front loaded labeling is probably the most time management effective activity you could probably ever be engaged in because everything is automated from this point forward - eliminating a lot of incremental wasted time. Garden Center Software uses bar codes everywhere it can to help you reduce your work load and eliminate potential mistakes in identification or pricing. The point of sale cash register module is an excellent example of this leveraged use of bar codes - it reduces the check out times by 20 to 60 seconds every transaction while ensuring everybody gets the deal they thought they were getting due to the properly marked inventory that is being presented for payment at the time of sale. It helps to reduce those nagging arguments that plague your point of sale line up.

One of the hardest things to do right at a point of sale is to refund an item for the price the customer paid yesterday, a week ago, a month ago or a year ago. We gave you the power to instantly retrieve any previous transaction if you know the receipt number, customer name or day it was sold. The receipt number is by far the easiest and quickest to do at the point of sale and takes only seconds. You can even refund it as part of a sales transaction showing both the newly purchased items and the refunded item deducted from the others to give you a net cost transaction. It's all properly accounted for and even allows you to allocate the refunded item back to inventory if it still warrants or write it off as an expense immediately if it is a dead or broken inventory item. All of this allocation to the chart of accounts was decided once while you were setting up the business rules in the system setup so that you wouldn't have to bother with remembering how to do it again at a later date.  We even produce a proof of refund for those tax jurisdictions that require documented proof of your write offs at the time of refund. It prints as an add on to the receipt at the time of the refund so that you simply keep your store copy for physical proof and you can also run a report later to itemize all of your refunds for any period showing detail that includes who you refunded what to. This is easily one of the most exciting examples of total integration at it's best.

Garden Center Software was designed with the real world in mind and allows you to apply up to 4 separate payment types per transaction while also letting you pick a number of alternate payment types to make up that possible combination of 4 payment types. We let you decide what your 4 default payment types are and when and if you need one that isn't displayed on the touch screen then simply point to one of them and it will drop down a list of possible alternate payment types that you defined, once, earlier and   select your choice - al in a matter of a second. Nothing could be easier. You have to try it to believe it. Garden Center Software automatically tracks each payment type and presents and easy to reconcile cash out report at the end of the register shift.

We know that adjustments need to be made from time to time and we have designed one of the easiest adjustment systems imaginable including the ability to simply toggle % or $ methods of adjustment on a + or - basis per adjustment feature including adjustments per line item, or the complete invoice, add freight, restocking fees, adjust tax codes or terms of payment. If you can think of an interesting combination we can handle it with ease. Let us show you how in less than 30 seconds you will know how to do all and any of these adjustments. It's so easy.

We recognized that many of your customers are trades people like landscapers and that they usually have more than one job going at any one time so we created an easy to manage system to add the shipping address at the time of sale. This allows you to track what was bought for which site so that you can effectively eliminate the usual  confusion about just how much they really did buy from you for what job. You are effectively providing an accurate job costing system for their benefit which in turn allows you to effectively press for payment on transactions that used to be problems to collect from because they would get lost in the shuffle.

Garden Center Software allows you to put any transaction on hold at a moment's notice and service the next customers in line while your "on hold" customer searches for the item they forgot to bring to the sales counter. When a transaction is put on hold it can be retrieved from any other point of sale terminal in your store with ease allowing you to redirect difficult customers or transactions to your service counter without losing a beat. Everything relative to that transaction is waiting for your staff to pick up and continue without any wasted effort. It will recall the transaction including any relevant discounts or sale prices allocated to that tentative transaction. Transactions can only be put on hold for as long as the day of the initial hold. If you need to hold the transaction longer then save it as a quote.

Any transaction can be saved as a quote at any point in a transaction before you actually complete the sale by receiving payment or allocating it to receivables. The ability to save quotes allows you to use the quotes as boiler plate template transactions that might normally take a lot of time and consideration to assemble properly - such as a landscape quote. Any pricing and discounts calculated can also be saved as part of the quote. If you find that quote appropriate for another job then simply recall the quote and change the customer name and rebill it in less than a minute. The customer will think you spent hours assembling his custom quote. Only you will know otherwise. This is an extremely powerful way to leverage your time and energy. It won't take long to assemble a system of quotes that can cover a majority of your potential jobs.

One of the constants in retailing is coupons and one of the most aggravating to manage is coupons. Garden Center Software changes almost everything and turns it into a worthwhile activity by automatically tracking and calculating the coupon values as they are presented for partial payment. Coupons are treated like non-stocked inventory and cost nothing until they are redeemed. Inventory automatically tracks how many are redeemed and keeps an inventory of how many you will be asking the vendor to refund to you with full reporting per coupon of just who and when they redeemed them and for what. Nothing could be easier in this department. When you receive your credit form the vendor simply book it and zero the inventory amount to reset it to reflect their new status. It all works out and lets you account for every penny.

Every smart retailer offers Gift Certificates to their customers to encourage repeat or new visits from the recipient of the gift that was presented by the thoughtful gardener that wishes to share their joy of doing business with you with their special friend or relative. We knew that from experience and designed an effective and impressive Gift Certificate selling program right into the point of sale module so that you can sell them right at the point of sale and redeem them with ease when presented at a later date. We also recognized that each gift certificate is actually a pending liability that is very real so we automatically record each gift certificate sold as an outstanding liability right in your accounting ledger based on the rules that you set for your business when you set up Garden Center Software the first time. Remember you only have to set things up once and they will behave as you decided forever after thereby reducing your daily load incremental amounts until over 95% of the manual accounting you used to do is now automated leaving you do more important and profit producing activities. You just might make more money because of this system's help.

The heart of the point of sale system is cash management and receiving payment on account is one of those methods. You may take any form of payment and apply them to the outstanding account for any customer.

Garden Center Software uses a unique and very effective method for matching payments on account to their outstanding account balances. It shows all credit and debit transactions presently open and allows you to point to any combination of transactions on either side at one time and then post them all at once by properly referencing each application to the other in your accounting journal detail. You will smile when you see if working for you.

The cash register is usually used as your petty cash throughout the day and leads to the usual mystery balancing act at the end of each day. We know that most of you have the bad habit of dipping your mits into the cash tray when it looks like it's getting a bit too full on a busy day. We would suggest that you use Garden Center Software's control systems and switch trays for a new default float like as if it was first thing in the morning when they get full and start a new register shift that will help you match actual till totals to the shift cash out report. If you do this properly then you can even balance that cash out report at the end of the day even if you raid the till for those petty cash transactions that might include pizza for the staff or a freight bill that must be paid on delivery to your site. We knew this happens so we devised a system that allows you to enter the expense classification and amount  of the withdrawal at the time you take that cash out of the till. If you simply do this the cash out report at the end of the day will account for the shortage and automatically expense the petty cash disbursements with out any further effort making the register shift cash out process one of the easiest things you could ever imagine compared to what you are probably doing today.

Since we don't have day end procedures that keep you late at the store we had to put a simple to manage register shift scheme into place that mimics the procedures followed in large retail establishments where heavy till traffic doesn't allow you the luxury of counting your money in front of every body for half an hour while they wait to pay you for the next sale. In these environments and likely in yours as well we advise that you select the Close Register button and select to count your cash elsewhere. If you do then the receipt printer will print out a short till slip that identifies it's shift number and you simply include that slip with the pull out till drawer and replace the full drawer with the new startup till drawer with the default cash float that every register shift starts with. This allows you to switch trays and start the next shift in less than 20 seconds at the point of sale - inconveniencing your customer much less than any other method of cash management. When the cash drawer makes it to the back room outside of the eyes of the public you can count it and compare it against the reported totals for the register shift number included in the tray. Counting the cash is even easier. Garden Center Software only needs to have you count how many of each denomination   and match each check to the register detail to know that your totals match. Garden Center Software automatically extends the quantity times the denomination to give you accurate totals without having to do math to get there. This is a real improvement over anything we've seen before.

The Cash Out Report is a work of art providing all of the totals you need to cross check and itemize your sources of cash. It was designed by experienced Garden Center managers who know what you need to easily account for your cash. This is all that is needed to identify any potential problems such as over/short amounts or unbalanced payment types. Details can be reviewed if you notice a problem.