Why Buy A Cash Register?

Why would a restaurant pay perhaps several thousand dollars to buy a cash register that really does nothing more than track the progressions of $10 and $20 and $50 checks (bills) for service and food delivered to the tables? I mean even with today’s decrepit American schools, most wait staff I’ve seen lately can scribble out a paper order at your table and while they are hiding in the back room doing nothing can easily add up the amounts and multiply by the proper percentage for the sales tax. If their basic arithmetic skills aren’t sufficient, the business owner can go to the afore-mentioned local Wal-Mart and buy a $7.95 solar-powered calculator to do it for them., they could then deliver you a hand written bill on a simple paper form you can buy in any business supply store, make change out of a simple metal cash box .. and, if they want to accept credit cards, those hand-powered credit card imprinters are still available. After all, nothing says ‘card present transaction’ like running the rollers over the plastic and making an impression on two pieces of good old fashioned paper. As you can see, those American business men and women who complain about profits are just a bunch of follow the heard spendthrifts, throwing their money away on useless, computerized gee gaws.

What’s that you say? I don’t know what I’m talking about? You say a proper restaurant or retail store management system, complete with POS cash drawers, computerized charge slips and inventory control software and on line credit card authorization can pay for itself in months, if one only knows how to do the math?

Or you are a professional bookkeeper or accountant and you know that even for those businesses who use accounting services, the cost of that Quick Books program is easily justified in just the hours of professional time saved by not having to wade through a shoe box full of paper at the end of the year? Not to mention the day to day guidance that having an up to date profit and loss accounting can bring to the table as a business advantage. Just do the math and calculate your return on investment, before you throw business management back into the last century, I can hear some of you saying.

Well, OK, I’m a reasonable man. i can be convinced by facts. So how about any of my fellow business owners out there today, reading this while a quirk of the calendar has turned a perfectly good work day into the second non-work day of the year. Can you do the math? Can you tell when it pays to spend money to get more money in return? or do you look at those end of year figures and say, “GPS tracking? Nice idea but we can’t afford it.”

I’m here to tell you that even if you only use one vehicle in your business, even if you don’t own a single vehicle but pay others mileage allowance to use their own vehicles, even if you just have a very small fleet and it’s leased on a flat rate basis .. on up to fleets of thousands, you need to track those vehicles.

I am not some Madison Avenue-style marketing guru. I’m a small businessman who pays for everything out of his own pocket and I expect bang for my (limited) bucks. Make this your year to think about tracking technology and when you are ready to think with your 2006 mind and not yesterday’s, call me and make me prove it.