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Point of sale equipment and its accompanying software systems have revolutionized the way retailers do business.”Point of sale” can refer to where a transaction occurs, a checkout counter, or even a retail store itself.

Computerized point of sale systems are commonly used in just about any kind of retail establishment including supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, etc. They are also used for electronic commerce and payment systems. These systems help keep track of inventory, consumer preferences, and have greatly improved overall efficiency and service.

Savvy users of some point of sale systems can maximize their profits through the efficient use of customer mailing lists that are stored in their software. For example, mailing lists can be merged with Word to easily create personalized letters to customers. These letters can advertise upcoming promotions, be used as a thank you for large orders, remind customers when they are due for a service, or even to wish a happy birthday to valued clients. Such personal touches are sure to increase sales, remind clients that they are important to a business, and promote good will with a company’s customer base.

Here are some other tips to make the best use of your point of sale system and software:

– Typing in SKU numbers on a keyboard takes a long time. Make sure your bar code scanners are working properly, as this will greatly speed up your service and make your customers happy. Omnidirectional scanners work even better than traditional scanners because the bar code doesn’t have to be perfectly positioned.

– Not having to use a mouse also increases your speed of service. Touch screens are the most efficient way to go, but even using a keyboard to ring up sales and do other transactions works better than a mouse.

– You want to provide great service without spending a great deal of money. But if your system breaks down, no one’s happy. Your equipment doesn’t have to be brand new, but using reliable hardware and software for your system is essential to running your business more smoothly. This might seem like a no-brainer, but many businesses make the mistake of accepting whatever equipment comes their way in order to save a few dollars. Do your homework and buy good stuff from a reliable supplier. You’ll be glad you did.

– Provide paperless service as much as possible by making efficient use of your POS system. If you take orders by phone, the status of a customer’s order is much easier to determine if it’s checked electronically rather than by using a paper system.

The bottom line is that the use of point of sale systems has greatly increased customer satisfaction at the businesses that use them. Improved efficiency in customer service and better management of valuable employee time makes a POS system a must-have for today’s market place.

If you are looking for an affordable point of sale system or software, visit Guarantee Business Systems (http://www.gbsncr.com/). With over 20 years in business, they’ll help you stretch your IT budget. Art Gib is a freelance writer.

One of the many features of Advanced Excel is the PivotTable. A PivotTable is an interactive table that automatically extracts, organises, and summarises your data in report form, with the assistance of a Wizard.

Pivot tables allow you to quickly summarise and analyse large amounts of data in lists and tables - independent of the original data layout in your spreadsheet - by dragging and dropping columns to different rows, columns, or summary positions.

You can use PivotTables and PivotCharts to analyse the data, make comparisons, detect patterns and relationships, and discover trends. A PivotTable organises and then summarises large amounts of data from any range that has labelled columns and rows. Any number of column headings can act as category items.

The PivotTable is known as such because the headings can be rotated around the data so as to view or summarise it in different ways. You can filter the data to display just the details for areas of interest. Alternatively, you can choose to create a PivotChart which will summarise the data in chart format rather than as a table. An advanced Excel course, led by a Microsoft certified trainer, is highly recommended as you will gain the necessary knowledge to make effective use of Advanced Excel, including PivotTables and PivotCharts.

PivotTables have for a long time been very useful for accountants, but have great advantages to managers too, as a data analysis tool. The source data for the PivotTable can include an Excel worksheet database or list, or any data range that has labelled rows and columns. This data can be in Excel or in an external application such as Microsoft Access. The general rule is that you need more than two criteria of data with which to work otherwise there will be nothing to pivot.

PivotTables are especially well-suited for taking enormous amounts of data and summarising that data into useful reports which can help you analyse your data from multiple perspectives, making it easier for you to discover patterns and exceptions and therefore make faster, better business decisions. In fact, PivotTables might just be the single most powerful tool in Excel for budgeting, financial reporting, and data analysis.

A few of the many advantages of PivotTables are that one can generate and extract meaningful information within a matter of minutes, and the fact that they do not use up a lot of memory from the computer. The drag-and-drop functionality makes PivotTables interactive in that once the table is complete you can very easily see what effect moving, or pivoting, the data has on the information.

Having the information update each time the workbook is opened and/ or by clicking the refresh tab is another feature. Some of the additional features of PivotTables are that they work well with other Excel tools such as AutoFilters, subtotalling, grouping, outlining, and publishing to the web, sending email, and copy and paste linking to MS Word and MS PowerPoint.

In conclusion, some of the many features of PivotTables are that you can summarise and analyse data, quickly rearrange the layout of the report, and they are a convenient way to build intelligent, flexible summary tables.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on advanced+excel+course, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net

Microsoft Project’s purpose and functionality is best described by the definition of a project: A project is a unique undertaking that has a clearly defined start and finish, and requires the management of time, resources, cost and quality.

Project management is defined as a broad set of skills to properly initiate, plan, execute, control and close a project. The primary skills are scoping (i.e., describing and agreeing on project objectives and requirements), scheduling, and estimating. Added to these core skills are managing risk and uncertainty, managing quality, communicating, managing ourselves, and collaborating with others, including suppliers of goods and services and everyone else who works on or is affected by the project.

The people who are involved or interested in a project are referred to as stakeholders. A Microsoft Project course, delivered by a Microsoft certified trainer, will give you an in-depth understanding of this application. Below is a brief overview.

MS Project has been designed to assist project managers in the development of plans, to assign resources to tasks, to track progress, to manage budgets and to analyse workloads. As a comparison, let’s look at the difference between production and project management.

With production management, the objective is to achieve a succession of consistent products. With project management the end result is less clearly defined and the certainty around its achievement not assured, thereby turning it into a bit of an art form. In some ways the dividing line between projects and operational activities, such as production management, is not clear; often an operational activity is a series of small projects. However, what is clear is that a healthy project has a finite end that is reached either when the project objectives have been met or when the project is cancelled.

Effective portfolio management and multi-project management are among the most critical factors for successful projects. They address many of the root causes of continual problems in projects, such as the chronic over-burdening of resources and constant priority shifts that create confusion and that impact productivity.

Taking a look back in history, one can use the Great Wall of China as a fine example of project management. There certainly must have been a project manager to mastermind and oversee the massive project that resulted in the construction and completion of this mammoth construction project that was completed around 200BC. It is a point worthy of debate whether the project was completed within time constraints and within budget, but the project was on such a massive scale that it is hard to imagine how it was ever completed with out the technology and resources that are available to modern humans, even just in the last 20 years let alone the past 1000.

It wasn’t until the advent of the personal computer, and practical applications such as MS Project, that the considerable calculations that form part of successful project management were made more efficient and precise.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on a Project course, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net

Taking Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses is the first step in adding new functionality to your spreadsheet projects. However it is only the beginning. Efficient and powerful macro programming takes experience and practice to achieve.

Here are a few tips to get recent, or not-so-recent, graduates of Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses pointed in the right direction.

Reduce Traffic Between Worksheets And Macros
Passing data back and forth from cells on the worksheet to your macros is a very slow process. Minimizing this communication greatly speeds up macro function. Some users, inspired to use techniques learned in Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses, use macros for simple calculations better handled by worksheet functions. This may be for readability with complex formulas. It is easier to understand a macro name than a huge equation.

The problem is the more readable macro solution is slower because of the communication overhead. In a small spreadsheet the speed difference is undetectable, but in a large project unnecessary macros can slow calculations down dramatically.

Another aspect of worksheet-macro traffic that is not always covered in Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses is the number of read/write events. It is much faster to read a block of a thousand cells than to read each cell individually. If a macro is acting on a large range of data, read the range in first before looping through the data rather than looping and reading a cell on each iteration.

Avoid Worksheet Functions In Macros
Graduates of Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses often find it is convenient to use existing worksheet functions, from simple Max formulas to advanced numerical functions, rather than re-inventing the wheel. However worksheet functions are slow.

A large part of this is the communication problem from the last section however sometimes the existing function is simply too complex for the macro designer’s needs. Excel functions are designed to cover a wide range of possibilities so contain many logic tests and extra code to cover eventualities that your macro may never face.

Even built in macro functions discussed in Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses are often less efficient than simply doing it yourself. If there is a VBA function you use often, try speed tests to see if it would be faster to enter equations directly instead.

Provide Feedback
A watched spreadsheet never calculates. Sometimes your macros may be a marvel of efficient design, a prime example of skills learned in Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses, but users may perceive it as slow.

Any time the user is going to have to wait for more than a few seconds, provide some kind of feedback. An updating dialogue, a progress bar, or a status cell on the sheet are ways you can give the user some indication of how much remains to be done.

Don’t worry about predicting the time left, but a percentage complete at least lets the user decide whether to wait or go get a cup of coffee.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Microsoft Excel 2003 VBA courses, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.

If you need to train a new employee on spreadsheets, do you choose an Excel 2003 training course or train internally? How would your answer change if you were a business with fewer than ten employees?

Many small businesses choose internal training because their budgets are small enough that they think they can’t afford an Excel 2003 training course. In reality they are probably losing more money by trying to train on their own.

Lost Work Means Lost Revenue
Training internally rather than finding an Excel 2003 training course means losing the work of two people: the trainer and the trainee. A small organization isn’t going to have a dedicated trainer so that means an experienced employee is taken away from the job to mentor the new worker.

What are those lost hours worth to your company? The loss often goes beyond just the time spent acting as trainer. Missing a couple of days on a project can disrupt workflow for others and lead to more lost production. If the trainer tries to keep up with the work then the student gets intermittent training, which is not the best way to learn new skills.

Do Your Employees Have The Right Skills?
Using Excel and teaching Excel are two different things. Internal training often doesn’t teach basic Excel skills, focusing instead on how a particular spreadsheet works. Students learn less about Excel than when they take a course and this limits their ability to improvise and come up with better solutions.

Students pick up more than basic skills in Excel courses. Instructors have an in-depth knowledge of the software. Students are likely to come back with additional abilities that will benefit everyone in the company.

Another flaw with people acting as ad hoc instructors is that they don’t know how to teach well. Taking an Excel 2003 training course from a Microsoft certified instructor means getting instruction from someone who has demonstrated skill with the software as well as with teaching.

Students Learn from Other Students
When employees attend Excel 2003 training courses, they make contact with other students at the same skill level. Many students keep in contact after the course is over. Discussing problems with people who have similar knowledge may reveal new solutions that have never been tried in your organization.

Courses allow an excellent opportunity to make lucrative business contacts. Student interaction is an opportunity for your company to make contacts with other companies that might offer complimentary skills. This leads to business partnerships that are rewarding for both parties. Your organization might find new customers or suppliers that will improve business performance.

Although outside training may seem less useful to small businesses than to large ones, in practice the opposite is true. Outside courses are an investment in a small company’s future that makes the organization stronger.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Excel 2003 training course, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.