Has your business become big enough that manually tracking your inventory…and your sales…and your customer base has become overwhelming and too time consuming? Have you started to do some research into a point of sale solution and had sticker shock?
NCR (National Cash Register), the “original” cash register company, has come out with a simplified, entry level point of sale solution called NCR Silver. It provides a straightforward solution for tracking sales, profitability and your customers, with the capability of being portable.Be forewarned, this is a very simplified system, if you are looking for a point of sale that can produce super-specific and uber-customized reports, this one is not for you. However, if you are in the market for an entry level, easy to use point of sale system which can streamline your inventory process, tracking and marketing to your customer base, and allows you to sell to those customers from anywhere…this is your POS solution!
What can NCR Silver do?
NCR Silver advertises the three following areas as the main draw of their POS system:
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Tracking Sales
NCR Silver is the easy solution for keeping track of your back-office, no matter where you are. NCR Silver delivers actionable and relevant data that tells you exactly what you need to know to keep your small business running.
NCR lets you manage your inventory, track sales and track your profitability with real-time reporting tools available in the back office. You can easily input and track discounts, you can enter in specific tax rates on different items, manage returns, and so much more!
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Market to Customers
Email marketing has never been this simple. Capture your customer emails and let NCR Silver do the rest. NCR Silver has integrated marketing tools that help you reach your customers in relevant ways that will grow your relationships and grow your small business.
NCR Silver has integrated email marketing, allowing you to capture customer data, email digital receipts, and compile their purchase history. Why do you want this functionality? Because it’s awesome!
Here is an example, Judy comes to your store and makes a purchase with her credit card, she also opts to give you her email and customer information. Since she used a credit card, her email is now linked to that card, and every time she comes in and uses the same card, NCR Silver will link the new purchase to her existing contact information. Cool right?! No more asking for phone numbers every time someone checks out!
Let’s say it’s been 30 days since the last time Judy came into your store and purchased something. NCR Silver will automatically send out an email, using a template you have created, reminding her to come in and see you. You can also create customer groups, which allow you to send out specific emails and/or coupons with specific promotions.
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Sell Anywhere
Go ahead and move around. Sell to your customers, wherever and whenever you want with NCR Silver. No matter where your small business takes you, NCR Silver will go to.
As long as there is a wireless or a 3G connection, you can use NCR Silver on the go. Ever want the ability to process transactions and track your sales from a trade show? Now you can. NCR Silver has the ability to run not only on the iPad, but an iPhone or iPod Touch as well. You can take payments via credit card (with an additional reader), cash, or check and have the ability to track what inventory was sold and who bought it IN REAL TIME!
What is the best part about NCR Silver?
HANDS DOWN…the back office functionality!
As I said before, this is a simplified entry-level POS system…so if you are coming from tracking everything manually…this thing is SWEET!!!
My Store
When you log into the back office, the first place you go is My Store. Here you will see four different reports: Last 7 Days Performance, Snapshot, Good to Know, and Last 6 Week Trend. These reports are in the form of graphs and can be clicked on to reveal more detailed information in the Snapshot window.
My favorite is the Good to Know activity. This will tell you information that is, well, good to know. Such as days with higher sales than usual, higher than usual amount of item price overrides, higher than usual discounts, higher than normal voids, and things of that nature. These things are help you keep an eye on your business without spending a lot of time analyzing all of your reports.
Results
The Results tab is the next in the NCR Silver back office. Here you will be able to track your sales, profits, and transactions in reports customizable by today, the last 7 days, or the last 30 days. You can break down the reporting into categories you create. It even allows you to make a report that tracks your business by the hour!
Inventory
The Inventory tab is where you will enter in your categories and items, and manage your modifiers and discounts. You can sort your items by category, or view all at the same time. NCR Silver allows you to enter information, and therefore track the information, on your items such as category, vendor, retail price, your cost, and the margin you make on that item. NCR Silver allows you to set different tax categories for individual items as well, making it easier to collect the exact amount of tax necessary for each item, eliminating the time consuming process of calculating tax.
Customers
This. Is. Awesome. NCR Silver helps you to track your customers, allow you to see what they purchase and how often, as well as send out email marketing campaigns. It is an awesome marketing tool! And it’s included!!!
The first section is the Customer Dashboard. This shows you a report of your Top 10 Customers, how many times they visited in the last six months, when their last visit was, and how much money they have spent in your store in the last 6 months. There is also a report of your previous email campaigns and a report of the offers that were redeemed.
The second section is the Customers Tab. Here you have a list of all your customers, the customer category you put them into, their phone number and their email.
The third section is your Email Marketing Tab…which is my favorite. Here you create and manage your email campaigns and recurring emails. Send your customers Welcome emails and Miss You emails to bring them back in. Here you can find tips on how to create powerful promotions, protecting your business, and creating appealing subject lines. It helps you increase your social sharing reach. And helps you track and react to your performance by evaluating your email campaign’s effectiveness.
Settings
Here is where you have access to and ability to change the information for your store. You can manage what shows on your receipts, the different tax categories you need, and your accepted payment methods. NCR Silver also allows you to keep track of your employees and what they have access to. And finally, you can add in your Social Media links to Facebook and Twitter. There is also a way to auto-post your bulk email campaigns to Facebook as well.
Conclusion
The NCR Silver can use a cash drawer, scanner, and receipt printer operating similarly to a standard full POS system. The encrypted card reader ensures you are PCI compliant by encrypting the card holder data right at the swipe, thus eliminating your liability should your system be breached or hacked. NCR Silver is able to run all of the basic reports you would get out of a standard full POS system.
What can’t it do? At this time, NCR Silver cannot link multiple locations, track shared inventory, or make crazy specific reports. So if you have three store locations and they all share a warehouse and you need a report that tells you which store sells the most widgets in purple chevron pattern, you really do need a full POS system (which BNG Technologies would be happy to talk to you about).
Lastly, you never pay for a software upgrade with NCR Silver. Each month you pay a low subscription fee, giving you access to live support and free software upgrades as long as you are a member. The hardware is an upfront purchase, costing approximately 10% of what you would spend on a full countertop POS station. We do have leasing options available for those who need it, however the upfront cost is very low. The value is AMAZING!!
Contact us for more information and a free demo of NCR Silver.
