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CUSTOM SOFTWARE · RETAIL AND TILL

Retail Management and the Store Till (RMS / POS)

We bring the store's till, stock, promotions and shift handover together in a single system. The POS here is not the virtual POS on your website; it is the real till on the counter. In multi-branch structures, prices and promotions are managed centrally and the day closes with the same discipline in every branch.

In retail the word POS describes two separate things, and this confusion frequently turns into a problem in proposals. The first is the virtual POS: the infrastructure provided by a bank or payment institution that lets you take card payments from a website. The second is the store POS: the till on the counter, that is, the point where the product is scanned, the tab is opened, the receipt is issued and the shift is closed. This page describes the second. If your question is about taking payments from your site, virtual POS integration and payment reconciliation, that work runs under the payments and fintech heading. The only place the two systems intersect is bringing store sales and online sales together in the same report; clarifying in discovery which need belongs to which ends half the scope debate before it starts.

The real difficulty on the store side is not the till device itself but the gap around the till. The price on the shelf label does not match the price read at the till, because the increase was announced centrally but the label was never changed. The rule for a promotion sits in the cashier's memory, so the same discount is applied in two different ways in two branches. Branch stock reaches head office days later, and in the meantime a customer has been promised a product that another branch does not in fact have. Returns and exchanges are written in a notebook. When the till does not balance at the end of the day, finding where the difference came from usually turns into an archaeological dig that nobody undertakes. No single item in this picture is large on its own; together they mean the store's real performance is never seen clearly.

A Retail Management System (RMS) is this management layer around the store till. The till is the point of execution where the sale takes place; RMS is the whole that determines which price will apply at that point, which promotion will run, how stock will be deducted, which points the customer will earn and which figures will go to head office at the end of the day. Prices and promotions are defined centrally, can be differentiated by branch or region and are pushed down to the tills automatically. Stock movement is created at the moment of sale, and transfers between branches are recorded. Shift opening and closing and cash reconciliation are put on a standard flow, so a difference is visible in the shift where it arose rather than months later. Head office reports are also based on the record created at the till rather than on the branch's declaration; in multi-branch structures this is one of the most argued-about subjects.

Let us write down the limits up front as well. The device that issues the fiscal receipt is the new-generation payment recording device approved by the Revenue Administration (GİB); we are not writing software that replaces that device, we are writing software that talks to it. Which brand of device supports which integration method becomes clear in discovery, and this is the item that must be settled earliest in the project. Second, for a single-store business custom software is usually not the right decision; an off-the-shelf till programme gives a faster and cheaper result. Custom development becomes meaningful when the number of branches grows, when promotion rules fall outside the mould of standard programmes, or when the till has to share the same data with production, e-commerce and the dealer side.

Who is it for?

Who is Retail and Till Management (RMS / POS) a good fit for?

Multi-branch retail chains

Businesses managing more than one store centrally. At this scale, prices and promotions coming down from a single point, branch stock being visible the same day and the end-of-day close being done with the same discipline in every branch become a necessity. As the number of branches grows, the cost of an arrangement run by hand rises quickly. The information delay between head office and the branch means direct loss at this scale.

Manufacturers opening their own store

Manufacturers running a factory shop, showroom or outlet. The passage of product from production into store stock, discount authority and connecting store turnover to corporate reporting are usually the parts left missing in these structures. The till speaking to the production side within the same system is what makes the real difference here. When the store is managed as a separate business rather than as an extension of production, stock and profitability become invisible in a short time.

Chains working with tabs

Restaurants, cafés and quick-service businesses. Table or takeaway tabs, the kitchen printer, stock deduction from recipes and shift handover cannot be thought of separately from the till in these businesses. When the number of branches grows, managing menu and price changes centrally becomes the only way out. Without a recipe definition, the relationship between kitchen stock and the portions sold can never be established.

Brands growing through franchise and dealer networks

Brands working with stores that belong to someone else. Head office wants to protect its standards and pricing policy; the dealer wants to manage their own till and staff. A system in which the split of authority is set up correctly meets both expectations, and head office reporting does not remain dependent on the dealer's declaration. The dealer seeing their own data and head office seeing the whole are separated within the same system.

What we build

What we deliver within Retail and Till Management (RMS / POS)

Till and tab screen

Fast selling by barcode, multiple payment types (cash, card, gift voucher, points), split payment, returns and exchanges, parked receipts and tab management. The screen is designed plainly enough for the cashier to use without looking at it; at a busy hour, speed is worth more than the number of features. Touchscreen terminals and keyboard shortcuts are supported together. Cashier changeovers, cancellations and transactions requiring supervisor approval are recorded separately.

Branch stock and transfers

Stock is deducted at the moment of sale; stocktakes, wastage, returns and transfers between branches are recorded. Head office sees how much of which product is in which branch on the same day. A flow for reserving a product from another branch for a customer can be set up. The connection to the warehouse side is made through your existing ERP stock module. The till can stay open during a stocktake; the count difference is tracked as a separate record.

Central price and promotion management

Price lists and promotion rules are defined centrally, can be differentiated by branch or region and are pushed down to the tills automatically. Rules such as multibuy, tiered discounts, bundle prices, coupons and member prices become defined; they are not left to the cashier's interpretation. Shelf label printing is fed from the same price source. Which promotion ran in which branch on which date can be seen retrospectively.

Loyalty, membership and points

Customer cards, earning and spending points, member-only prices and rules such as birthdays run directly at the till. Customer data created in store, held together with its consent status, can be passed to the CRM and marketing side. Consent and communication permission records are set up from the start; this is the hardest part to add later. Point balances can also be used within a defined limit while working offline.

Shifts, cash reconciliation and end of day

Shift opening and closing, cash counts, cash differences, the card and cash split and the end-of-day close are tied to a standard flow. When a difference arises, which shift and which cashier it arose in is visible. End-of-day figures reach head office the same day; they do not wait until the weekend. Sensitive operations such as opening the cash drawer, cancellations and returns can be tied to supervisor approval and are reported separately.

Hardware and payment recording device integration

Integration is built with hardware such as the new-generation payment recording device, the bank POS terminal, the barcode scanner, receipt and label printers, the customer display and scales. The aim is that the cashier does not enter the same amount separately into two devices; double entry both slows things down and is the most common cause of the end-of-day difference. If a device does not support a flow, an alternative is designed and this constraint is written explicitly into the scope.

Head office reporting and accounting transfer

Sales reports are produced broken down by branch, cashier, time of day, product and promotion; return rate and discount usage are tracked separately. Sales and collection data are transferred to your existing ERP and accounting programme. The rule for this transfer is written up front; the aim is to build a flow that does not require manual correction at month end. Report definitions can also be added later; the head office team can produce its own breakdowns.

Technologies

The technologies we work with

  • .NET and Electron till client
  • Offline local data with SQLite
  • PostgreSQL central database
  • New-generation ÖKC (fiscal device) integration
  • ESC/POS receipt printer protocol
  • GS1 and EAN-13 barcode standards
  • Zebra ZPL label printer
  • RS-232 scale integration
  • e-Arşiv invoice integration
  • REST API and queue-based synchronisation
  • Role and permission-based access
Process

How we move from discovery to go-live

  1. 01

    1. Store discovery and hardware inventory

    We stand at the till for a whole shift and map the real flow: which payment types are used, how returns are done, which devices there are and which integration the payment recording devices support. If the hardware inventory is not produced at this stage, there is a high risk of meeting an unexpected incompatibility at the end of the project. This discovery is done not in the office but in the store's own busy hours.

  2. 02

    2. Writing the price, promotion and authority rules

    How price lists will be built, the rules for promotion types, discount authority limits and return conditions are put in writing. For most retailers this step is done for the first time, and it is here that rules differing between branches come to light. The software is nothing other than this text, implemented.

  3. 03

    3. Developing the till application and the integrations

    The sales screen, offline working, synchronisation and hardware integrations are developed in short stages. At every stage a working version is tried in the store environment. The screen the cashier will use is tested at the counter, not in the office; speed and error tolerance can only be measured there. Synchronisation outages and hardware faults are deliberately tested during development; the first feedback from cashiers is written straight into the screen layout.

  4. 04

    4. Pilot in a single branch and field training

    The system is first run with real sales in a single branch and kept running in parallel with the existing method for a while. Cashier and store manager training is given during this period. The pilot usually takes 3-6 weeks; when this period is shortened, the problems appear during the roll-out instead, and in a far more expensive form.

  5. 05

    5. Roll-out, handover and support

    Branches are brought live in stages; short on-site support is given at each opening. Price, promotion and user management are handed over to the head office team and left in writing. In live operation, synchronisation delays, till differences and hardware faults are monitored and resolved within support. The roll-out order is set by the complexity of the operation, not by the size of turnover.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about Retail and Till Management (RMS / POS)

Is this the same thing as the virtual POS on our site?

No. Virtual POS is the bank or payment institution infrastructure that lets you take card payments over the internet; the POS on this page is the physical till in the store. The two are different systems, working with different regulation and different hardware. The point where they meet is reporting: when you want to see online and store sales in the same table, we connect the two sides. If you are looking for payment collection, reconciliation and refund flows from your site, that subject runs under the payments and fintech heading.

If the internet goes down, does the till stop?

It does not. The till application is set up to work offline: product, price and promotion information is held locally, sales are written to a local database and transferred to head office when the connection returns. Let us state the limit too: during an outage, price updates coming down from head office, other branches' stock and live point balances may not be up to date. Which transactions will be restricted during long outages is decided in discovery and shown clearly to the cashier on screen.

Does this software issue the fiscal receipt?

No. The device that issues the fiscal receipt is the new-generation payment recording device approved by GİB, and we are not writing software that replaces it. The system we build prepares the sale, passes the amount and the lines to the device, and writes the returned receipt details into its own record. Which device supports which integration method varies by brand; this is the item we settle earliest in discovery. If there is a constraint on the device side, we build the scope accordingly and write it down from the start.

Do we have to change our existing ERP and accounting programme?

No. We do not replace Logo, Mikro, Netsis or whichever other programme you use; we build a layer that works alongside it. Product records, customer accounts and the accounting side stay there; store sales, the split of collections and stock movements are transferred there under a defined rule. Writing the rule for that transfer up front matters, because one of the jobs that consumes the most effort in retail is manually correcting figures that do not add up at month end.

We have a single store; does custom software make sense?

In most cases it does not, and we say so plainly. In a single-store business, off-the-shelf till programmes are set up faster, cost less and more than meet the need. Custom development becomes meaningful when the number of branches grows, when your promotion and price rules do not fit the mould of off-the-shelf programmes, or when the till has to share the same data with the production, e-commerce or dealer system. If your situation does not match these, we will say the same thing in the discovery meeting.

What do we end up with?

A till and tab application that can work offline; branch stock, transfer and stocktaking flows; centrally managed price and promotion rules with branch-level differentiation; a loyalty and membership structure; shifts, cash reconciliation and the end-of-day close; payment recording device, bank terminal and printer integrations; head office reports broken down by branch and cashier, together with the ERP transfer. The source code, the database and the sales data that accumulates belong to you.

Contact

Let us talk about your Retail and Till Management (RMS / POS) project

In a 30-minute discovery call we listen to what you need and tell you honestly whether custom development or an off-the-shelf product is the better answer.

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