Marilyn Sudbeck, a Denver-based CPA with her own firm, worked in retail management for 17 years. As an accountant for retailers, today she finds a variety of benefits to installing point-of-sales systems for her clients - and the benefits to herself as their CPA are just as noteworthy. "The reports are much more precise, more accurate," she explained. "The clients have a better handle on their inventory - it's an expensive thing for a retailer to carry inventory they don't need. Now they can tell what's selling and what's not selling."

Sudbeck recalled that when she was a store manager at a major retailer, she had to take a full day of seminar training just to operate the cash registers. Today, it takes much less time to train an employee.

"Once it's set up, to train another person to ring up the sales takes maybe 15 minutes," Sudbeck stated.

POS systems are software applications installed onto a store's retail hardware system, such as computerized cash drawers, that can ring up sales, exchanges and returns. The feature accountants appreciate most in today's POS systems is the ability to integrate into back-office accounting solutions, such as QuickBooks, Peachtree or Microsoft Great Plains.

They are replacing old-fashioned cash registers across the nation for a number of reasons, said Mike Dickson, director of Microsoft Business Solutions' POS Solutions in the U.S.

For one thing, the cost of PCs is down, making the systems more affordable. Retailers are also frustrated with the lack of technology available with older cash register systems, said Dickson, with accounting reports virtually impossible.

Since most POS applications can now be integrated with a store's accounting software, it helps the accountant analyze data rather than spend time on sales tax or journal entries, explained Glenn Leech, an accountant and reseller of Peachtree products with GML Enterprises, a Central Virginia-based accounting consultant.

"The sales tax is basically done for you," said Leech. "Simply doing the transactions in the POS system allows you to [later] track inventory. Transactions flow right into the accounting package."

The point-of-sales system's ability to flow directly into the back-end accounting software leaves Leech free from having to create a journal of entries for each client.

The audit trail then becomes more reliable and easier to follow in case an error occurs, said Hemant Makhija, director of product management for Accpac ePOS. "Using cash registers involves a lot of manual and duplicate work, which leads to errors," said Makhija. "There are many hundreds of features [with the new POS systems], but they all are in three major sections: simplicity, automation and integration."

A number of solutions are taking the integration tool one step further and creating a real-time connection between the POS system and the store's back-office system. "Single- or multi-store outlets are now getting all data in real time," said Makhija. "It's an extension module for the ERP, giving up-to-the-minute pricing, customer and inventory details."

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