Point of Sale System for Four Season Greenhouse Nursery

This report emphasizes on the effectiveness of POS system for Four Season Greenhouse Nursery in comparison to manual operations. It covers pros and cons of POS system, its usefulness for business competitive advantage, its security risks and different ways to connect POS system with telecommunication services and it benefits for generating appropriate business information.

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Point of Sale System
22 May 2018

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Executive Summary
This report is about Four Season Greenhouse Nursery and it emphasizes on the usage of Point-
of-Sale System in this nursery center. The purpose of making this report is to define the
effectiveness of POS system for an organization in the comparison of manual operations.
Moreover, this report emphasizes on the challenges that were confronted by the Greenhouse
Nursery and how this center controlled these challenges by using POS system. This business
report covers pros and cons of POS system, its usefulness for business competitive advantage, its
security risks and different ways to connect POS system with telecommunication services and it
benefits for generating appropriate business information.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Advantages and Disadvantages of POS System..............................................................................3
How will POS system help the business to obtain competitive advantage?....................................4
Advantages to use centralized database...........................................................................................4
How POS system can be used for Decision Making?.....................................................................5
Why do POS system execute business activities properly?.........................................................5
Can the manual tracking of business information be effective?..................................................5
What types of questions could be answered effectively?............................................................5
How could the information be used for better business management?.......................................6
Telecommunication options for POS system..................................................................................6
Network Types.............................................................................................................................6
Types of Media............................................................................................................................6
What kind of risks are brought by POS system and how these can be overcome?.........................7
Security........................................................................................................................................7
Privacy.........................................................................................................................................7
Confidentiality.............................................................................................................................7
Security Techniques to control Risk Factors...............................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
As per the given scenario of Four Season Greenhouse and Nursery, the process of stock
management is done manually and it is deemed time consuming. Greenhouse nursery is in
Colorado. The records of available and used stocks of the whole nursery are maintained in the
manual registers. Besides this, the calculations regarding the profits and revenues of the Green
House nursery are also done manually. Indeed, it is a cumbersome task and most of the time it
does not provide accurate results. Further these bad results put influence on the sales of items of
the Greenhouse nursery. Therefore, it is important to resolve this problem as soon as possible.
Now, Four Season Greenhouse and Nursery is using a new system that can effectively control all
the potential problems related to the inventory management and it is an automatic system i.e.
Point of Sale (POS). According to the feedback of employees of the Greenhouse nursery who are
using this system, it is very much helpful system and it has potential to perform the inventory
management activities quickly with the right results. This business report of Greenhouse and
Nursery will emphasize on the pros, cons, effectiveness and risks of this POS system in detail.

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Discussion
The point of sale system consists of a cash register that consists of a receipt printer, a barcode
scanner, cash drawer and monitor. Besides this, a debit/credit card reader is included in the retail
Point of Sale Systems. These are some important features of Point of Sale system that can easily
manage the inventory system. POS system is the integration of the hardware and software
components that allow users to make transactions and other activities properly. In Greenhouse
Nursery, POS system is used for proper inventory management and the measurement of profit
and loss of business. In next segment of this report, I will discuss advantages and disadvantages
of the POS system.
Pros and Cons of POS System
Four Season Greenhouse Nursery has found some key pros and cons of Point-of-Sale system.
First of all, POS system has allowed business owners of Greenhouse nursery to track the required
business data from the different transactions of sales. With the help of this data, many different
activities can be performed that are concerned with the inventory management. In this way, Point
of Sale system is much better than manual process of maintaining inventory
(Harbortouchpossoftware.com, 2018). Next important advantage of POS system is that it
automatically updates the inventory system while processing and storing of data. There is no
need to depend on the manual entry of the sales transactions that cause inappropriate results in
some situations. Another important advantage of POS system is that it works like a cash register
and also deliver powerful functionality to take input and to track and distributing data. It is
important to operate successful business operations. (Compass.fhcrc.org, 2018)

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Besides above discussed advantages, there are some disadvantages of POS system that must be
in the knowledge of Greenhouse nursery’s owners. The first disadvantage of POS system is that
it requires periodic updates. After the installation of POS system, the periodic update of this
system is mandatory and it is the responsibility of the POS vendors. Without proper update POS
system will not work appropriately. Another disadvantage of POS system cannot be avoided and
it is related to its high maintenance fees (Chia, 2018).
How will POS system help the business to obtain competitive advantage?
The competitive advantage of an organization is very important to survive successfully in the
competitive market. To obtain a successful competitive advantage there is requirement to use
POS system. By using new point of sale system, Four Season Greenhouse Nursery can increase
its competitive advantage among its competitors. Point of Sale system provided information to
the Greenhouse center about items that are not profitable for the business. Moreover, through
POS system, Four Season Greenhouse center has gotten detailed information about the market
value of the items (National Processing, 2018). This whole information will be beneficial for the
management of the nursery to make the quick decisions regarding their cost of goods to earn
maximum profit. In this way, Greenhouse nursery can enhance its level of competitive
advantage.
Advantages to use centralized database
Centralized database has potential to perform different processes at a time rather than using a
separate database for each process. The main processes that are implemented by the centralized
database are sales, events and membership etc. The key advantage of using centralized database
is integrity of data. Besides this, it is also helpful to generate the broad business reports that
include confidential information regarding several business operations (Gastrofix, 2018).

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How POS system can be used for Decision Making?
Decision making is a crucial thing for every small and large business organization. Four Season
Greenhouse nursery also wants to make appropriate business decisions for its success. Here, POS
system can help to obtain required and appropriate information to the nursery center that can be
further used for making decisions. In addition, some other reasons also support POS system to
use for decision making and those reasons are discussed as below (Expert Market US, 2018):
Why do POS system execute business activities properly?
To perform different business operations, POS system considers original facts and figures. No
fake and estimated information is used by POS system. Due to this, accurate outcomes are
generated by the users. Therefore, it is right to say that POS performs business activities
effectively (Software Advice, 2018).
Can the manual tracking of business information be effective?
As per the given scenario of Greenhouse Nursery, it is observed that during manual tracking of
the business information, many hurdles and misconceptions have faced by the employees and
sometimes inaccurate results were also found. Therefore, it is right to say that manual tracking of
business information might not be effective (Toast, 2018).
What types of questions could be answered effectively?
POS system is useful to collect answers for the questions that are related to the real cost of the
product, profit and loss statement of the business, sales records and other important business
operations (It Still Works, 2018).

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How could the information be used for better business management?
With the help of accurate business information, different business level activities can be analyzed
and performed easily and quickly. Moreover, this information will be help to take crucial
decisions appropriately regarding different business operations.
Telecommunication options for POS system
Telecommunication system are required to use for POS system to obtain better communication
and sharing of information in an organization. Therefore, it is also crucial for Four Season
Garden center to execute telecommunication option for POS system (Corruption, risks and
information, 2018).
Network Types
The main network types are LAN, WAN and MAN that can be used to establish
telecommunication in POS system. Anyone network can be used according to the requirement of
the user and the location where this network is required. In case of Greenhouse Nursery, LAN
will be better to establish for telecommunication. Here LAN is Local Area Network which can
be easily established in a small sized organization (Bizfluent.com, 2018).
Types of Media
There are different types of media that are useful for establishing telecommunication for POS
system. The main media types are wireless and wired. Wireless media is easier to establish than
wired media and there is no need to use bunch of wires to maintain a connection. Therefore, in
case of Greenhouse Nursery, I would suggest to use wireless media to implement
telecommunication for POS system. Moreover, there are different wireless technologies and
anyone can be used among those technologies such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. However, some

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users prefer wired technology due to security reasons. In this case, fiber optic cable is highly
secured to use for implementing telecommunication for POS system.
What kind of risks are brought by POS system and how these can be overcome?
The main risk factors of POS system are concerned with security, privacy and confidentiality of
data. Although Point-of-Sale system is beneficial to use for Greenhouse Nursery, but there are
also security issues of this system that cannot be ignored by the business organizations that are
using this system.
Security
Due to centralized approach of the POS system, many other client computers are connected with
this system that shares and stores important data in it (Effective Database Management, 2018).
Here hackers take the advantage of hacking the connected devices to the POS system and try to
obtain its login credentials. By collecting this information cyber-attackers try to approach the
main system and its database to steal the information from it. This is really a big loss of
information for this business organization and users.
Privacy
POS system contains enormous amount of private and business information in it. Any kind of
violation to the privacy of this information by cyber-attacks and viruses may lead to the privacy
violation and whole data can be damaged (WhatIs.com, 2018).
Confidentiality
Data breaches are the main reason of confidentiality violation of data of POS system. Data
breaches occur when an unauthorized person try to access the information from the system

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without the permission of administrator. In this way, violation of confidentiality occurs (JUX
Law Firm, 2018).
Security Techniques to control Risk Factors
The above discussed issues are vulnerable for the users of POS system and another system. That
is why, high level prevention is required here to overcome this problem. Anti-virus must be used
to protect the system from any kind of virus attack. This software solution scans system
thoroughly and fix the bugs immediately. This is essential because a small bug or error into the
system may lead to heavy violation of data and system. Besides this, network security is also
important to sustain for a long time for an organization. In this case, advanced encryption
technique can be used to secure network. This technique is helpful to mask the information that
transferred from source to destination by POS system over network and it is difficult for hackers
to understand encrypted format of the system. In addition, Firewall is also an effective way of
data and system prevention. It is an in-built software solution into the operating system and
restricts any unknown entity to enter into the system that can cause heavy loss. Firewall must be
in the on mode before its usage.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that while using POS system, Greenhouse Nursery must concentrate
on other facets and facts of this system. Otherwise, violation of business information can be
confronted. POS system enhances the quality of business operations and increase the business
performance. So these systems must be executed into business enterprises with proper security
and privacy.

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References
Harbortouchpossoftware.com. (2018). What is POS? Definition of Point of Sale (POS) Systems
with Examples. [online] Available at: https://www.harbortouchpossoftware.com/what-is-pos/
[Accessed 22 May 2018].
National Processing. (2018). The Key Disadvantages Of POS Systems - National Processing.
[online] Available at: https://nationalprocessing.com/blog/key-disadvantages-pos-systems/
[Accessed 22 May 2018].
Software Advice. (2018). What Is a Point of Sale System? A Guide to POS Features. [online]
Available at: https://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/what-is-a-point-of-sale-system/
[Accessed 22 May 2018].
Bizfluent.com. (2018). The Advantages & Disadvantages of Point of Sale System. [online]
Available at: https://bizfluent.com/info-11369852-advantages-disadvantages-point-sale-
system.html [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Corruption, P., risks, K. and information, C. (2018). Knowing your risks - Independent
Commission against Corruption Website. [online] Icac.nsw.gov.au. Available at:
https://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/preventing-corruption/knowing-your-risks/confidential-
information/4913 [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Effective Database Management. (2018). Why Should You Have a Centralized System?. [online]
Available at: https://effectivedatabase.com/why-should-you-have-a-centralized-system/
[Accessed 22 May 2018].

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It Still Works. (2018). The Advantages of Centralized Database Storage. [online] Available at:
https://itstillworks.com/info-8623828-advantages-centralized-database-storage.html [Accessed
22 May 2018].
WhatIs.com. (2018). What is confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA triad)? - Definition
from WhatIs.com. [online] Available at: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Confidentiality-
integrity-and-availability-CIA [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Toast, I. (2018). What is a POS System? | Point of Sale [Definition]. [online] Toast, Inc.
Available at: https://pos.toasttab.com/what-is-pos [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Chia, T. (2018). Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability: The three components of the CIA Triad
« Stack Exchange Security Blog. [online] Security.blogoverflow.com. Available at:
https://security.blogoverflow.com/2012/08/confidentiality-integrity-availability-the-three-
components-of-the-cia-triad/ [Accessed 22 May 2018].
JUX Law Firm. (2018). The Top 4 Risks to Your Company's Confidential Information. [online]
Available at: https://jux.law/top-4-risks-to-your-companys-confidential-information/ [Accessed
22 May 2018].
Gastrofix. (2018). Network: This is how your POS System from GASTROFIX works. [online]
Available at: https://www.gastrofix.com/en/pos-network/ [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Expert Market US. (2018). How To Install A Point Of Sale Machine. [online] Available at:
https://www.expertmarket.com/pos/how-to-install-a-pos-system [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Compass.fhcrc.org. (2018). Advantages to Centralized Data Management. [online] Available at:
https://www.compass.fhcrc.org/compass/bin/tech/centraldata.aspx [Accessed 22 May 2018].

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