1.

Accounting software

Accounting software is an application software that records & processes accounting

transactions within functional modules such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll,
and trial balance. It functions as an accounting information system. It may be developed in-house
by the company or organization using it, may be purchased from a third party, or may be a
combination of a third-party application software package with local modifications. It varies
greatly in its complexity and cost.
The market has been undergoing considerable consolidation since the mid-1990s, with many
suppliers ceasing to trade or being bought by larger groups.

Modules
Accounting software is typically composed of various modules, different sections dealing with
particular areas of accounting. Among the most common are:
Core modules

Accounts receivablewhere the company enters money received

Accounts payablewhere the company enters its bills and pays money it owes

General ledgerthe company's "books"

Billingwhere the company produces invoices to clients/customers

Stock/inventorywhere the company keeps control of its inventory

Purchase orderwhere the company orders inventory

Sales orderwhere the company records customer orders for the supply of inventory

Bookkeepingwhere the company records collection and payment

Non-core modules

Debt collectionwhere the company tracks attempts to collect overdue bills (sometimes
part of accounts receivable)

Electronic payment processing

Expensewhere employee business-related expenses are entered

Inquirieswhere the company looks up information on screen without any edits or

additions

Payrollwhere the company tracks salary, wages, and related taxes

Reportswhere the company prints out data

Timesheetwhere professionals (such as attorneys and consultants) record time worked

so that it can be billed to clients

Purchase requisitionwhere requests for purchase orders are made, approved and
tracked

Reconciliationcompares records from parties at both sides of transactions for

consistency

Drill down

Journals

Departmental accounting

Support for value added taxation

Calculation of statutory holdback

Note that vendors may use differing names for these modules.

Implementation
In many cases, implementation (i.e. the installation and configuration of the system at the client)
can be a bigger consideration than the actual software chosen when it comes down to the total
cost of ownership for the business. Most midmarket and larger applications are sold exclusively
through resellers, developers and consultants. Those organizations generally pass on a license fee
to the software vendor and then charge the client for installation, customization and support
services. Clients can normally count on paying roughly 50-200% of the price of the software in
implementation and consulting fees.
Other organizations sell to, consult with and support clients directly, eliminating the reseller.

Types

Personal accounting
See also: Personal finance
Personal accounting software is mainly targeted towards home users, supporting accounts
payable-type accounting transactions, managing budgets, and simple account reconciliation, at
the inexpensive end of the market.

Low-end market
At the low-end of the business markets, inexpensive applications software allows most general
business accounting functions to be performed. Suppliers frequently serve a single national
market, while larger suppliers offer separate solutions in each national market.
Many of the low end products are characterized by being "single-entry" products, as opposed to
double-entry systems seen in many businesses. Some products have considerable functionality
but are not considered GAAP or IFRS/FASB compliant. Some low-end systems do not have
adequate security nor audit trails.

Mid-market
The mid-market covers a wide range of business software that may be capable of serving the
needs of multiple national accountancy standards and allow accounting in multiple currencies.
In addition to general accounting functions, the software may include integrated or add-on
management information systems, and may be oriented towards one or more markets, for
example with integrated or add-on project accounting modules.
Software applications in this market typically include the following features:

Industry-standard robust databases

Industry-standard reporting tools

Tools for configuring or extending the application (e.g. an SDK), access to program code.

High-end market
See also: Enterprise resource planning
The most complex and expensive business accounting software is frequently part of an extensive
suite of software often known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

These applications typically have a very long implementation period, often greater than six
months. In many cases, these applications are simply a set of functions which require significant
integration, configuration and customization to even begin to resemble an accounting system.
The advantage of a high-end solution is that these systems are designed to support individual
company specific processes, as they are highly customizable and can be tailored to exact
business requirements. This usually comes at a significant cost in terms of money and
implementation time.

Vertical market
Some business accounting software is designed for specific business types. It will include
features that are specific to that industry.
The choice of whether to purchase an industry-specific application or a general-purpose
application is often very difficult. Concerns over a custom-built application or one designed for a
specific industry include:

Smaller development team

Increased risk of vendor business failing

Reduced availability of support

This can be weighed up against:

Less requirement for customization

Reduced implementation costs

Reduced end-user training time and costs

Some important types of vertical accounting software are:

Banking

Construction

Medical

Nonprofit or fund accounting

Point of sale (retail)

Real estate investment trust

Child care management software

Hybrid solutions
As technology improves, software vendors have been able to offer increasingly advanced
software at lower prices. This software is suitable for companies at multiple stages of growth.
Many of the features of mid-market and high-end software (including advanced customization
and extremely scalable databases) are required even by small businesses as they open multiple
locations or grow in size. Additionally, with more and more companies expanding overseas or
allowing workers to home office, many smaller clients have a need to connect multiple locations.
Their options are to employ software-as-a-service or another application that offers them similar
accessibility from multiple locations over the internet.

Examples

2.

Point of sale Systems

EPoS Systems
EPoS Systems, provide a fast and efficient way of dealing with customers. They handle the
calculations involved in sales (totals and change), issue receipts these have historically been
the main function of normal tills. EPoS systems, do this and a lot more. They can integrate
directly with credit card payment systems, keep track of stock levels and of course keep track of
customer information. The ability to manage stock and CRM (customer relationship
management) allows EPoS systems to make a measurable difference to the bottom line. Both in
terms of time saved and of in highlighting opportunities and also weaknesses in a business. For
example, an EPoS system in retail store, will assist in stock management helping to highlight
stock levels of top performing products so you can ensure you have adequate supplies. At the
same time, it might also show product lines that are not doing so well. Your EPoS system records
a tremendous amount of information about your business allowing you to make decisions with
the benefit of the latest sales and stock information.

How Does EPoS Work?

An EPoS system comprises of computer hardware, peripherals and EPoS software ideally suited
to the point of sales environment. An EPoS system can support data entry through many different
devices such as computer keyboards, touchscreen monitors and barcode scanners. EPoS systems
allow a tremendous amount of flexibility to choose hardware and peripherals suited to the
environment. For example, in environments with very high demands like in a supermarket
EPoS can be configured to work with multi line barcode scanners, ensuring pricing accuracy and
allowing cashiers to provide fast, efficient service for customers. In other environments such as
restaurants the use of touchscreen monitors provides the best solution.
The other facet of EPoS systems is the EPoS software that they use. This can also be heavily
customised to a variety of different environments. This allows businesses to buy EPoS systems
that are suited to their business. This software can constantly be recording sales, updating stock
levels, providing accurate pricing information while also helping to provide a fast and efficient
service to customers. The ability to keep track of sales, taxes, stock and CRM automatically,
ensures that cashiers can concentrate on providing the best possible customer experience.

Why Use EPoS?

EPoS software helps to ensure accurate pricing, faster transactions, reduces human error and
improves data integrity. In larger retail environments, it's difficult to imagine keeping track of
stock for thousand of items, not to mention the prices of all these items. In a retail environment,
if management want to change the price of an item or run a special offer this can be done very
easily using EPoS and getting data on how these changes impact sales can also be easily
obtained. While it easy to dwell on the front line advantages at the point of sale, the data being
recorded by the systems is of great value to management. Accurate sales reporting is vital for
management, similarly the ability to have constantly updated inventory and customer data is
useful for both accounting, marketing and sales purposes.

EPoS Hardware
EPoS systems comprise of a PC and some sort of visual display unit (VDU), such as a
touchscreen monitor. Additional peripherals such as barcode scanners and printers can then be
chosen based on your requirements. The main units are either integrated, where the display and
pc form part of the same unit. These sorts of integrated units may also have integrated
peripherals such as customer displays and printers. Otherwise the systems are modular, where
you have a standalone PC to which you connect a display and peripherals. This type of EPoS
system offers far more flexibility and choice.

There are many EPoS hardware peripherals, the most common include:

Cash Draws

Chip and Pin

Customer Displays

Keyboards

Mobile PDA's (for mobile EPoS integration)

Printers

Tablets

Weighing Scales

EPoS Software
The EPoS software is designed to be powerful, yet simple for staff to learn and use. There is a
large selection of EPoS software on the market, which all vary by price and business need. It's
vital that you buy software that suits your needs. This is the 'brain' of your EPoS system and
what your EpoS system can deliver for your business will be determined by the capabilities of
the software.
As this will a vital component of your business it's vital that you evaluate a number of different
EPoS software packages. The cost and additional complication of changing software later can be
very disruptive. This is a good time to speak to other users of the EPoS software who are in the
same line of business as you. They can offer an honest appraisal of the EPoS software and tell
you how it works within a real working environment
Please note, if you are buying hardware and software from different suppliers, it's vital that you
check the compatibility of your EPoS hardware and EPoS software.

EPoS Systems
An EPoS system is simply a combination of EPoS hardware and EPoS software which when
used together provide an effective business solution. Many EPoS system suppliers, will be in a
position to supply both the software and the hardware. This is useful as it gives you a single point
of contact for any issues and challenges you face. It's particularly valuable at the beginning when
you may need to rely a lot on your EPoS system suppliers technical support. If this is your first
system, then it may be worth paying a little more in order to deal with a single, reputable
supplier.

Maintenance and Backups

As with any regular computer system, keeping your EPoS software and hardware up-to-date and
well maintained is essential. There will be periodic updates, so you should have a The
importance of having backups cannot be overstated, once you begin to rely on your EPoS system
to record data, ensuring the survival of that data is vital. How you plan on protecting your data is
something that you should think about from the start. Data should be backed up off site, using a
3rd party service or by using a pen drive which you take offsite everyday. A good backup
strategy will include regular backups of incremental data (that is data that has been updated since
the last backup). Additionally, you should always have a set of historical backups, so you can go
back to an older back if your incremental backups become corrupted.

Value for Money

There is no doubt that purchasing an EPoS system can represent a large capital investment.
Rather than focus on the day one cost, it's better to consider how using the system will benefit
your business and how long it might take to pay for itself. EPoS can provide tangible savings on
employee time and accounting. At the same time it can provide an uplift in sales through
accurate pricing and by improving efficiency of your stock control. For some businesses,
installing an EPoS system can be first time that begin to create a database of their customers and
their behaviour. Using this data, in effective ways can pay for the EPoS system many times over.
It can also provide benefits that while clearly benefiting your business are a little more intangible
like improving the customer experience. Ultimately, what you get out of your EPoS system will
be dependent on the choices you make in terms of hardware and software, so invest sufficient
time to make an informed decision.
The modern point of sale is many times called as the Point of Service because it is not just a
point of sale but also a point of return or customer order. Additionally it includes advanced
features to cater to different functionality, such as inventory management, CRM, financials,
warehousing, etc., all built into the POS software. Prior to the modern POS, all of these functions
were done independently and required the manual re-keying of information, which can lead to
entry errors.

EFTPOS
EFTPOS, Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale, refers to the technology that allows a retailer
to directly debit a customer's bank account by using a debit card. The debit card, generally the
same as an ATM card, is swiped through a reading device just like a credit card. The customer
must enter his or her PIN, generally requested once the amount of the sale has been entered into
the EFTPOS device.
There are many advantages to using an EFTPOS for the retailer and customer alike. The retailer
is paid 'instantly' without having to accept actual cash. Though cash is certainly preferable over
credit cards with surcharges, or personal checks that can bounce, there are many security
liabilities surrounding the handling of large amounts of cash. Cash must be manually counted by
the cashier at the POS, counted again when the register is balanced out, and finally collected by
an armed service or personally deposited. With EFTPOS, the money is wired directly into the
retailer's bank account as soon as the transaction clears, bypassing those liabilities while saving
manual resources.
The customer also comes out ahead using EFTPOS, due to its considerable convenience. A
shopper need not have cash on hand, credit cards, or a checkbook to make a purchase. This is
especially convenient for unplanned or impulse buying. The customer can also get cash back
from the transaction -- another convenience. Furthermore, if an item needs to be returned to the
store, an EFTPOS sale may allow the patron an instant cash refund, notwithstanding store policy.
Contrast this with personal checks which require a customer to wait two weeks or more before a
cash refund can be offered. Finally, EFTPOS saves the consumer money by sparing personal
checks and ATM fees to withdraw cash.
EFTPOS is extremely popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia,
New Zealand, and Canada. Some manufacturers of EFTPOS systems include: EFTPOS,
Ingenico, Axalto, Sagem, Thales, Trintech, Verifone, and Hypercom.