As the holiday season quickly approaches, it is imperative retailers are fully prepared for the increase in customer traffic. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday retail sales are expected to increase by 4.3 to 4.8 percent for a total of $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion. Many businesses depend on these holiday surges to obtain necessary profit margins. 

While you are busy training employees, arranging displays, ordering products, etc., you may not think about your point of sale software. As our client and a Counterpoint user, it is our mission to help you and your company be fully prepared for the upcoming season. We have created a simple checklist to ensure your Counterpoint system is up-to-date and ready for the rush of holiday shoppers.

Server Maintenance  

• Ensure you have adequate drive space.  If any of your operating drives have less than 10% free space available, consider removing files to create more. 
• Reboot!  Many windows components and installed applications create memory leaks over time.  This means they use up more and more resources until your server starts to crawl.  Rebooting resets all resource allocations and allows your server to breathe again.  Servers are meant to be up for long periods of time, but scheduling a reboot every 2 weeks or so can make a big difference in its performance! 
• Remove any rogue programs.  After a reboot, check your task manager to see what’s running.  If there are programs running that shouldn’t be, consider removing them from your server.  Reach out to your IT group or Mainspring if you have questions about what should be active.

Windows Updates 

• Launch Windows Updates from Start / Settings / Updates and Security (depending on your windows version, this may be in a different spot, but should be easy to find).  Ensure that you’re fully updated and schedule a time for updates to automatically apply.  Pick a time/day where you won’t be using the system and it can reboot if needed.  We usually recommend something like 3 am on a Wednesday morning (Microsoft usually releases updates on Tuesday nights).

Processor Limits

• During the holidays, sales are likely to increase. It is important to contact your credit card processor and verify what your current limits are for customer transactions and monthly processing amount. It can be very costly to a business if the limits are exceeded. A sudden boost in sales may cause a trigger as unusual activity to your processor, therefore, causing them to hold the funds.

Offline Ticket Entry: If you have purchased Counterpoint’s Offline feature, it is recommended that you complete a transaction test weekly to ensure sales are being processed properly and are being synced to your database.  

• Launch Offline Ticket Entry, ensure you can log in with your current password 

• Run a sale.  Ideally, pick an item whose price has recently changed and ensure you’re seeing current pricing. 
• Complete the sale as a cash sale.   
• Launch normal Counterpoint 
• Ensure you can see the sale in Counterpoint.  Void the sale from there. 
• Or, alternatively, just pick a time each week to run your first few sales in Offline.  This will accomplish the same goal and help your associates become familiar with Offline Ticket Entry in the event they need to use it.

If you do not have Offline, this is an excellent feature for off-site sales. To learn more, contact our Sales Department.   

For more information on preparing for the holiday season or assistance with this checklist, please contact our technical services department and a technician will gladly assist. Happy Holidays!