Keeping Your Retail Software Healthy

There's no doubt that utilizing a complete point of sale system in your retail store will allow you to run a more efficient business. But, like any product, your retail software needs a little TLC from time to time. There are two key steps to securing your business's data and ensuring that your retail software continues to function properly:

Back Up Your Data

One of the most important things you can do for your retail business and your point of sale system is to back up your data with an industry-standard backup system. Your data is obviously crucial to your success as a retailer, and without proper backup procedures, you could lose it all in the event of theft, fire, hurricane, or other disaster. The old adage is "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." By utilizing the following tips, you can avoid the costly headaches of losing your data.

Tips for preserving your data:

• Back up your data to a reliable and reusable medium, like tape, then store that tape off site.
• Keep up a backup log and have a manager initial it each day to make sure the backup of your retail software is done.
• If you live in an area susceptible to predictable disasters such as hurricanes, you can just unplug your servers and take them with you.
• Always keep multiple generations of your backups.
• Test your data backups monthly by restoring them. This ensures that the backups of your retail software can be read and restored.

Purge Old Data from Your Retail Software

You should always back up your data before purging old files from your retail software. Once your data is successfully backed up, you should purge old history, customers, open items in receivables, items, reports, and commissions due among other files.

By purging data from your retail software on a regular basis, you can:

• Recover disk space
• Improve the performance of your retail software
• Eliminate old data from your retail software

While many retailers believe there are built-in utilities they can run regularly to keep their retail point of sale system healthy, that may not be the case. Chances are, any utilities built into your retail software are designed to repair your data after it has become corrupt or if the structure of the data changes due to software updates.

File utilities are typically used to:

• Rebuild a corrupt file in your retail software
• Export data from your retail point of sale system
• Restore data from a backup
• Create a new empty data file in your retail software

Give your retail software the attention it needs on a regular basis. By following these simple guidelines, you can keep your point of sale system—and your retail business—running smoothly.