In an organization, more than one software application often exists to support a particular aspect of operational requirements. The result is a heterogeneous set of software applications requiring data sharing and integration.
An ERP system like Sage 300 ERP tries to solve this problem by offering one solution for every operational requirement. Sage 300 ERP maintains one shared database for all data, integrated processes among different departments, a consistent interface for every user, and homogeneous reports/score cards that display operational data of the whole organization.
However, there are specific corners of an organization that an ERP system cannot solve. For an instance, any POS system – where special user types and hardware devices support are required.
New Stuff: Greytrix Customer Portal for Sage 300 ERP
The POS system user is a salesperson, who uses an ERP in a different manner. The interface has to be very easy to use and provide only the specific information the salesperson needs. This salesperson needs to operate the POS as fast as possible, as their job is to sell, not to operate the POS. For example they do not want to deal with a mouse and a keyboard; rather they prefer a touch screen. In addition, the POS system needs to support a lot of POS hardware available for a real solution: receipt printers, barcode scanners, customer displays, cash drawers, scales, card readers etc.
So here comes the tedious part of integrating bulk data from POS to Sage 300 ERP. We have recently done a project where we have integrated data from POS to Sage 300.
Integration overview
The focus of this integration is to create a system where Sage 300 ERP is the central repository of the data: Products, customers, taxes, orders… And POS system has the ability to operate with the master data downloaded from Sage 300 ERP and to upload orders created by the sales activity of POS.
The Synchronize POS process
In an integrated environment all products information, warehouse information, product categories, taxes and customer information are maintained in Sage 300 ERP. This process is executed when it is required to synchronize POS with the information that has changed in Sage 300 ERP.
For maintaining uniformity we had created all the masters in Sage 300 ERP itself and restricted user from creating master in POS. All master records had integrated from Sage 300 ERP to POS before start of the day through SQL integration process. We had integrated below Masters.
- AR Customer: In Sage 300 ERP, Accounts Receivable allows you to keep very detailed records about your customers, and provides several options you can use to customize records to match your business requirements. So user will create customer in Sage 300 ERP and the same data will synchronize with POS.
- IC Item: User must add items to Inventory Control before they can use them in POS transactions.
- IC Item Pricing: Here user can assign items to price lists. Edit discount or mark-up information for calculating item prices and assign tax authorities and customer tax classes for taxes that are included in the item price. So that all the information will synchronize with POS.
- IC Item manufacturing & UOM: User will define the manufacturer item and unit of measurement in Sage 300 ERP that will synchronize with POS.
- Updated exchange rates: In multicurrency environment we need to maintain exchange rate so user must update the currency rate in Sage 300 ERP system to get update in POS
The Transaction POS Process
The sales and return transactions recorded at POS were configured to synchronize with Sage 300 ERP. For integrating both the systems we had written windows service that will fetch data from POS system and import in Sage 300 ERP using business logic. Following integration transactions were configured.
a) OE Shipment
b) OE Invoice
c) OE Credit Note
With this we had achieved the integration between POS and Sage 300 ERP.
Conclusion
Finally, you could think to operate integrated ERP-POS system. If your ERP software and your POS software are not integrated, you’ve probably got serious redundancy issues. This is a huge waste of time, with potential for inaccuracy and all the loss associated with it. ERP alone will help, but for many retailers, it’s the integration of ERP and POS software that’s the real answer to supply and demand problems.