Cougar Mountain — CMS Professional 2010 POS

From the September 2009 Review of Point-of-Sale
Systems

Sold
as a stand-alone product or as part of a front/back office suite, CMS Professional
2010 POS is ideally suited to smaller retailers that do not process high-volume
transactions. Although fully functional as a stand-alone, the front/back office
integration provides CMS users with a higher level of functionality.

EASE OF USE:
Cougar Mountain Software continues to be one of the easiest products to navigate,
with a clean user interface found throughout the product modules. At the top
of the main screen is a drop-down menu that provides access to standard system
functions such as File, Sales, Reports, etc. Directly below is a series of icons
representing all installed modules. New users will need to sign into the sales
entry screen, where they can choose an existing customer or add a new one. Customers
and items have a lookup function to search for the correct information. CMS
Professional Point of Sale features two product entry methods: utilizing the
computer interface for manual entry or scanning items for quicker sales processing.
The sales entry screen is easily customizable to suit individual needs.

A series of shortcut keys found directly on the POS entry screen allow quick
access to customer information, tender type, on-account information and all
drawer functions. Customers and items can be added on the fly, and the program
now allows users to select specific registers and post transactions processed,
all from a single window. Additionally, CMS Professional 2010 includes a new
lookup filter, the “contains” option, which makes search-ing for
data quicker and easier than ever.

MODULES/SCALABILITY:
CMS Professional 2010 Point of Sale includes both Inventory and Data Exchange
modules. For a more complete front/back office solution, CMS Professional 2010
Point of Sale with Back Office includes the regular POS modules along with GL,
AP and AR modules. Cougar Mountain also offers a long list of add-on modules
that can be purchased individually, including Job Cost, Multi-Location Inventory,
Purchase Order, Bank Reconciliation, Payroll, GL Report Generator, BarTender
Label Generator, Specialty Shop, and numerous Merchant Transaction Services
items.

FEATURES/FUNCTIONALITY:
CMS Professional 2010 POS also pro-vides several valuable software updates and
enhancements, such as exporting the following reports to CSV files: sales history,
sales by salesperson, price variance and profit margin.

CMS Professional 2010 POS also offers users the ability to view important
data such as credit card logs (for CISP compliance) and customer balances, and
new charges can easily be blocked on past due customers. CMS Professional 2010
POS offers users excellent customization capabilities. Unnecessary items can
be eliminated from the entry screen to speed item processing and sales. A host
of system wizards simplify setting up data, and restricted items can trigger
a warning flash on the screen, prompting cashiers to request the necessary documentation
to complete the sale.

Special orders and discounts can be processed at the same time as the initial
sale, and erroneous sales can be voided as needed. The CMS Professional 2010
POS software Inventory module offers a good amount of product flexibility, allowing
for special and one-time pricing as well as assigning multiple pricing levels.

INTEGRATION:
CMS Professional 2010 POS comes with integrated Inventory and data ex-change
modules. The back office edition also provides GL, AR and AP modules. The POS
product also integrates with all available CMS modules, allowing for better
front/back office management. It also integrates with the CMS Total eCom module,
an add-on module that manages a web store and keeps inventory up to date. As
well, the program supports numerous hardware peripheral devices including credit
card readers, cash drawers, credit card readers, pole displays and barcode scanners.

TRACKING & REPORTING:
CMS Professional 2010 POS reports are easily customizable, providing management
with the information they will need. The 2010 version will allow export of select
reports to CSV files, making it easier to create Excel reports from the data.
An extensive collection of reports is provided, including a price variance report
and a profit margin report.
For those needing back office accounting integrated to the POS, CMS Professional
2010 includes a dashboard that presents key financial data from the GL in a
visual format, called Cougar Dtails. This dashboard also offers the ability
to drill down/up to four levels in order to further examine specific data.

The handy snapshot reports feature provides reports containing information
on vital aspects of the business such as seeing the top 10 selling items and
the 10 worst selling items. The custom reports menu has also been expanded.
Tracking reports include the sales history report and promotional sales report,
and an account impact summary report shows the effects transactions will have
prior to posting them.

RELATIVE VALUE:
CMS Professional 2010 POS is ideally suited for mid-sized businesses that require
a strong front/back office presence and a powerful inventory management system.
For a single-user license, pricing starts at $845; the POS with Back Office
is $1,934 (both include the software assurance plan). Additional modules are
available starting at $425 each.

2009 Overall Rating: