How to Choose

Obviously, if you're reading this, you're interested in how a computer might help you run your mall. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework which you can use to make a decision about computerizing and which software to purchase. You will find many, many questions you can ask of yourself, your financial advisors or accountant and your staff who will benefit from or be affected by your decision to computerize. And you'll have many, many questions to ask of the vendors selling mall software - even some questions vendors hope you won't ask.

You might say "Why should I computerize my mall ? I'm doing things by hand now and it's working OK." Antiques and computers don't seem to belong in the same sentence. However, many mall owners have realized that computers really do help them automate important aspects of their business and save them significant time and money.

In today's world, computers are everywhere - from stores and pharmacies to doctor's offices. In an antiques mall it's almost more important to have a computer because you're responsible for OPM - "other people's money". The sellers are trusting you to sell thousands and thousands of dollars of merchandise for them. They will appreciate knowing you have a computer system to keep track of their sales and pay them properly.

As a mall owner or manager, you have real life financial obligations to meet. It's clearly in your best interests to meet them, and meet them well, with as little hassle as possible. Saving time in keeping detailed sales and seller records will obviously save you money. If you can reduce the "bookkeeping" time to track sales and pay sellers, you'll save money. Since a computer can print 100 checks in just a few minutes, think of the time savings there !

Using a computer can pay really big dividends in time savings, seller information accuracy and accounting accuracy. Plus, the information you gain from a top notch computer software system can really help you understand and manage your business even better.

All of this hinges, of course, upon the appropriateness and quality of the software you select to help you manage your business.

What would a computer software system do for me ? In its simplest terms, it would record your sales and pay your sellers. It would probably also print the sellers' checks for you. It could keep your seller rent records for you. And a truly excellent software system will do a whole, whole lot more for you and your business.

It's a major financial responsibility to collect and properly disburse your sellers' sales money. You have to contend with collecting and accounting for the rents the sellers pay for their spaces, the commissions (if any) they owe your shop, the credit card fees you may charge sellers for items sold to customers using "plastic", and of course the sales taxes which you either pay as the shop's "agent for owner" or you give to the sellers to pay.

Where would I use the computer ? You might use it "in the back room" and still hand-write customer receipts. More likely you'd use the computer right at "point of sale" and just write up items sold only once.

When do I want to do this ? In most cases the sooner the better. Consider the actual amount of time it takes you to straighten out all the paperwork for a pay period and to write the checks to the sellers. Obviously the time this takes depends on your sales volume, how many sellers you have to account for, etc. But that time is money - either time (and money) of paid employees, or your own time. In today's frantic world can you even put a price on your time?

Who is going to operate the software on a daily basis ? Will the system be simple enough for all of my staff to be able to run it ? How much training will it take to instruct my staff to use the system ?

Who do I want to help guide me in making this decision ? Perhaps my accountant, other mall owners, or the software vendors.

Who is behind the software you are considering ? Are they directly involved in its development and support or are they middlemen ?

How much is this thing going to cost ? There will be costs for computer equipment, software, possibly network installation if I want to use more than one computer, and perhaps training. But most of all how much will it save ? And, how much new and useable information will a software system give me about my business ?

You would get a quotation for the mall software from its vendor. You can get hardware quotations from local businesses. We would definitely encourage you to deal with a local person for your hardware. Then you will have the "comfort" of knowing there's somebody nearby whom you can turn to for help if and when your hardware "acts up".

You need to consider also the cost of "supplies" in using a computer. Some shops have calculated very large potential savings in paper alone. The computer usually uses a printer and very inexpensive blank paper to print invoices. Some shops have been spending enormous amounts of money on fancy, special printed invoices. You will have expenses for paper to print on and also for either ink cartridges (for ink jet printers) or toner cartridges (for laser jet printers).

You need to list your "up front" costs of hardware and software and your "maintenance" costs of computer supplies, annual software support charges, and any other computer-related expenses you might encounter. Incidentally, we highly recommend investing in an annual support plan. Consider it to be cheap insurance that can pay off handsomely. Balance this against the time savings you expect to gain. Also consider the reduction in special printed invoices or other forms. Also take into account the intangible benefits of knowing you'll have more accuracy in tracking sellers' sales, sales tax information, sales information for management, etc.

How do I evaluate software systems ? What questions should I ask of myself and about the products and about the businesses who provide mall software ? There are actually probably hundreds of questions you should ask. You really should find out what you're "getting into" before you "plunge". We've helped prepare some supporting information beyond these abbreviated discussions of "Who/What/When/Where/How/etc.". You will find information about:

A very detailed list of features that you might look for in a mall software product - broken down into organized sections

For your convenience, we've provided "check boxes" for you to compare several products. As the owners of Software Gallery, LLC, we're very familiar with its product Antiques SOS™, which has been in use in malls since 1987. You'll find a check box for the Antiques SOS™ answer to the question and space for you to compare a few other products against Antiques SOS™.

Have fun searching and exploring what a software system can do for you. You may be pleasantly surprised when you see just how much help and savings may get from a mall software product. Don’t hesitate to call us if you have questions or something to discuss.

Software Gallery, LLC Fax: 307 745-8787
P.O. Box 1246
Laramie, Wyoming 82073-1246
email: sos@carbonpower.net

That's probably as basic as we can get if we say we're going to use a computer to help run our mall. There are some excellent general purpose word processing software products such as Microsoft Word and Word Perfect and spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel. You could do the above with a word processing document (posting sales on different page(s) for each seller. Or for a bit more flexibility, you could use a spreadsheet to post the sales and sort the spreadsheet for printing by some seller identification code.

Word processing and spreadsheet products are not a "one size fits all" product that will handle every need you might wish to be done more effectively with a computer. There are many products to meet the general needs of many small to large businesses. Products like Quicken and Quick Books come to mind. Quick Books is an excellent product for general purpose bookkeeping for "small" businesses (i.e., businesses with just a few or a few dozen employees). We've heard from a few malls which have attempted to use Quick Books to assist them in recording sales and paying sellers. All have said essentially that it's difficult to make it and it's error prone and not efficient.

You could hire a software developer to write a system especially for your mall. Some shops have done this - sometimes by hiring a local software developer or by having a product made by a "cousin of a brother-in-law". Obviously, this is going to cost more than spending a few hundred dollars for a word processing or spreadsheet product. Depending on what type of an area you're located in, you might pay from $25 per hour for a high school student with no experience to well over $100 per hour for a very successful developer.

Would such a person really know your business ? Probably not - at least not as well as you do. You'd have to explain in detail how you want the end result to work. When the clock starts running and you’re paying somebody at least $75 per hour, a week of their time has suddenly cost you $3000. Yes, 40 hours @ $75.00 per hour is $3,000. And would the product be finished in that amount of time ? Most obviously not. Can they provide the level of support you need ? No ! And, can they incorporate all of the features in a really good antique mall software product? Again --No!!

Are there any other avenues to pursue in getting a computer to help you run your business ? Yes. Although malls aren't as big a business as pharmacies, hardware stores, grocery stores, video rental stores, etc., they are a big enough business to have attracted a half dozen or so firms who have developed software products designed specifically with an antiques or craft mall in mind. You'll find ads for some of those firms in general interest antiques publications.

What more can a specialized mall software product do for you ? Well, from a little to a lot, depending on the product. Some of the obvious things that go beyond just recording sales and preparing seller reports are:

OK. Now we're talking about having a product that's quite a bit more helpful than Excel or Quick Books. What do such products cost ? Generally they'll run from $395 on the low end to perhaps $3,000 on the high end. That's a lot easier on your budget than paying Joe Software Developer $75 per hour for a LOT of hours.

Should you buy the cheapest product or the most expensive product ? Neither. There's no guarantee that either choice would be the best choice for you. Buying by price alone is not the way to buy any product. When you're shopping for a new car, do you buy the cheapest car you can find or the most expensive? Probably not. You probably choose a vehicle with the features and price that comes closes to your needs, desires and budget. You should establish what these products have to offer to determine if you feel your money would be wisely spent and if they will fulfill your expectations.

First, is buying and using a mall software product going to save you any money ? Yes. Probably a lot of money. How ? Why ? By saving you time. Time is money - whether it's your employees' time that you pay or your own time. And, there is a really substantial question about whether you can even assign a value to your time.

For example, if you don't use a computer to record sales, how long is it going to take you to go through your paperwork to make a list of every seller's sales for the pay period and add up the total of those sales - and the totals of the sales tax on all those items ? Certainly not the 5 minutes or less a computer is going to take to do it !

These products are going to be able to at the very minimum print out 50 or 100 checks in just 10 to 20 minutes. Do you think you or your employee could write 50 or 100 checks in 10 or 20 minutes ? Certainly not ! Right off the bat, there's some savings every month or every two weeks or every week - or as frequently as you pay your sellers.

And using software to run your mall will give you many, many "intangible" benefits because you should be able to learn a lot more about your mall if the software product has ways you can analyze the information it has recorded about your sales, customers, sellers, rents, etc.

How do you go about evaluating a software product you're considering using for your business ? We'd suggest several things:

1. Get all available "sales literature" about the product to learn what its capabilities are

3. If at all possible, get a "working demo" copy of the software so you can try it. "Slide shows" just don't cut it !

4. Find out who else is using the product and, if possible, talk to them. A list of current users of the product would be very helpful and informative.

6. Determine if there's any "guarantee" for the product in case it doesn't work out for you as you hoped it would

7. Find out what type hardware will be required by the product (computer, printer, etc.)

8. Determine if the product is ever "upgraded" or enhanced with new features and how frequently you might expect such upgrades

It’s extremely important that you actually get a working demo of the software product so you can try it out and see how it "feels" to make sales, run reports, etc. We’ve seen several mall software products that have a "pretty face" (particularly two other Windows products), but when you actually try to use them they turn out to be very inconvenient and frustrating to use.

Make sure that you aren’t going to be frustrated if you have to keep moving between the mouse and the keyboard when doing your most frequent and important task – making a sale. Look for a smooth flow of operation from start to completion in making a sale. You don’t want to be "jumping" all around the screen pushing special keys for various parts of the sales entry process. And you certainly don't want to be clicking seven levels deep in a product to do a simple routine task.

Some times you'll find the right product the first try. But if you're not "comfortable" with the first product you look at, you'd better take another look at what else is available. That almost seems like an oxymoron, but I think you'll know what we mean.

For your convenience - and enlightenment, we provide a "score sheet" to use when evaluating mall software. We’ve broken the evaluation process down into 14 pages of questions you might ask yourself as you compare products. Checkboxes are provided for the product Antiques SOS and three other products.

Obviously, software needs to "run" or work on a computer. And it's probably going to have to be a modern Windows-based computer as opposed to a "Macintosh" type computer. The Macintosh computers are popular and effective in the education and graphics arts fields, but they're really a very small player in the retail business field. Sorry you Mac lovers !

Windows-based computers come in a wide variety of models. You'll want to know what the software's requirements are for these "features" of the computer you'll be using:

Windows-based computers have processor designations such at a "Pentium III", "Pentium IV", etc. If you're unfamiliar with computers, just think of those numbers as meaning something like an automobile's "300 cubic inch V6" or "302-V8", etc.

Processors are additionally designated by their "speed" - usually a number like 2 Ghz, etc.

The amount of "memory" a computer has to manipulate instructions and data is usually a number in the millions, like 1 GB (gigabyte).

The "storage" capacity for saving data in the computer (your sales, seller names, etc.) used to be measured "millions" of characters of data (MB or megabytes). But storage numbers these days are more likely to be in "billions" of characters (GB or gigabytes), such as a 40.0 GB hard drive.

The "hard drive" is the magnetic "media" where your software applications and your data are stored. There are also "zip drives" which read a different type of floppy disk (known as zip disks) which hold 100-250 MB (over 100,000,000 characters of data). And, there are so-called thumb drives that are USB 2.0 compatible and hold 250 MB to 4 GB of data. Our preference for backup is to use thumb drives because they are very reliable and cheap

Obviously, computers have "monitor" display units (also called "screens") where you and the computer interact. Nowadays most monitors have flat screens, display colors and they'll run in sizes that range from 17" or 19" or larger. Notebook computers have screens more in the 14 to 15" range.

You'll want to know what type of printers the software product will support. There are basically four types of printers used today in retail store applications:

Inkjet printers form characters onto paper by spraying tiny ink droplets through very tiny nozzles to form characters. They print in black ink and many now print with color inks. They can use plain paper for simple jobs or specially coated paper for jobs for printing colored pictures, maps, graphs, etc. Inkjet printers are inexpensive. Their ink cartridges, however, are expensive per number of characters a cartridge can print as compared to the price for a dot matrix printer ribbon which can usually print a much, much larger number of characters. One interesting point - most inks for inkjet printers are not waterproof or water resistant. If you have damp hands, they may smudge and smear the printed information. We've calculated an approximate per page printing cost for inkjet printers of 8 cents per sheet.

laser printers form characters onto paper by heating and setting a very fine powder that forms each character. Their heat-set characters are generally smear resistant compared to those produced by an inkjet. Again, the cost of "toner cartridges" for laser printers are an on-going expense to consider, just as the inkjet cartridges can be a significant cost of printer operation. laser printers are somewhat more expensive than inkjet printers to purchase. However, we've calculated an approximate per sheet printing cost of 2.5 cents per sheet. The savings are obvious and quite significant. They produce very good looking documents and are quite fast.

Inkjet and laser printers use only single sheets of paper - usually the standard 8 1/2" by 11" paper. And they are quiet. But they cannot produce duplicate documents. You must print each document (invoice or whatever) twice, which is only slightly more time consuming.

Receipt printers are a special type of dot matrix printer which print out on continuous roll paper "tapes" which are only 3 or 4 inches wide (generally they print just 40 characters of information across their width). Receipt printers output looks much like the typical credit card "tape" receipt you get in stores. They can produce duplicates (usually a white copy on top of a yellow copy) on carbonless paper tapes. Most have the choice of using a purple or a black ink ribbon. Their paper is very inexpensive (at Sam’s Clubs). They have a small "footprint" on your countertop (6" by 9").

Receipt printers aren't as noisy as a dot matrix printer. But their downside is that they aren't useful for printing reports because they can only print about 40 characters in width. They are useful for customer receipts if the software product will support them and if you desire that type of receipt to give your customers. Above all, they print very inexpensive customer receipts.

Be sure to learn which type printers the software product you're evaluating will support. There's no "best" answer to printer type - it's a very unique decision for each shop owner. However, our most recent experience points to a modern high quality laser printer as being the most speedy, reliable and economical.

If you have a computer in your store, we strongly recommend investing in a UPS. The acronym UPS in computer lingo is not the "big brown truck". It's an "uninterruptible power supply". About the size of a shoebox and relatively heavy, it contains a battery power backup. Your computer is plugged into the UPS and the UPS is plugged into your electrical wall outlet. If the power goes out, the UPS will continue to deliver power to your computer for about 5 to 10 minutes (they have various ratings). This will give you enough time to quickly exit from your software product and shut your computer off. Having the power go out on a computer that is not protected by a UPS can damage your data. Believe me - we this happen often. They are like an "insurance policy" for your data. They will probably cost around $100 to $150. Talk to your computer hardware supplier about one. We highly recommend that you protect the lifeblood of your mall business - your sales data - with a UPS.

If you access the Internet with your computer, you'll need additional equipment. This is the device which translates signal information between your computer and the telephone line. A lot of computers sold today have a modem built right in. If you're not accessing the Internet from your store computer, you probably don't need a modem in your computer.

Some computers have speakers to produce sounds. This is probably not necessary for most mall software. But often speakers are part of the "package" in a computer.

You will need a place to keep the monies you collect from making sales. A shoebox isn't really good enough. There are products called "cash drawers" which stay locked and are only able to be opened by a key or by a special signal from the computer when a sale is completed. Will your software product support the use of such a piece of equipment ?

Most antique malls do not barcode their items. The labor required to prepare such tags generally does not make them an attractive choice.

SOS Other Products x o o o	Will I be able to train a new clerk to quickly and efficiently make a sale ? If the clerk makes a mistake, will the software easily allow changes to be made before completing the sale? In our opinion, you should be able to look at the sales screen and intuitively make a sale and print an invoice. You shouldn't have to "memorize" a lot of special key combinations to make a sale. Special keystrokes for "shortcuts" can be helpful, but be careful that they don't impede the natural flow of activity in recording the information needed to make a sale.
SOS Other Products x o o o	In the antique mall business, there will be several different types of sales: retail sales wholesale sales layaway sales sales shipped out of state where no tax is collected sales "on approval" to interior designers and decorators sales for rental of items (for movie sets, advertising photos, etc.) Does the software provide for each of the above type of sales ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Does the software validate the seller IDs entered into a sale? Ideally, it should make that check immediately as the clerk enters the ID.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the software allow me to sell an item for which the seller ID is missing, unreadable or clearly "invalid" to the computer - but the customer nevertheless just wants to pay you the money and buy it ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Some sellers tag their merchandise with "stock codes" or "inventory numbers". Can I enter that information on each item sold ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	The most frequent use of mall software is making sales. How the product records sales and prints invoices should be of the utmost importance.
SOS Other Products x o o o	How many characters are allotted for a stock code ? Some sellers are adamant about clerks accurately recording their stock codes. SOS has 8.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Does the software have any checking to make sure the clerk does enter a stock code ? Is there any validation of certain information that must be in the stock codes for certain sellers ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Discounts are a very common in antique malls. Does the software allow me to easily choose a standard discount like 10% or 20% ? And, can you choose another special percentage discount ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	What about cases where a seller marks his items as $10 off or $12 off ? Can the software easily handle that or would the clerk have to figure out the resultant price (which could lead to mistakes) ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	What if sellers put a "sale price" on their tags during special promotions. Can the software record the "original" price and the special sale price ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will customer see the actual discounts they receive on their sales receipt ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will seller reports show ticket price, discount and actual selling price ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	When entering items to a invoice, how many items will the software allow on one invoice ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Is there a "duplicate" key to allow me to quickly and efficiently enter the same type item in a row without retyping ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Suppose I sell food or clothing items, in addition to antiques. Will the software allow a mix of taxable and non-taxable items on the same invoice ? This is also needed where shipping charges or delivery fees are non-taxable.
SOS Other Products x o o o	When the mall is really busy on a holiday or weekend, it seems that folks who have been making a "pile" of items to purchase all want to check out at once. And fast. Will the software allow me to put items "on the back burner" - i.e., enter them into the computer into separate "piles" and then have them available for easy, fast recall into a sale when the customer is ready to check out and pay for them ? (Some software products call this feature a "pending sale".)
SOS Other Products x o o o	What if the customer tells a clerk mid-way through entry of the items that he doesn't have to pay sales tax because he's a seller. He just forgot to tell the clerk when he or she started to create the sale. Will the software allow the clerk to easily make that change while the sale is in progress ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	If a customer is watching the clerk enter items into the sale and sees that an item was entered twice instead of once or sees an item already entered and decides not to purchase it after all, will the software allow changes or deletions to items already entered into the computer while the sale is underway ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the software allow all payment types I'd typically get - cash, check, travelers check, credit/debit card, and maybe gift certificates ? And will the system allow a "split pay" when the customer wants to pay part cash and part check, or part credit card and part check, etc. ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the system calculate the change due from a cash or travelers check sale so employees are less likely to make a mistake in computation ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Does the system record tax resale numbers for wholesale buyers ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	For shipped sales can there be a separate shipping address on the receipt ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Do layaway invoices show the balance due and due date of the layaway ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I hold layaway money in escrow and not pay the sellers until the customer has paid for the item in full ? Too many times there are "flaky" layaway customers who change their mind about an item they put on layaway
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I pay the layaway deposits and payments to the sellers as they occur ? I need to encourage sellers to go out and spend that money to buy more merchandise so they can keep their spaces stocked with fresh merchandise.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Is my shop's name and address on the invoice ? Perhaps phone number or fax number too ? Maybe even my email address if I'm active on the Internet. And perhaps the date and time of day ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can the clerk initials appear on the invoices so I'll know who made a sale ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will clerk initials be saved with the sales records so I can still know which clerk made a sale in case there's a problem and I've lost the printed invoice.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Some of my clerks are lousy typists. Will the system capitalize the customer names and addresses for them automatically ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Again, for my poor typing clerks, could there be a "pick list" of items we sell a lot of (like baseball cards, postcards, etc.) that they could just pick from ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I easily reprint an invoice if the printer "munches" the invoice ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will my customers find their invoices attractive and easy to read, or are the invoices something that only an accountant type would understand ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I quickly view a list of the items sold today in case they aren't certain whether a certain item sold was recorded ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I print some "legalese" on invoices for wholesale customers ? This may or may not take the place of our state's sales tax exemption forms wholesale buyers must sign. But it might also discourage those who lie about having a tax exemption number. Especially if there's a place they have to sign.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I sell gift certificates and then use them as "payment" when a customer comes in to redeem a gift certificate ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I print special terms on my layaway invoices. Some customers don't understand that sellers are taking a financial hit on layaway items and I want to charge interest if they don't pay the layaway in full by its due date.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can management know in an instant what the sales totals are for the day ? And it would be nice to also know what the sales were for the same day last week and the same day last year ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I print any "messages" on my invoices, such as "All sales final" or "Thanks for shopping with us" ? How many lines ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the system stop me from putting a price of zero dollars for an item ? That would open the door for clerk fraud !
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I make a sale for a negative amount, which might help accommodate some of the "scenarios" created in selling items for multiple sellers, etc. Making a sale for a negative amount of money would account for money being taken out of the "drawer" to pay the window washing guy.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Does the computer set invoice numbers or can clerks "tinker" with them ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Is there an audit trail of a returned item or a voided sale ? There should be, to avoid possible clerk "mischief".
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I make a correction to an invoice once it's been recorded - such as a wrong seller ID or a wrong price ? Is there an audit trail of such activity ? There should be.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I easily correct the spelling of an item or a stock code ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	If I'm using an inkjet or laser printer, can I quickly get a second copy of the invoice if I want one for the customer and one for the shop ? Is it time consuming to do so ? It shouldn't be.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I record the customer's check number on their invoice for them ? Sellers especially like that feature.
SOS Other Products x o o o	When it comes time to close the shop for the day, does the system have any "reconciliation" between the count of monies the clerk comes up with and what the computer calculates ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Is there a listing at the end of the day of how much money of various types (cash, check, etc.) was collected for the day ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	If I've collected seller rent payments during the day, are these monies recorded into the computer and counted separately from the sales ? They should be. Will I get a list of those rent payments made at the end of the day ? And is the type payment shown ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Do I have any way to record special comments about the day or the weather which would be meaningful to me when I later run reports on sales activity day by day ? It's sometimes helpful if you have a note explaining a "blip" up or down in sales - "snowed like heck", "big buyer from Texas", "overflow from local show", "tornado warnings", etc.
	Customers
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I make quick sales without recording a customer name ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I record customer names for later review and as a mailing list ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I print labels for some or all of your customers on file ? Ideally, I would like to be able to print labels for just a portion of the list - perhaps by state or by zip code or by telephone area code.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Would the system be smart enough NOT to print mailing labels if the address was incomplete ? No sense wasting postage dollars on bad labels.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I keep a list of customer wants and search for a specific item ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I keep a list of customer wants and search for a specific item ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Does the system validate the state abbreviation, the zip code and the area code ? No sense putting "bad" information into a computer file !
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can the system handle foreign addresses for my buyers from Germany, etc. ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of all my customers in a certain state or even Zip Code ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a breakdown of my customers by state or city ? Will that report show the percentage of business that comes from each state or city ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of the amounts spent by each customer during a given time period ? Can I see that information in order by customer name as well as r by dollar volume to see who my "top spenders" for the time period were ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	When you have repeat customers (especially wholesale buyers), can the clerk quickly find that customer in your file ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I mark my customer file to indicate problem customers who've given me bad checks or have passed bad checks to other shops and sellers ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	When I enter a new customer, will the system do any checking to see if the customer might already be on file ? No sense putting the same person in twice. And usually I don't need to have separate records for a husband and a wife. I'd be printing duplicate mailing labels when you probably wouldn't want or need to.
	Wow ! This sure has been more than "20 questions" so far. Now you see why we intimated that perhaps having a system written by a "cousin of your brother-in-law" might not do all the things you really could find useful. If you're going to record information into your computer, it might as well be checked for accuracy and be useful to you in learning more about your business. There's of course the old saying: "Garbage in, garbage out".
	Sellers
SOS Other Products x o o o	My sellers are really my customers. I need to keep accurate records of all their sales and be able to maintain personal and financial information about them in your system.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get lists of my sellers ? It would be nice to get just a "quick" list of IDs and names, but also to get lists with addresses and phone numbers, or even lists with all their rent information.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I record more than one phone number for a seller ? What about comments or email addresses ? Can I store their social security number if you print 1099s for them ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I have a clerk look up a seller's phone number without seeing all the financial information for the seller ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I have a clerk look up a seller's phone number without seeing all the financial information for the seller ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I quickly look up a seller's recent sales totals so I can tell him or her how much they've sold since their last paycheck ? Once they know the amount, they'll want to know what they sold. And they might pester me for a printout even though it's the middle of the pay period. Is this easy to do ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	It would be nice when looking up their sales to know if they owe me rent ? Then I could have them pay me their rent right then and there. No waiting.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Does the system have a way of storing "mail" or messages to individual sellers ? This would eliminates all those "sticky notes" plastered on our computer, bulletin board, counter, etc.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of a seller's sales month by month over a time period - just to show a general pattern of his sales activity in case I want to encourage him to stay or encourage him to move out because he's not doing himself or your shop a favor with low sales ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of seller sales by sales volume for a given time period to see who my top sellers are ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Sometimes my sellers have a special "sale". Keeping track of who's giving what special discount this week can drive my clerks nuts. They end up with sticky notes or lists all over the front desk and it takes them forever to check out customers when they keep having to look at that information. Could the computer record special "sales" in the computer for certain sellers and know when to have the clerks choose a special discount ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I keep a waiting list of sellers who want to rent space in my shop ?
	Rents
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the system let me record your seller rent activity ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will it let me keep rents on a monthly basis in case a seller changes his type space rented at some point in the year ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will it record the method of rent payment - and print a rent receipt showing if paid by cash, check, credit card or if a security deposit was used ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of who has and who hasn't paid their rent for a month ? Perhaps I'd want the entire list or just the "delinquents".
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I print rent invoices ? Can I do this for one, some or all sellers ? Does the system have a special notice to send out for "delinquent": rents ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I deduct rents from sales ? Can I do this for some but not others ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a "schedule" of my expected rental income for a year ? I'd like to see the rent income month by month plus totals for the year.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of rents received for a given month for my accountant ?
	Reports
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get my sales figures for a month, by wholesale, retail and sales tax so I can fill out my state sales tax forms because I pay the sales tax ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I look at my sales totals just for a week day by day ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I look at my sales totals day by day for a month day by day ? (Weekly subtotals would be nice.)
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I look at my sales totals for a year month by month ? Maybe even day by day ? (Weekly subtotals would be nice.)
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I look on the screen at all the items sold in the current pay period ? Sometimes I like to just see what's being sold day by day, but I'd also like to see the items in order by seller so I check to see if my depression glass seller is accidentally getting credited for selling furniture or other obvious mistakes. That way, I could make corrections before the sellers get paid.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a listing of every item sold for a day or range of days ? This would be helpful if the state sales tax division ever audited my shop.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of items sold by a single clerk ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list showing total sales figures sold by each clerk ? I might like to reward my top selling clerks.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I look at my sales totals by the day of the week ? I'd like to see highest, lowest and average amounts sold each day to help me determine my staffing level by day of the week.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I look at the price groups that items are selling in ? I might like to know what percentage of our sales fall under $10, between $10 and $25, between $25 and $50, etc. This would help me tell my sellers what type merchandise seems to be selling best in our mall.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get a list of my sales totals for a group of days, along with any special comments I've recorded about the day or the weather ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I make special inquiries into my sales records ? I'd like to do this to look for a "lost item". And sometimes I'd just like to answer a seller's question about "What price range or Roseville is selling ?" or "Are Beanie Babies really selling in this shop ?" And I'm sure I could find lots of other uses for a report where I could specify the conditions I want to search by.
	Paying Sellers
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the system print all the checks for my sellers' sales at the end of a pay period ? Plus print checks to my shop for commissions, credit card fees or rents I deducted from the sellers' sales ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the system print all the checks for my sellers' sales at the end of a pay period ? Plus print checks to my shop for commissions, credit card fees or rents I deducted from the sellers' sales ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	I've used Quicken before and it's really easy. Can the system just print the seller checks in Quicken ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	I'm going to use Quick Books to keep records for my mall. Can the system send the seller check information to Quick Books or print checks in my Quick Books shop account?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can the system mark which checks I mail and which I hold in the shop ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the sellers see exactly which items the mall deducted a credit card fee from ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the seller see the commission deducted on each item ? That way they'll know what they actually sold each item for in case they keep very detailed inventory records.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I deduct a seller's rent from his sales ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I make any special additions or deductions from a seller's "paycheck" in case I have to collect for special services I did for him or special income or credit he might be entitled to ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the sellers' sales listings show the items in date order ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the sellers' sales listings show invoice numbers for each item ? This is important because we keep the sellers' price tags on the shop's copy of each invoice and sometimes sellers want to see that they really did have a certain price marked on an item.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I print a special message on my seller reports ? This would be helpful when I want to remind them about a certain shop policy or of a special upcoming event.
	Other Features
SOS Other Products x o o o	Is there a really simple word processor type feature so I can write short notes to customers or sellers in the system ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Is there a place to write reminders that would pop up in the morning on special days to tell the clerks or me to do something special, like it's an advertising deadline day, the day sales tax reports are soon due, that Mrs. Whazzername is coming to pick up a Victorian sofa, etc. That would be especially handy to have for times when I'm away on a trip or vacation and want to make sure my staff does certain things.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I put all my files "in order" if I need to ? I understand that sometimes the customer file can become "UN"alphabetized, or that sellers' IDs might get out of order, etc.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I record the beginning day's cash in the computer ? Can I change it if the clerk or I made a mistake counting it or typing it in ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I print return address labels for my shop for a special promotion ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I protect some parts of my system (like certain financial information) from all the clerks seeing it ? I'd like to have some clerks able to do certain things, but not everything.
SOS Other Products x o o o	I have a very large staff. Can their be certain "levels" of security where only certain groups of people can do certain tasks in the system ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I limit seeing sales information for certain special sellers (or for myself) ? Some of my clerks are just plain too nosy for their own good or for the good of the shop.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Does the system back up my data ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	How long does backing up the data take ? SOS takes 5 minutes
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will the system back up just a day's, a month's or all of my data at once ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I get my data back from backup disks in case my computer "crashes" ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Support
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will there be somebody to call if I have questions about the software ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will I get help from somebody who actually wrote the system and knows how it works ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will I have to deal with a "middle man" who didn't write the software and really doesn't understand it ? Not with SOS !
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I fax questions to the software company for answers ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I email the company with questions about the software ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will anybody be able to answer a call for help on the weekend ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	No matter how great the product is, I know I'm going to come up with a need for something not "in the system". Will the company help me ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	I'm already computerized, but I don't like my current software system. Will the new system I choose allow me to keep my old customer file ?
SOS Other Products x o o o	If I want to transfer my customer file from my old software to my new software, will the company charge to help me do that ? Not with SOS
SOS Other Products x o o o	Can I find out who else is using the software ? I'd really like to talk to other mall owners who actually use the product to find out how they like it and what they think of the product - and its support.
SOS Other Products x o o o	How long has the company been in business ? SOS has been in business since 1987
SOS Other Products x o o o	How many malls is its product used in ? SOS has been installed in over 750 malls.
SOS Other Products x o o o	Will I feel comfortable talking to the company's employees if I need help? I'm new to computers and I don't like being "talked down to"?
SOS Other Products x o o o	Is there a way to adjust how the software handles some of its details ? I hate being locked into somebody else's way of doing business, although I realize no product can do absolutely everything my way.