Preferred Retail Systems

Microsoft Dynamics Point of Sale 2009 is best suited for small businesses that operate just one or two lanes and do not plan to expand to multiple locations. It is slightly less robust than Retail Managment System (RMS) in a number of ways, although built upon the same basic infrastructure (Microsoft SQL database technology).

Typically, the choice between the two products is a comparison of features. And while that can be useful (do it here) it might be better to define the choice in terms of back end accounting processes. If you are using Microsoft Office Accounting, the integration is very deep. It is less so using Quickbooks, although still possible.

POS is slightly more Graphical in the interface, is optimized with touch screen technology and is better suited for smaller Item, Category, and Department counts as compared to RMS. It is also a little less difficult to switch between the Point of Sale mode and Store Manager mode as both functions reside in the same executable program. With RMS you must have two separate programs open at the same time.

And of course the POS software is substantially less expensive, but a word of caution is in order - hardware and implementation costs are not materially different. And in both cases the most challenging aspect of any implementation is getting your inventory list into the system. This may seem like an obvious notion, but this can be a very time intensive process.