Using Your Pharmacy POS System to Its Full Potential

Pharmacy point-of-sale is an investment. As such, it has an up-front cost and likely an ongoing cost to maintain. But as an investment, it should offer you returns.

As we’ve established before in this blog, there are lots of ways that point-of-sale can pay for itself and help grow your profitability. Some of these money-saving and money-making opportunities are passive, like credit card processing. Get a good deal up front that doesn’t change and you’ll be saving money month after month. Others require a little bit of TLC, like managing a profitable front end. Your POS system can tell you the numbers, but it will be up to you to act on them.  

The bottom line is that you want to make sure you’re getting the absolute most from your point-of-sale investment. This means using your system to its full potential. The trap of getting lost in your day-to-day is incredibly easy to get stuck in, and before you know it your well-intentioned investment isn’t bringing you the value you’d hoped. Worse, you might not even realize you’re not maximizing your system’s potential, resulting in wasted time and lost profits.  

Luckily, there are a few easy ways to prevent your point-of-sale system from becoming a glorified cash register. Because, after all... if that’s what you wanted, wouldn’t you have just bought that in the first place? Here are some of the things our most successful customers do to get the most value from their RMS system.  

Keep An Open Mind 

Point-of-sale systems are designed to streamline transaction processing, inventory management, customer management, and other processes. It’s easy to get stuck in the way you’ve always done something and expect a POS system to bend to your process. Instead, identify the problem you’re trying to solve, or process you’re trying to streamline or automate, and then find out how your system was designed to solve that problem. Oftentimes, you’ll find the intended solution to be much easier. Another key point is to expand your concept of what point-of-sale can do. A good system is more than processing transactions and managing inventory. If you’re trying to accomplish something, or introducing a new program, take the time to think about how point-of-sale might fit into the equation.  

Consume Content 

One great way to know what your system is capable of is to keep tabs on the content that your system provider produces. Be aware of newsletters, blogs, videos, webinars, and other avenues for information. You don’t have to read every email that comes through, but a quick skim will help you know if it’s relevant and have a broader understanding of what’s possible.  

Train Regularly  

Often times, the best feedback about inefficiencies comes from a fresh perspective. Make sure new staff receive more than cursory training on how to use the till. Even if they don’t often use back-end functionality, it’s helpful to provide a comprehensive picture of the place a system holds within your overall pharmacy technology scheme. Also, make sure to review new functionality and programs with your entire team. You can also engage your system vendor to help you train based on your individual needs and goals.  

Keep Technologies Current 

It would be hard to win a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back. It’s also hard to get the most out of your POS system if parts of it are limping along because your hardware is outdated. There are some pieces of equipment that can be used for years and years without negative impact (like cash drawers for example). But computers that are slow, or credit card machines that don’t offer modern processing capabilities, are going to hold you back. A system that isn’t performing optimally certainly isn’t reaching its potential, or helping you reach yours.  

Ask Tons of Questions 

If something doesn’t make sense, or you think there could/should be a better way to do something, or you simply want to know if something is possible, ASK! Some of the very best things we’ve added to our point-of-sale solution over the years came from our customers asking questions. You never know until you try, so ask, ask, and ask some more!