Today’s blog is written by our lead LS Retail consultant – Doug Chalk – and offers an overview of LS Retail’s entry-level product, LS Express.
I have recently been introduced to LS Retail’s Point of Sale (POS) extension for Microsoft Dynamics Business Central – LS Express. Aimed at small retailers, LS Express has been designed to contain the essentials of a POS system, without the added extras and extensive capabilities of the feature-rich LS Central.
Point of Sale
The POS is built into Business Central, and therefore the look and feel is much the same as using any part of the BC product. LS Express comes with its own configured Role Centre, making it straight-forward to navigate.
On the POS, the user can look up items, which can be filtered to narrow down what the user is looking for. It is also easy to change quantity, apply a manual discount to a line (by price or percentage), and even change the unit of measure. An added advantage over many POS systems at this end of the market is the ability to add customers to transactions and suggest items by purchase history.
LS Express Role Centre
The Role Centre is simple, but does the job. And after some initial exploring, easy to navigate. It includes links to configure staff, payment methods and simple discounts, as well as the ability to see an overview of sales by any given date.
One of the main benefits of LS Express is that very little configuration is required to start selling. General Ledger account postings are configured using standard Business Central payment methods, with minimal additional payment method setup needed.
Unsurprisingly, LS Express is not as customisable as LS Central and therefore it would work perfectly for businesses who are happy to use a POS as is, out of the box. The actual POS interface cannot be customised, but what the business gets as standard covers all the essentials for sales, returns, gift cards and discounts.
Inventory
One advantage LS Express has over the more comprehensive LS Central product is that stock is updated as soon as a sale is posted. This enables users to view live stock levels, as well as daily takings. LS Express achieves this because instead of using a Transaction Register, as seen in LS Central, sales are posted immediately as sales invoices, using standard Business Central functionality. In LS Central, stock must be periodically posted in order to update Business Central.
End of Day
The End of Day process, or ‘Close Out’, as it is called in LS Express, is incredibly easy. Values are posted to the G/L after each sale, so the End of Day is essentially to summarise and post any cash differences. Upon creation of a ‘Close Out’, the user is guided through the steps and can filter the summary by staff member or terminal. Once finalised, any differences are posted, and the process is complete.
Ecommerce
One thing that I think will be of great interest to small retailers is that out-of-the-box integration to Shopify is included. It really is simple to get ecommerce working, with live stock levels and pricing.
Summary
LS Express is primarily designed for small businesses with one or two stores and those not requiring the level of functionality which LS Central provides. Due to this, it is priced at a lower level – both from a licence and an implementation point of view.
My initial impression of LS Express is that it caters effectively for this type of business. It covers all the fundamental areas required for small retailers in a straight-forward and efficient manner.
If you’d like to understand more about whether LS Express is right for your business, please contact us.