Installing and using the MultEPoS EPoS and OTC Management System will not just improve the general administrative efficiency of a pharmacy, it will make a positive and substantial contribution to increased sales turnover, lower stock levels, and gross profit.

The extent to which each pharmacy benefits from a MultEPoS installation will vary, depending on the level of OTC turnover, the effectiveness of the existing manual controls, and to what level the facilities of the EPoS system are utilised.

However, many years experience in retail pharmacy has proven to us, and more importantly to our customers, that the performance of a pharmacy will improve in the following financial areas :-

And in other areas:-

Most EPoS systems will help towards achieving the above improvements, but the specific routines within the MultEPoS system, which have been perfected over a number of years based on recommendations from our extensive user base, will ensure that MultEPoS users can achieve maximum benefit.

The following pages outline some of the areas in which a MultEPoS system will contribute to an increase in Gross Profit. If you are seriously contemplating installing EPoS, then MultEPoS will be pleased to visit you and provide a detailed analysis of the benefits of implementing a MultEPoS system into your own Pharmacy Business.

To increase the value of OTC sales, we must ensure that top selling lines and sales trends are identified, and that these products are available on the shelves, in the right place, for the customer to purchase.

Using manual controls this is very difficult to achieve, but using the specifically developed reports and procedures provided by the MultEPoS system, we would expect a typical pharmacy to increase OTC sales by a MINIMUM of 5%.

Some of the aspects of the MultEPoS system which will directly contribute to increasing OTC sales are:-

The MultEPoS system provides sales analysis by quantity, value or profit, covering the top or bottom of a selected range of products.

Using the sales analysis options we can easily identify the products which contribute most to turnover, the system will even rank them in order. Using these facilities we can therefore identify the products which:-

Many pharmacies have overstock rooms above, alongside, or below the shop. Upon demand the system will produce a list of products required to fill up shelves in the shop from those overstock rooms. This ensures that the right products, in correct volumes, are on the shelves ready for sale.

Based on the sales history information held within the system, accurate purchase orders will be generated. This will ensure that sufficient stocks are reordered to satisfy projected demand, preventing any lost sales.

Stock levels of products which sell well will be kept under control by using the sales analysis and automatic order generation procedures. However products which are not selling, or where existing stocks are too high upon installation of the MultEPoS system, need to be identified so that action can be taken.

By utilising the following procedures, optimum levels of OTC stocks will be identified and maintained.

Within a few weeks of installing the MultEPoS system, this report will utilise the sales history available to identify products where there are excess stocks to satisfy customer demand.

By identifying products which have not sold since a selected date, we can evaluate the pricing, shelf position and relation to different manufacturers products within the same department, and take the necessary action to promote the sale of these products.

In addition to ensuring that fast selling products are automatically reordered, the MultEPoS system will also ensure that slow selling items, or items with excess stock, are not unnecessarily ordered.

Setting and maintaining optimum profit margins for each product, accurate pricing and regular price updating, and of course price and cash control at the till, all contribute to an increased gross margin.

All of these procedures are controlled within the MultEPoS system, using the following facilities.

Each product holds a current selling price, promotional offers (if applicable), and the latest cost price. A required Profit on Return % (POR) can be pre-determined for each product group, and the system will always recommend a new retail price which will maintain this POR% after any cost price change. Where individual price ticketing is still used, the system will produce new retail price tickets for all products, or shelf edge labels if appropriate.

The weekly C & D update disc that MultEPoS distributes to all of its users, includes all C & D Price updates, ready for update to your live product file, when any required re ticketing has been completed. All price changes for RPM based products are identified separately.

Regular monitoring of the contribution to gross profit from each product can be achieved easily with this routine. This will highlight lost profit, which otherwise may have gone undetected. (Alternately the routine can be used to identify excessive selling prices which are likely to stop sales.)

Because the current selling price for each product is held within the system, then each time the product is sold it will be sold at the correct price. This removes the possibility of under-ringing at the till (either intentionally or accidentally).

One of the major problem areas for all retail outlets is that of theft, in some form or other. Using a manual system, without a detailed audit trail of product sales, (by assistant, date, time and till number), and regular stock verification, theft is very difficult to identify at an early stage.

Merely by implementing a MultEPoS system, and advising staff of the types of controls and information available to management, it should reduce the temptation of theft. What it will also do is impose controls which will identify stock shortages by individual product at an early stage, enabling management to take appropriate actions. This is achieved via the following routines.

All aspects of the MultEPoS system which affect stock levels do so immediately. This means that the stock level recorded by the system should always be equal to the actual stock level, making it simple to balance and verify.

By printing out stock verification sheets, on a rotating departmental or group basis, the system will ensure that all stock is counted on a regular basis.

The system will verify the actual stock level counted against the system held stock level and report any discrepancies, by quantity and value.

The MultEPoS system maintains a detailed audit trail of every transaction, which can be printed or displayed at any time. The system will even allow you to display the latest sale completed, on the back office control computer, so you can verify that an expensive item taken from the shelf has actually been processed as a sale.

Not only does an annual stock take by an external organisation cost money and disrupt normal trading, many pharmacy managers remark on the potential inaccuracy of the valuation.

The MultEPoS system will provide an immediate and accurate Year End stock valuation, or indeed a stock valuation at any time, by using the following routine:-

By ensuring that the system stock levels are accurately maintained, then the Stock Valuation Report produced by the system can be relied upon for accounting purposes, thus removing the necessity for an annual stock take/valuation carried out by external contractors.

In addition, because the system maintains the Retail Price, Latest Cost and Average Cost for each product, the stock valuation can be produced based on any of these costs.

For a multiple branch pharmacy group, the problems of controlling stock levels and supplier reordering are multiplied. Each pharmacy manager has to be relied upon to maintain optimum stock levels and not to over order with suppliers.

The MultEPoS system provides automated facilities for central stock ordering for all branches, ensuring that the best discounts are available from suppliers for 'pack' purchases. Each branch can effectively transmit its order requirement to the 'Head Office' and this order requirement can be collated.

If the Head Office also has warehouse facilities so that branch requirements can be satisfied from internal warehouse stocks, then an appropriate picking list can be produced for each branch's requirement.

Where branches are local to the Head Office, and there is a regular delivery facility to the branches, then each branch's stock levels can be kept to an absolute minimum, with the Head Office effectively providing a 'shelf fillup facility' for each branch.