[SL] Re: Brick and Mortar POS

On Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 02:44:37PM -0500, cbbrowne@xxxxxxx wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:47:55 EST, the world broke into rejoicing as
> There would generally be two approaches:
> 
>  a) Try to do something "real time," where each update to the POS tries
>     to update SQL-Ledger, or
> 
>  b) Do something "batched," where a process would move updates to
>     SQL-Ledger (and possibly back) on a quasi-scheduled basis.
> 
> Something "more like b)" is probably necessary, as you should anticipate
> that the POS system may not always have a network connection available
> to the central database.  And in that case, you'll have to do something
> involving determining which transactions have been accounted for, and
> which haven't.

I think it's more useful to ask, "is there a business model that
*requires* real-time streaming of POS data into the accounting
system?" The accounting classes that I took always seperate the
operations stream from the administrative and financial ... the latter
being calculated at the end of the period. The latter, for stuff like
the lease on the equipment, equity, advertising budgets, doesn't
change from day-to-day. 

Maybe if you're an energy-trader this would matter...

Whatever the case, if real-time is required by the business model, I'm
sure the network connection would also be resolved, easily.

> It is doubtless "doable," and similar things have been done many places
> for many of these sorts of 'back office' applications.  
> 
> The /real/ challenge is in coming up with a scheme that is generic
> enough that not only will it work for you, but it might conceivably be
> usable by others.  The notable challenge is that your set of G/L
> accounts may differ from mine, so that hard-coding the mapping of
> "Banana" data onto SQL-Ledger data is the Wrong Thing to do.  Making it
> flexible enough, whilst not making it too painful to configure, is the
> challenge...

What, and shrink the market for consultants and middleware? You got to
be kidding! :-)

-Qaexl-

http://www.next-horizons.com/qaexl/

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