From a cash register or Excel to a POS in one weekend

Many shops in the UAE still run on an electronic cash register, an Excel sheet of prices, and a notebook of who owes what. The move to a POS feels like a big project, so it keeps getting postponed. It does not need to be: with the product list prepared in advance, the switch itself fits into two quiet days.

Before the weekend: collect what you have

The work happens before the switch, not during it. Gather four things:

• The product list. Print the register's item (PLU) list, export the Excel sheet, and pull recent supplier invoices for anything missing.
• Customer balances. The notebook of monthly accounts: name, phone, what each one owes today.
• Supplier balances. What you owe each supplier, so the new system starts from the right figure.
• The hardware, delivered and plugged in at least a few days early: receipt printer, cash drawer, scanner. Test-print before the weekend.

Pick your two quietest days. For many shops that is not Friday or Saturday; look at your own sales and choose.

The product sheet

Put everything into one spreadsheet with one row per product. These columns cover almost every shop:

Clean the list before you import

Most first-day trouble comes from a messy list, not from the software.

1. Duplicates. "Cola 330", "COLA CAN 330ml" and "cola can" are one product. Merge them.
2. One barcode on two rows. Usually a copy-paste mistake. Decide which row is right.
3. Prices with and without VAT mixed together. Pick one rule (normally prices including VAT) and check that every row follows it.
4. Missing costs. Without a cost, profit reports are guesses. Fill in at least the top 200 sellers.
5. Items you no longer sell. Leave them out; a shorter list is faster to search.

A worked example, not a statistic: a minimarket with 3,000 rows in Excel often ends up with around 2,400 real products after merging duplicates and removing dead items. That is a good sign, not a loss.

The weekend plan

Day one, morning

1. Install the program and set your shop details: name, address, TRN, logo, receipt footer.
2. Print a test receipt and check every line.
3. Import the product sheet. Open twenty random products and compare name, barcode and price with the shelf.
4. Arrange categories in the order your cashiers think in: drinks, dairy, bread, then the rest.

Day one, evening

1. Count the stock. Scan each item and enter the quantity; two or three people with phones go much faster than one person with a clipboard. This count becomes your opening stock.

Day two

1. Enter customer balances and supplier balances from the notebooks.
2. Create staff accounts. Give each cashier only the rights they need: selling, maybe returns, not price editing.
3. Practise: every cashier rings up ten sales, one return and one card payment, then you close a shift and read the Z report together.
4. Put the opening float in the drawer for the first shift after the switch.

Do not run the old register in parallel. Two systems double the work and neither will match. Keep the old records for reference, not for selling.

The first week

• Unknown barcodes will appear. Add them at the till when they are scanned, not in a list for later.
• Price mistakes will show up when customers query a total. Fix them the same hour.
• Drawer differences are normal on day one and should shrink by day five. If they do not, sit with the cashier and watch a few sales.
• After a week, run a short spot-check count on 30 fast-moving items and compare it with what the system shows.

In CreekPOS

CreekPOS has an import wizard that reads from text files, Excel, ODBC sources or an older copy of the program, shows a preview before anything is saved and takes an automatic backup first. There is also a CSV template for import and export, ready-made shop types to start from, and filters that show products with no barcode, no price, no cost, or duplicates; a duplicate barcode is refused. When you scan a product that is not on your list yet, a UAE product catalogue fills in its name. Stock-takes can be counted from several phones at once. See the products features or download the desktop program to try the import on your own sheet.

Quick answers

Can I keep using Excel for prices? You can export and re-import, but it is easier to change prices in the POS and export a copy when you need the sheet.

What if my register cannot export anything? Print the PLU list, or photograph the shelves, and type the top sellers first. The rest can be added at the till as they sell.

Do I need to count every item on the weekend? Ideally yes, so the opening stock is right. If the shop is too big, count the fast movers and use supplier invoices for the rest, then do a full count within a month.

Want to try the move without any risk? Try the live demo or start a 14-day trial and import your own price list.