Start your year with a “New Year Computer Checklist”!

Start out the year right for your restaurant POS system. Let’s discuss some of the most common and critical mistakes that retail business owners make in regard to some very basic configuration aspects of the computer system. Some of these mistakes can cost restaurant owners thousands of dollars in wasted time and money. Worse than that… it can frustrate your customers and employees.

Whether you’re the one who’s going to configure your restaurant’s computer system or not somebody else to do it for you] — it’s important for you to make sure everything is done properly.

Please don’t let me give you the wrong idea. I don’t always recommend configuring your own computer system! I recommend letting a computer professional do it for you. But I know some of you will do it yourself no matter what I say. So this is for those of you that insist on doing your own computer installations and for everyone else to double check and make sure everything was done properly. This can help avoid major problems, be aware on the proper installations and save hours of your precious time.

So here are some simple retail computer system configuration checklist for a Windows network you could follow:

1) Install a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
One of the main causes of your electronic component failure is due to fluctuations in electricity (up and down). A good UPS can solve this problem by providing clean power. I would recommedn getting a good UPS for your server. And it’s a good idea to use them on all your workstations too.

2) Plug All Your Cables Into the UPS
All cables that powers your computer and network must be properly plugged into your UPS. It’s also important to check if cables that can carry electrical charges are plugged into a surge protector or UPS. For example, the phone line for your modem can easily fry your computer if you do not plug it into a surge protector. So make sure your modem line, network cables, and power cords are all plugged in properly.

3) Tightening Up Security
At the very least, I suggest locking down your server with a strong password on all Windows accounts so your employees and hackers have more difficulty messing with your server.

4) Install Anti-virus and Anti-Spyware Software and Configure For Automatic Updates
It is gravely important for you to make sure that these security tools are configured to updating automatically, so you would never forget.

5) Limit Internet Access
Employees will surft on anything they can on the internet. Anti-virus and anti-spyware software does help but if an employee unwittingly downloads the wrong program or accepts the wrong message, it can shut down your system down. You can avoid this by disabling internet browsing on your computers. Or another option is to protect internet access with a password.

For restaurant owners, this is very important! In order to protect secured files from evil hands, limiting employee internet access is a must. A retail business owner has to strickly implement rules to protect his business as well as his profit. Otherwise, what good will a restaurant POS system do if it’s run by a misbahaved or ignorant personnel.

6) Configuring Your Back Up To Run Regularly
As well proven in many situations, it’s best to configure your back up to run automatically after work hours. But you still need to remember to change your back up media (like tapes) every day.

7) The Importance of Testing Your Back Up Regularly
I can’t remember how many times I’ve talked with several restaurant owners that have hard drive failure and think they have a good back up to restore. But when they try to restore they find it hasn’t been working for months or years. That’s why you need to do a “real” test restore once a month to make sure it’s working. By the way, you should restore to an alternate file location so you don’t mess up your existing software.

So please, start checking your computer systems now and do the neccessary updates, configurations and back ups.

With over 20 years of restaruant experience, the author and Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-for-Restaurants.com, helps you use your technology to be more efficient and more profitable.