Cash Register vs Fiscal Printer! Which is best for your business in Ethiopia.

If your business is in Addis Ababa or any other part of Ethiopia, you must have been told by ERCA to buy a cash register by now. If you’ve just started a new company and you’re thinking about buying a cash register or fiscal printer but don’t know which one to choose, you’ve come to the right place.
This comparison of fiscal printer and cash register is based on price, ease of use and type of business. Let’s right down to it then.

Cash Register

Advantage

• Relatively cheaper than buying the fiscal printer.
• Works even if there is no electricity, if it’s charged fully. This is good if you don’t want to use manual receipts whenever the power goes out.
• You don’t need to buy a computer to use it.

Disadvantage

• Might not be easy to use. If you can use your mobile, I’m sure you can use a cash register but it has a bigger learning curve and it requires you to do things a bit more carefully.
• If you’ve been using the cash register and incase your company had to make a sale while you’re not there, it might be a bit confusing for other people to use a cash register.
• Compared to a software solutions, it’s a bit backward.

The price of a cash register depends on model and brand. At the time of writing (May 9, 2012), Payment Business Solutions Plc provides the cheapest cash register at a final price of 5,960 birr. Cash registers are ideal for business which don’t have many items to sell. For Example, if your company sales 10 items, it might be easy for you to remember which number is assigned to which item. But if your company sells 250 items, it will be hard to remember the number assigned to a single item.

Fiscal Printer

Advantage

•  Software solution is always better than the paper based solution. If you have a good POS software, you can generate many reports and do market analysis using the software.
•  Easy for any computer literate person to learn and operate the POS Software.
•  There are many versions of the software which means some of them have a module that is vital for your business. Eg. Inventory system.

Disadvantage

• More expensive than a cash register because it requires you to buy a POS Software.
• Doesn’t work if there is no electricity, so you might use manual receipts.
• Got to buy a computer to use it. This is an additional cost.

At the time of writing (May 9, 2012), the cheapest combination of fiscal printer and POS software is a fiscal printer from Ambasel Trading House Plc (around 8,600 birr) and a POS software from Victory Software Solutions Plc (1,500 birr without vat). My recommended combination is a fiscal printer from Ambasel Trading House Plc and a software from PEDS (Professional Electronic Data Systems Plc). They have many version and the one im talking about costs 2,500 birr including VAT and its worth every penny. But that’s just for me!
CNET deliver high quality software but it’s just a bit too expensive for my taste.
So there you have it, compare each one depending on your type of business or capital and decide which one best suit your needs.