Amusement Park Rings Up Cost and Labor Savings with POS Upgrade

5/16/2013
Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains of Central Pennsylvania, DelGrosso’s Amusement Park has been providing fun, food, and memories for more than six decades. When Fred DelGrosso purchased the park in 1946, he vowed to keep it safe, clean, fun and affordable. Today, it is a modern family fun facility that includes more than 30 rides, an extensive water park, go-karts, miniature golf course, and food, much of which is produced on site by DelGrosso’s other operational divisions.   
 
Painful Processing Problem
The company has relied on Sage 100 ERP for nearly two decades to support its inventory, accounting, and financial operations, but until recently the amusement park used traditional cash registers at each point of purchase.
 
“Those registers were pretty painful,” recalls Todd Walters, IT manager for DelGrosso’s Amusement Park. “We had to key all SKU data and pricing information manually into the units. Credit card processing was slow, cumbersome, and not PCI compliant. It was clear we needed a modern solution that would be both easy to use and could integrate with our back-office system.” 
 
Fast, Accurate & Analytics: Benefits of a Modern Point-of-Sale Solution 
The company’s Sage business partner recommended AccuPOS, a Sage-endorsed solution that integrates seamlessly with Sage 100 ERP. Moreover, AccuPOS provided sophisticated yet easy-to-use point-of-sale functionality.
 
“When we received a demonstration of AccuPOS, we could quickly see its benefits,” says Walters. “We wanted the flexibility to customize each register depending upon its location in the park. Some need just six buttons, for example, while others need many more. For many of our operators it is their first job, so it is important to find a product that makes it difficult to make mistakes. AccuPOS does that and much more.” 
 
Bringing each AccuPOS terminal online is quick and easy; current product, pricing, and customer information is loaded automatically. With the old system, product and pricing updates were performed manually, and customer information was not supported by the registers.
 
“Now that we have that customer data, we can sell and track season passes,” says Walters. “That is a huge benefit, as we are able to analyze the usage associated with each season pass to determine the program’s profitability.” 
 
At the end of each shift, when a Z report is generated, the point-of-sale data is sent directly into Sage ERP 100, updating sales, cost of sales, taxes, and inventory usage data.
 
“With our old system, these daily reports used to take a week to compile,” says Walters. “Armed with current information, we are able to better forecast sales and maintain appropriate stock levels.” 
 
Integrated Credit Card Processing Improves Sales and Service 
In the past, credit card authorization was done through a dial-up connection from standalone devices at just a few of the park’s registers.
 
“Because authorization was so time consuming, we elected not to accept credit cards at each station,” says Walters. “Now, with Sage Payment Solutions, we have expanded credit card acceptance to every register, which increases sales and promotes better customer service. Plus we are now fully PCI compliant and following best practice standards for the industry.” 
 
The easy-to-use system has resulted in significant labor savings. “We have been able to cut the time it takes to train a new employee by 75 percent,” says Walters. “AccuPOS is intuitive, and our young workers identify immediately with the touchscreens.” 
 
Another benefit stemming from the integration of AccuPOS with Sage 100 ERP is DelGrosso’s Amusement Park’s ability to quickly swap out a cash terminal in the event of malfunction. “Before we would have to start from scratch, entering in the item numbers and prices. It took hours to complete,” notes Walters. “Now, a terminal can be brought online very quickly, because its data is fed directly from the accounting software.” 
 
Significant Return on Investment 
The historic park grounds present some technological challenges for DelGrosso’s Amusement Park; running new cabling is difficult in some locations because of its older infrastructure. Nonetheless, the company believes that the return on investment of placing AccuPOS terminals at all point-of-purchase locations makes the upgrades worthwhile.
 
“We have been given the green light by the owners to install AccuPOS terminals throughout the park,” says Walters. “We have already successfully proved its value.” 
Walters concludes, “Adding AccuPOS to our Sage 100 ERP application has been a big success. We are working with relevant, current data. We now have access to data that we could not even begin to collect and analyze before.”
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