So here's the scoop:

My mom is going to be starting a business which deals with bridal and ladies formal wear (wedding dresses, etc). She's been rather vague so far in describing what this business is all about (how she looks to supply a demand, where it's going to be located, how everything is going to work, etc), but she has led me to believe a point of sale machine is exactly what she needs for most of her business work.

So what is a point of sale machine? This is an example of a point of sale system.

The problem is that - since this is just a small business on a small budget - we don't have thousands of dollars to spend on this thing. So I did some investigation and, as expected, point of sale machines can be built out of any computer. Awesome, so we can spend just over a $1000 on a point of sale machine instead of $2500+ for the same funtionality! So, as per recommendation of this site, I started picking out the parts. We do not need a barcode reader, so that was left out.

The heart of this machine:
-A decent desktop PC. It may be overkill as far as performance is concerned, so we may look for a cheaper solution.
-19" LCD. The nice thing about this is that my mom could easily slide the screen to face the customer to show them the dresses or whatever.

The hardware:
-A receipt printer.
-A credit card reader.
-Cash drawer. Supposedly good compatibility.
-Cable that connects to receipt printer.

The software:
-Microsoft Office Accounting Proffesional 2008 or Quickbooks Pro 2008. I'm not sure which yet, I've heard QuickBooks has terrible customer support but it's the program you're supposed to use with this:
-Retail Plus 2.0. Unless I can find better point of sale software, this is what I will have to use. I've downloaded it and it seems pretty easy to setup.

What does everybody think? Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? Any recommendations? I could also use help on making up my mind about the Quickbooks vs. Microsoft Office Accounting. On the one hand, Quickbooks appears to be supported by the Retail Plus 2 software. It asks you for where you have your Quickbooks company file located in the setup so maybe that would be the best bet? On the other hand, Microsoft's stuff will probably be a lot easier for my mom to adapt to, but it looks like Retail Plus 2 won't integrate with that in the slightest.

Yea, that's overkill for the PC. A low end system would accomplish the same task. Also, you don't NEED a cash drawer. It's basically just a self opening safe (thats far less safer than a safe).

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3584419&Sku=E145-2030%20B

something like this plus a 10-20$ keyboard/mouse and a 17 inch LCD like you were talking about.

uhhhh if she's opening a small shop she'd probably be better off with a computer to show people crap or whatever and just a normal cash register

he wants to make the pc the cash register

Out of the two accounting softwares, I use Quickbooks, although in my case the alternative was Simply Accounting, and Quickbooks blew it out of the water (bigger company, larger dev team, better support). However, I don't do point of sale so I can't offer much help in that regard. However, I would agree the machine is probably overkill.

I do wonder if a point of sale (I'd like to shorten that to "POS" but that also means piece of shit incidentally) system is REALLY neccessary. I would think as a bridal supply store, she'd be selling relatively few but comparatively high priced items as opposed to some sort of general store or department store. Makes me think it would ultimately be much cheaper and nearly as effective to just keep book inventory and simply use a regular cash register or something. HOWEVER I suppose a PC is still helpful in showing customers items online or whatever, if perhaps you have the option of ordering from somewhere else, idk. I would advise a cheaper PC though.

And like I said earlier, I use Quickbooks 2008 and like it, though I did have to call Customer Support when Revenue Canada changed the HST to 13% and I needed to change the tax codes in the system. It took me forever to get a straight answer out of them on HOW I change the tax codes so I wasn't very impressed. On the other hand, it was during the Christmas holidays too so I wouldn't let that one incident be indicative of their overall support quality.

Thanks a lot for the input so far guys, you're all providing excellent and very valuable input.

Yea, that's overkill for the PC. A low end system would accomplish the same task. Also, you don't NEED a cash drawer. It's basically just a self opening safe (thats far less safer than a safe).

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3584419&Sku=E145-2030%20B

something like this plus a 10-20$ keyboard/mouse and a 17 inch LCD like you were talking about.

Wow, that's a much better deal! We actually have a mouse and keyboard sitting around that will suffice so that will work out great. I also have a friend who can get me a copy of Vista Business for free (through his college) so lack of OS doesn't make me worry in the slightest!

About the drawer... hrmm... you're probably right. I think I will instead opt for the safe.

uhhhh if she's opening a small shop she'd probably be better off with a computer to show people crap or whatever and just a normal cash register

It's a lot less streamlined and cash registers with even decent functionality aren't even that cheap.

I do wonder if a point of sale (I'd like to shorten that to "POS" but that also means piece of shit incidentally) system is REALLY neccessary.

Haha, I noticed this too. 

It sounds like your experience with Quickbooks wasn't that painful so I'm sure if we go that route then I shouldn't have to worry too much. However, I stumbled upon a much better deal.
Microsoft Dynamics Point of Sale 2.0 will cost just a little more than purchasing Retail Plus 2 + Quickbooks. It comes with Microsoft Office Accounting 2007, so I know that right out of the box everything should work well together. Now I just need to ensure that my parts I'm looking at purchasing are 100% compatible (I would venture to say yes but I'll need to do more research first).

I use a point of sale system at work, and it's been stated before you don't need a beast to handle the software. And unless i'm missing something, you can still use the computer to show people your merchandise; just turn the monitor.

I use a point of sale system at work, and it's been stated before you don't need a beast to handle the software. And unless i'm missing something, you can still use the computer to show people your merchandise; just turn the monitor.

-19" LCD. The nice thing about this is that my mom could easily slide the screen to face the customer to show them the dresses or whatever.