Wiz-Tec Computing Technologies believes that you should know what your doing before you do it... especially
when your buying a new POS system for your retail operation. Take some time to read the information provided
below... you'll thank yourself for having taken the time to understand the purchase your about to make, and you'll
be that much happier with your end-solution decision.

Retailer's Top 10 POS checklist

Buying point-of-sale (POS) software isn't as simple as it used to be. While technology is an enabler for many
great advances, it has also made the decision-making process much more complex. Retailers must consider not
only their current needs, but also their future needs--and must anticipate requirements that may be
beyond their control.

Given the size of the investment in both software and hardware, there is no doubt that choosing the right
POS software vendor has become a major decision for retailers - in terms of both time and money. And
achieving a return on the investment is regarded as an absolute must. No retailer wants to end up with a
solution that's antiquated before it's even installed!

What do retailers need to consider before they buy POS software?

#1: Open Hardware

Years ago, POS systems were very expensive, with the software and operating system proprietary
to the manufacturer of the hardware. Today, hardware is generally PC-based and a commodity, and
software is written to open operating systems and standards.

Hardware no longer determines what kind of POS software is bought--but retailers should be careful to
make sure that their POS software provider won't force them to continually upgrade hardware in order to
receive enhanced functionality. Retailers want their hardware investment to last a long time, and a POS
vendor should accommodate that.

Question – Do Wiz-Tec products determine what kind of hardware the retailer needs to buy?

Answer – No, Wiz-Tec software will work with just about any peripheral… however, Wiz-Tec does
have preferred hardware that we suggest the retailer work with.

There are many reasons for this, primarily because we do our testing on industry standard equipment, and we
build our software thinking “what can go wrong”, unlike many manufacturers who are more concerned with
“how can we get it into your business”. 92% of all service calls for our product are hardware related, the software
almost never causes problems. In fact, 98% of our service and support is done remotely, and rarely do we need to
visit a site, unless its hardware related.

For this reason, we do have a recommended list of hardware peripherals that we advise the retailer to go with, and
in fact we will not offer extended service to the retailer should they choose not to go with the recommended
hardware. This may seem draconian, but our job is to keep you business up and running. Selling the retailer inferior
equipment will end up generating service issues, and that reflects poorly on Wiz-tec, and its products. Each time we
upgrade our software, it is in conjunction with the equipment we recommend. So if a retailer chooses to move into
a newer version, they do not have to change out the peripherals, unless perhaps there is something on the market
that is suitable for replacement, and will enhance the retailers functionality.

#2: Interface Capability

For most retailers, POS is a category of software that is chosen separately from back-office and other
in-store systems. It's extremely important that all the different systems be able to interface with each other,
and do so in a seamless manner.

Question – Does the Wiz-Tec VisualPOS + product stand apart from the back-office?

Answer - Yes, the retailer can use our product without using our back-office, and the system has 2500
separate fields which can be queried. However, the software is proprietary, and a product not of Wiz-Tec
design will require an interface be built, and this can be very costly to the retailer.

This is not a new thing, but more of a rule by most vendors. Wiz-Tec wants what’s best for the customer,
but giving access to our source code is like giving a stranger the keys to your BMW, and telling him not to
drive it. Code writers are code writers, and the liability issues surrounding software are too easily avoided to
expect a competitor to not access the source code given the chance. This is what makes it so expensive for a
vendor to gain access to a competitor’s source code.

Wiz-Tec manufacturers one of the most powerful back office systems on the market today, and very few of
its competitors can match it for its ability. We feel the customer will be happier simplifying the number of vendor’s
it has to deal with by using our back office in conjunction with our POS product, and it increases the options for the
retailer as well.

#3 Flexibility

Flexibility means being able to respond to business requirements on the fly. Flexibility means a retailer can adapt the
software at their head office and then instantly download changes to the stores so that the store systems are updated
in minutes rather than months.

Question – Is the VisualPOS+ product flexible? Will it do things like allow for changes at a head office to be
downloaded to a local site?

Answer – VPOS is so flexible it's almost to good to be true. Not only will it allow the vendor to download changes
to a lane from a head-office, it will allow the site to decide, or share the decision on what to except from the head
office to the site. This is especially important to franchise operations, where what is being competed over in one local
market, might not be in another.

VisualPOS 4.0 is available with VisualPOS “multi-store”, which will allow the retailer to send and receive
information from the head-office to the site and vice versa, as well as schedule out promo’s, price changes,
inventory controls, receiving, credit accounts, and much, much more. The site can be forced to accept changes,
the decision can be shared by the site, an example of this would be head office sending out promo’s for milk,
chocolate bars, and eggs. One site manager decides that he doesn't need to promo eggs, but his competitor
across the street is discounting milk and chocolate bars, so he excepts those promotions and declines the egg
promotion.

These are features that can be stacked out into the future, so that a marketing department can truly keep the
competition guessing, and they can turn around and take the information to analyze to see how effective the
promo’s were vs volumes sold in previous times. A very strong tool.

#4: Operating System

Although DOS and the various desktop versions of Windows are still frequently found at the point-of-sale,
Windows NT (or 2000) seems to be widely regarded by retailers as the operating platform of the future.
The momentum behind NT as the operating system of choice for POS has been building. "This shouldn't be
surprising," says Tom Litchford, Microsoft's Retail Industry Marketing Manager, "since NT is the ideal
platform for retailers seeking to take advantage of Microsoft-led technology standards such as
ActiveStore and OPOS."

Because of its higher levels of stability and security, NT is penetrating the store level both at the POS
and the in-store processor much more strongly than the desktop versions of Windows (95, 98, ME
and 3.1), says Litchford. Thus, the ability of a POS vendor to provide a migration path to Windows NT
is extremely important. A vendor should also offer the COM interfaces to allow for seamless migration
to other up-and-coming platforms, such as Java and Linux. "Certainly, the migration path to NT was a
very important consideration for us in choosing Trimax as our next-generation POS system," says Tony
Meyers, IS Director for the retail division of Hallmark Cards. Of course, NT isn't for everyone.

One retailer, Dots, for example, determined they didn't want to make the investment in full-blown NT
back-office servers at this point. So they're implementing less-expensive Windows 95-based terminals
at the front end, with one terminal in each store designated to act as the server, says Steve Hendricks,
the chain's divisional Vice President of IS.

Question – Does Wiz-Tec design its products for an NT operating system environment?

Answer – No, for a variety of reasons. Wiz-Tec does design its software to run on an XP environment,
as well as 2000, however NT for Point of Sale is not a very good platform, the primary reason for this
is that the operating platform owns the comm ports.

As a result, every time you go to do something else other than transact, you end up having to re-initialize
the peripheral equipment. This in turn created an unacceptable down time to the retailer, and therefore
needed to be worked around.

Additionally, at the time of printing this article, 2000 has been discontinued as a product by Microsoft,
and we feel its important the customer be working with software that is supported by the vendor consistently.

Wiz-Tec software also runs on Window’s 98, 95 and version 3.1, as well as DOS. However, these are really old
platforms, and we only support one DOS version. This same DOS product has been running in some of our
customers operations for over 15 years, and they love it. The problem is getting parts for the CPU’s. Everything
is going USB and so are we.

Our new Window’s version is designed for the next 15 years, and we are sure our customers will love it as much
as they love their DOS versions.

#5: Scalability

You never know what can happen in a retail business. A new format may be developed, or a merger or acquisition
may take place, changing the strategic direction of an entire company overnight. It's important to be prepared,
and to have a POS system that can scale to accommodate the very largest or the very smallest of stores.

Question – How scalable is the Wiz-Tec product line?

Answer – Wiz-Tec’s VisualPOS products are very scalable, and in fact our largest customer uses our
POS in over 450 lanes spread across 4 provinces. VisualPOS 4.0 for Windows has no real limit, whether
its one store, one hundred stores, or one thousand stores, we are able to accommodate the retailer.

#6: International Operations

The age of the global economy is here. Many retailers are expanding internationally, while others are preparing
to do so. A retailer's POS system should not be an obstacle to this kind of expansion - it should be able to
handle multiple currencies, languages, and local functional requirements.

Question – Does VisualPOS+ have multiple language and currency functionality?

Answer – Yes, VisualPOS 4.0 for Windows has the capacity to work in different languages, it is
predominately sold in English, using Canadian or US currency.

#7: Multiple Classes of Retailing

POS software should be able to accommodate different classes of retailing. The applications should run
in multiple retail environments varying in format, size, volume, product assortment, and promotional structure.

Question – Can VisualPOS+ run in different retail environments, providing for differing product assortments, and
promotional structures?

Answer – Absolutely, VisualPOS runs in pet stores, c – stores, gas bars, grocery stores, liquor stores,
billiards halls, restaurants, stand alone sites, multiple location sites, kiosks, Governments … the list is very long,
and we are very proud of being so diverse in our offerings.

#8: Off-the-Shelf Usability

For the vast majority of retailers, it's a much better idea to buy off-the-shelf POS software than try to develop
home-grown systems. Buying off-the-shelf software offers substantial cost benefits, since the software vendor
is able to amortize the development costs over multiple clients. Vendors can also typically do a better job with support.

But that doesn't mean retailers should be satisfied with a "one-size-fits-all" solution. A packaged software
product should be easily customizable by the retailer, without the need to alter internal source code.

Question – Can VisualPOS+ be customized to suit my business needs?

Answer – Yes, and it generally is customized for our customers. You see, no two customers are
ever the same, even when they are in the same industry, so Wiz-Tec tries to accommodate the retailer
based on their individual requirements.

This generally takes the form of the types of reports the customer is looking for. While there is some costs
attached to this type of customization, it is not generally prohibitive in relation to the cost of a POS system.

Customization can take on interesting forms though, and the greater the level of customization, the greater
the cost. There is also the maintenance of the software, and when large amounts of customization are done
on any one piece of software, the customer will probably have to be charged an annual fee to maintain the
source code that is special to their retail operation. We do not want to scare our customers, but we feel it
important that they know this sort of information before committing to changes that aren't standard to the
software.

#9: Vendor Reliability

Buying POS software is no time for experimentation. A retailer should choose a vendor with a proven
track record of installations and a large enough organization to be credible. A retailer should also want
to have confidence that the vendor will be around for the long haul, and that it will be able o respond to
needs quickly and provide custom development services when necessary.

"Future vision" is another important aspect of long-term vendor reliability - the ability to anticipate development
needs in advance of their becoming critical. A good POS software vendor should demonstrate enough
"future vision" to have already committed substantial resources to support new forms of customer contact, such as
kiosks, Internet retailing and self-checkout systems.

Question – Is Wiz-Tec proven software, do you have customers using the software you sell now,
and are you developing for the future?

Answer – Yes, our software products currently exist in one form or another in over 1500 sites across Canada,
and span a dozen different industries. Most of our customers today are using our DOS product developed in
1990. 15 years in service is an unheard of track record for a POS software product, and we are very
proud of that fact.

The downside is that our DOS products were so good, many of our customers don’t want to upgrade.
The old “Don’t fix it if it isn't broken” attitude. We no longer sell our DOS product unless its for an
ITE (Indian Tax Exemption) program, as the retailer will find it harder to get parts for older computer
systems.

#10: Ongoing Upgrades

A good POS software vendor should be continually enhancing its product, driven both by its expertise in
how it sees the marketplace unfolding and by customer requests. When a POS software vendor does this,
the result is significant advantages to its retail customers.

Question – Do you enhance your products, and do you encourage your retail customers to take advantage
of those enhancements?

Answer – Wiz-Tec is always seeking to make its products better, and when we do we let our customers
know about it.

Sometimes we discover flaws, which we patch at no cost to the retailer, other times situations are forced
upon us, requiring that we make a change to meet industry standards. A good example of this would be
Industry Canada weights and measures, when they change their critiria for their standards, we must update
all affected sites. If the software is current, the customer gets the enhancement for free, if it is discontinued,
the customer will be charged for the enhancement.