Week 1: Plan and clean your data
List your products, suppliers, and customers, and clean up the data. Fix duplicates, set categories, and confirm prices. Clean data in equals a clean system out. Decide your go-live date during a slow period. Export the list you actually sell, not every item typed since the store opened. One product with three spellings is three on-hand numbers, and the scanner will find the wrong row on a busy day. Set categories the way staff search. Drop items you will not reorder. Do the same for customers you still recognise, and for open orders if you receive stock each week. Pick the go-live morning now, and pick a slow one.
Week 2: Import and configure
Import products, customers, and gift card balances into the new POS, set tax rules, and build your categories and permissions. Armour Payments helps with data import so you are not doing it alone. Help with the file is not the same as deciding which row is real. After the load, scan products you know, including one that should not be found, and confirm the price and the tax on a mixed basket. Check a gift-card balance against the old drawer before you tell a guest it moved. Set permissions so the person on the register can sell and return.
Week 3: Hardware and training
Set up terminals, PIN pads, scanners, and printers using the terminal setup checklist, then train staff on daily tasks: sales, refunds, returns, and reports. Confident staff make go-live smooth. Setup is not finished when the card terminal takes a payment. Pair the scanner and ring real barcodes, or staff will search by name and on-hand will not move. Confirm the pad receives the total instead of asking someone to type it. Train the open and the close, not only the easy sale: a return, a partial gift card, and the report the owner reads. Have the opener practice how they reach support.
Week 4: Parallel run and go live
Run the new system alongside the old for a few days, reconcile, then switch fully. See the true cost of switching for the bigger picture, and contact sales to schedule your migration. Do not make the new system the drawer on a busy morning. Ring the previous day’s tickets while the old one is still the one you trust, and compare the totals. Before the door opens on go-live, run a test sale, a return, and a gift-card redemption. Print a receipt. Confirm the pad shows the total from the POS. Put the support number where the opener can see it. After close, compare the tender totals.
Cleaning the catalogue before any hardware
Week one is a cleaning week, and it is where migrations succeed or drag. Export the product list you actually sell, not every SKU you have typed since opening. Merge duplicates, one navy crewneck with three spellings is three products and a useless on-hand. Set categories the way staff search, confirm prices and tax, and drop items you will not reorder. Do the same for customers you still recognise. Decide the go-live morning now, and pick a slow one. Suppliers and open purchase orders belong on this page too if you receive weekly. A messy import becomes a messy Saturday, because the scanner will find the wrong duplicate. Armour Payments helps with the import into retail POS. You still decide which row is real. If the list is wrong, the later weeks polish the wrong catalogue.
The list on the door for go-live morning
Go-live morning is a checklist, not a vibe. Before the door opens, confirm the products you cleaned in week one are the products on the scanner. Open and close a test sale, a return, and a gift-card redemption. Print a receipt. Pop the drawer if you take cash. Confirm the terminal setup still matches the lane you trained on, including the integrated total on the pad. Make sure the person opening knows how to reach support, and that Canadian support is the number on the wall, not a login only the owner has. Do not discover a missing tax rule with a line of guests. After close, compare the tender totals. The wider picture is in the true cost of switching. Contact sales to set the date.