Argility’s Point of Sale solution can be better described as Point of Service, as it not only enhances in-store experience for each customer; but it is also the bedrock of delivering a full omni-channel experience.

1. iRIS
Driving your IT vision
Retail Point of Service

2. In today’s fast-paced and technologically advanced world,
customers expect a high standard of service. This is partic-
ularly true for the specialty retail segment - companies that
retail furniture goods, appliances, cell phones or any such
large ticket items. Having a reliable system in place is
extremely crucial. The system must allow real-time data to
manage your businesses operations, eliminating room for
encountering errors or unexpected delays in your store
sales.
Argility’s Point of Sale solution can be better described as
Point of Service, as it not only enhances in-store experi-
ence for each customer; but it is also the bedrock of
delivering a full omni-channel experience.
This means it is able to cover the entire spectrum of
customer transactions, from credit and cash purchases, to
mobile payments.
While adapting to Retail POS Solution, there are certain
challenges that a company faces:
Rigid and/or cost prohibitive hardware requirements
that are unable to scale to organisational growth or
shrinkage. There is also a dependence on network
availability in order to be able to trade
POS design and utilization is often too complex and
requires a degree of computer literacy for operation
Organisations lack accurate transaction-level report-
ing and a consolidated view of the data
Dependency on manual processes causes duplication
of efforts, particularly when attempting to align
disparate systems
Software with long software life cycles for implemen-
tation of new functions and an inability to govern
what changes are selected for inclusion
KEY DRIVERS WHICH AID
IN THE SUCCESS OF A
RETAIL SYSTEM
HOW ARGILITY iRIS CAN
IMPROVE YOUR RETAIL
OPERATIONS
Cost effective to own, maintain and operate
Ease of use
Visibility and control of all financial transactions
processed
Customer and debtor’s book management
Agility to meet the needs of an ever-changing trading
environment
Fast and effective support where needed
It can be integrated with your existing systems. You can
continue to get value from your existing investments. It
is designed to ensure low cost of ownership in two
ways:
Cash
Management Sales
Customer
Management
Inventory
Management
Store
Reporting
System Security & auditing
STORE
Operations
Configuration Live Central
Batch
Management
Transaction
Switching
Utility
HEAD OFFICE
E-Commerce
Company
Web-Site
Flash Figures DAMSense Sense View
Mobile
Authorization
Management
Community
Engagement
Loyalty
Programmes
Referral-Based
Customer
Aquisition
Digital
Document
Management
ARGILITY ADD-ON MODULES
THIRD PARTY SYSTEMS
ADD-ON
MODULES
USER
DEVICE
iRISSOFTWARESOLUTION
ARCHITECTURE
Supplier
Management
SKU Line
Management
Pricing
Management
Merchandising
Decision Support
MERCHANDISING
VPN
OVERVIEW
CHALLENGES FACED WITH
RETAIL POS SOLUTIONS
iRIS is a fully configurable and customisable solution. The
system is built from the ground up, specifically for the retail
market.
What does this mean for your organisation?
ARGILITY iRIS // 02

3. MAIN FUNCTIONAL
FEATURES OF THE iRIS
PLATFORM
Stores can still trade when network is down, as software
and database are loaded onto a server in the store to
allow for decentralization
Retail sites can process transactions on entry-level
desktop computers without being dependant on
expensive centralised hardware
User access control can be managed with centralised
payroll setup. Assigning unique login information
in-store allows for accurate tracking of user activity
Customer payments (receipts) and refunds for multi-
ple tender types, both bankable and non-bankable, as
well as split-tenders
Petty Cash management and Sundry receipting to a
configurable list GL charts
Cash management and monitoring - till cash float
management, cash upliftment, full cash-up and
deposit slip capture
iRIS ARCHITECTURE
STORE
ARGILITY
ADD-ONS
THIRD
PARTIES
Backoffice
Live Development
Batch Switching
Utility Merchandising
HEAD-OFFICE
VPN
The retail system comprises of mainly two components:
the retail store and the Head Office environment.
RetailModule:
1. Distributed Solution
2. Cash Management System
3. Sales
Cash and carry sales or with delivery and returns
Credit agreement sales and returns, with or without
delivery, accommodating both NCA and traditional HP
sales and configurable capitalization or monthly
raising of additional costs
Internal scorecard as well as interfacing to external
bureau scorecards, compliant with bureau require-
ments in South Africa, Namibia and Zambia for credit
vetting
Scaling costs with the size of the business
Utilising an open source operating system
Our open source operating system based solution is
updated on an ongoing basis
The platform offers existing integration layers into
external products, both from Argility and third parties.
It is also easily scalable for both small to large retailers,
right out of the box and can be immediately deployed
onto either
iRIS utilises a text-based user interface that drives a
“top down” workflow. This ensures that users are
guided through an operational process and cannot
skip mandatory data capture
Based on each company’s unique challenges, both
distributed and centralised deployment models are
available. These have inherent offline resilience built
right into the architecture. However, the hosted model
has several layers of redundancy in order to mitigate
central servers’ downtime
ARGILITY iRIS // 03

4. 4. Customer and Debtors Management System
5. Inventory Management
6. Reports
7. System Security and Auditing
1. Operations Configuration
2. Merchandising
3. Live Central
4. Batch Management
Company, business unit, branch hierarchy, detail
management with configuration software
User Management (payroll, roles, authorities)
Operational budget management (sales, collections,
stock, margins etc.)
Centrally configured hierarchical (department, catego-
ry, sub-category etc.) SKU definition with support for
variable (landed) costing based on geographical
pricing regions with functionality to classify each
operational site based on this hierarchy
Supplier details are maintained centrally and orders can
be placed with direct delivery or attached distribution
management
Creation, maintenance and bursting of promotional
sales for several types of promotion such as reduced
price, supplier special performance incentive, house
brands, combination promotions and buy back to
trading sites
Centralised replication for store data at financial
month-end, which is used for monthly extracts and
reporting, both at store-level and on a consolidated
basis
Head-office executive management reporting and
month end consolidated GL, creditors and cash book
extracts, with supporting store-level reporting
South African retailers will have access to month end
SABC (TV licence) and CPA required reporting
Centralised daily replication for store data, with daily
extracts and reporting, both at store-level and on a
consolidated basis
Head-office executive management reporting
Executive information system extracts, as interfaced to
flash figures mobile application (mobile performance
reporting and visualisation app)
Debtors follow-up and diary with full transaction histo-
ry for client relationship management with configu-
rable financial journal transactions mapped to the
appropriate general ledger accounts
Existing interfaces to drive collections through debit
order (e.g. Hyphen, Sagepay) or external agents (e.g.
Blake and Associates)
Repossession and voluntary surrender with stock
valuation for reselling of surrendered stock
Full, sectional and single-item (stock adjustment)
stock take functionality
Creation and tracking of inventory movement
requests to and from customers, suppliers and other
local or foreign stores
Seamless management of direct delivery and receiv-
ing to/from distribution centres as well as customers.
It also features automated invoicing or issuance of
credit note back to debtors account in-store
This includes cash, sales, debtors and stock
General branch performance summary report provid-
ing an overview of store financial positions and perfor-
mance analysis
Merchandising decision support reporting to facilitate
accurate sales tracking, stock pricing and replenish-
ment requirements
User roles are allocated in stores by branch managers.
This is based on payroll which is maintained at the
head office. Access control systems perform authoriza-
tion using standard username and password. Frequen-
cy of password change and other related restrictions
are configurable based on user needs
All actions taken on the system that affect data are
logged against username with a stamp date and time
for auditability
Debtors and stock positions as available on audit trails,
for debtors, stock and cash movement, are balanced
internally against the GL interface on a daily basis. This
is done to ensure that all financial movement is
accounted for
HeadOffice:
ARGILITY iRIS // 04

5. 5. Transaction Switching
6. Utility
1. Linux-Based Operating System
2. Hosted Central/Head-Office Environment
3. Store Network
Central repository of all transactions between trading
sites allow for accurate tracking of pending and
processed transactions
Persistent queuing of all pending transactions to all
destination sites to ensure seamless delivery
Reporting of processed transactions, as well as those in
transit
iRIS Solution uses the Linux-Based Enterprise Retail
Platform
This is an open source platform with worldwide devel-
opment and support-base that is continually being
updated
Option to rent scalable, virtualized server environ-
ment, thereby reducing cost of ownership and elimi-
nation of associated asset depreciation
Data backups and securities with off-site weekly,
monthly and annual rotation for all head-office servers
Virtual Private Network (VPN) configurable on most
standard routers utilising existing ADSL, fibre or
mobile connections
Service to monitor and maintain VPN and check
connectivity
4. Hardware Support
5. User Interface
6. Support
7. Customisable
Software support for both new and older servers.
Support for a full range of retail hardware, including
document scanners, barcode scanners, barcode
printers, signature pads, handheld tablet devices etc.
Purpose-built for retail: This system contains over 20
years of IP, and an ongoing investment by retailers in
order to develop the platform
Flexible architecture and deployment options: This
allows retailers to reutilize existing hardware and
infrastructure
Improved customer service: The system processes are
designed in such a way that retailers will now be able
to provide highly efficient customer service.
A text-based user interface streamlines employee
training and the data capture process is driven
sequentially, making it faster
Real-time visibility of store operations
User interface is character–based interface running
inside of a web-browser
Allows adoption of dumb terminals (with no internal
hard disk) on local network with the store as well as full
desktop server using a web-browser (with a full
operating system of its own installed) to access the
system
Operating system and software support available at all
levels (first, second and third-line) for queries on
certified hardware and OS performance
Hardware certification function available for uncerti-
fied hardware
Fully customisable software solution
Ability to easily integrate with third party solutions by
means of several data exchange mechanisms. It can
also integrate with many file and/or data types
Detailed replication (history) of store data as at the
end of each financial period closing to enable
back-run functionality
Required from a governance and audit perspective
Data and transactions are archived in the stores (rule
based) to ensure efficient data processing in the
operational environment
MAIN TECHNICAL
FEATURES OF THE iRIS
PLATFORM
WHY BUSINESSES MUST
CONSIDER ARGILITY iRIS
ARGILITY iRIS // 05

6. iRIS has a long history of servicing the largest retailers in
the South African market and also facilitating the growth of
SME’s that found themselves restricted in their previous
software solutions.
iRIS is constantly being developed and innovated to meet
the requirements of an ever-evolving retail environment.
Argility is simultaneously investing in alternative technolo-
gy platforms where there is logical dovetailing with iRIS
and market needs.
“Our legacy system does not offer any of the functionality
that a modern retailer requires. As our business expands,
we need a robust system framework that will support
growth and provide reliable financial information to enable
optimal decision-making.
The iRIS solution allows us to adapt to these changes
without the high cost and effort involved with off-the-shelf
software. One of the most attractive aspects of the iRIS
solution is that it caters for both cash and credit options for
customers. It also provides multi-device support for kiosk
and tablets where required. Ultimately, Argility’s depth of
experience in retail and its established hosting infrastruc-
ture clinched the deal for us.”
- CEO, leading retailer based in South Africa
CLIENT TESTIMONIALKeybenefitsofourretailsystemtoyourbusiness
Low cost of ownership and tailored to your
business requirements
Incorporates best practices developed and
enhanced over three decades- successful track
record of implementing for both enterprises and
mid-size businesses
Multiple Add-ons to extend the value of your
investment:
Hosted or on-premise deployment options
Pay as you go (monthly usage fee) or Capex
Complete solution provider (Software, Hardware,
Services)
Credit sales
Mobile reporting
Customer survey
Mobile authorisation
Mobile app for customers
Proximity marketing
Payments
Loyalty
Workforce management
Our software solutions are rooted in a deep understanding
of the dynamics involved in retailing and financial services.
This understanding combines with a comprehensive
knowledge of operational requirements that facilitate
successful retail operations. We are currently one of world’s
largest specialist developers of retail solutions. Our
software is installed in thousands of stores across diverse
geographical locations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and
so far, we have an impeccable track record.
Our in-house retail experts are proficient across multiple
technology platforms and empower Argility to provide
highly efficient solutions, both from a technology and
software standpoint. These solutions not only address
most retailing requirements, but they do so without being
forced to utilize any specific technology.
WHY ARGILITY
ARGILITY iRIS // 06

7. Contact Us
Are you ready for a change that is bound to
build a more profitable future for your
business?
The experts at Argility will discuss your
company’s current solutions and help you
upgrade to a better, more economical,
customer centric retail Point of Service (PoS)
solution.
Twitter | @argility
Facebook | https://web.facebook.com/argility/
Linked In | https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/1220478
Website | www.argility.com
It is time for change. Contact us today regarding your company’s inventory needs and upgrade to a better,
more economical, customer centric, world-class, inventory management solution.
Contact Sales on 011 712 1300 or mail info@argility.com for more information.
ARGILITY iRIS // 07