In this interview ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood talks with Tom Greenhaw, CEO of Cashier Live, a new Web-based, or software-as-a-service (SaaS), POS provider. Greenhaw offers his views on where pharmacy stands with FSA/HRA cards and what POS offers for pharmacies looking to improve their operations.

CT: Tom, first of all, give us some background on who you are and where the concept of an SaaS POS system came from.

Greenhaw: I got started selling a traditional Microsoft-based point-of-sale system and creating the software and developing the interfaces to pharmacy management systems to handle pharmacy-specific issues like FSA cards. This gave me the experience of working with a lot of pharmacies and seeing what they use and don't use in POS software. After a couple of years, I thought there could be a simpler way. I also have experience developing Web-based software, so it made sense to look at the software-as-a-service model when I decided to develop new POS software. About a year ago we got started on Cashier Live, which we launched in February. It is a Web-based retail management system that allows users conduct transactions, manage inventory, get reporting for sales and taxes purposes. These were some of the main things that I'd learned pharmacists were looking for from POS.

CT: Speaking of what pharmacists are looking for, there was a lot of attention paid to POS solutions for accepting FSA/HRAs last year. Are you finding that pharmacy is in the right place now or that there are there's still more that can be done?

Greenhaw: Yes, there was huge interest before the deadline last year, but I'm still seeing interest in POS from pharmacies driven by FSA cards. A lot are having issues. Many thought that the 90% rule would work for them and have found out that it doesn't. Plan administrators really want the transactions to be auto-substantiated, which means they have to come from and IIAS POS. And then some of those pharmacies that did go with a technology solution that was supposed to let them accept the cards have found that things aren't working out for various reasons. Overall, the challenge is that there are a lot of pharmacies out there that have small front ends and the pharmacists feel that they can't justify a large investment in POS.

CT: How does the SaaS model change the investment equation?

Greenhaw: Well, SaaS basically means that rather than a box of software or a company that comes out an install software on a computer at your location, you are subscribing to a hosted service that resides on the provider's servers and that you access over the Internet through a Web browser. This means that there's no up-front software cost, only the monthly fee, which in our case is inexpensive. And all you need is a computer - you can use one you already have, an Internet connection, and a Web browser. There are also a few advantages other than cost. You don't have to work through installation or configuration. And you can sign up and get instant access to a solution, in our case with a free trial period so you can decide if this is going to work for you. We also sell a package of peripherals, such as barcode scanner, cash drawer, and receipt printer, if the pharmacy doesn't have these.

CT: OK. I want to get back to FSA/HRA cards. How important are the customers using these cards to a pharmacy's business? What are you seeing?

Greenhaw: That depends on where your pharmacy is located and what the employers around you are doing with the cards in their health plans. If there's a large employer in your area that offers this as a feature of its health plan, then practically every customer who comes into your pharmacy could be a FSA/HRA customer. Frequently, people who are putting money into an these accounts know that they are going to be coming into the pharmacy. That's why they do it. They may be on a maintenance medication, for example. So losing one of these customers is a big loss when you consider that if they are coming into your pharmacy to get their prescriptions filled they will also probably buy OTCs from you and perhaps other items. They are good customers. Of course, FSA/HRA cards can only be used for specific items and making this easy to do is the whole point of auto-substantiating with an IIAS-approved POS. But overall, if it's a matter of providing your customers with the services they need.

CT: POS offers other tools, of course. What other functions should pharmacists look to in order to justify investing even their time in a POS, regardless of the financial cost?

Greenhaw: You are right. There are a lot of other advantages beyond accepting FSA cards. If all you have is a cash drawer now, a big improvement from POS will be the ability to manage your inventory and, along with that, create purchase orders. That's one of the things we're really focused on to save pharmacist time and some money along the way. Electronic submission of purchase orders is key. We work with pretty much every wholesaler a pharmacy might order products from, national and regional. So, for example, rather than having to pull items in one at a time when you are getting started with POS, we get the product file of items you've purchased from your wholesaler and load that into Cashier Live to get you started.

Then once you are using the program and you are purchasing to replenish your stock, we have tools to let you automatically generate a purchase order based either on a perpetual inventory or simply replacing what you've sold. In this case, POS means that you don't have to walk around the pharmacy with a note pad writing down what you need to order. We also work with suppliers to submit purchase orders electronically, which means that instead of having to go to a Web site, find the products, and enter your order or create an order and print it out or fax it in, you can simply review the order the POS has built automatically and submit it electronically. This saves a lot of time. What we've seen is that some customers save 20 or 30 hours a month by moving away from manual inventory and purchasing methods.

CT: One last thing, Tom. Come 2011, people will no longer be able to use FSA cards for any OTC items not prescribed by a doctor. Does this change things?

Greenhaw: Not really, in my opinion. There are plenty of other reasons for pharmacies to have POS, as we've just been talking a little bit about. But addressing your question, I think customers are still going to want to use FSA/HRA cards, even when you take non-prescription OTC items out of the mix. For instance, they may still want to put prescription copays on the cards and pharmacists are still going to need to have a solution for this. Even setting aside the other good reasons to look at POS, you certainly don't want to customers to feel like they need to move to another pharmacy because you can't take their preferred form of payment.

For more information visit www.cashierlive.com.