The system consists of a Palm top Mobile Data Terminal (PDA), with an integrated barcode scanner, and a portable belt mounted receipt printer. The PDA is the front-end mobile billing station, that is wirelessly networked to the rest of the system. It is a GUI based device, which runs on either Palm OS or Windows CE. The choice of operating system would depend on the integration requirements with the system running on the network and the back-end being used by the application.

The belt-mounted or integrated thermal printer generates the bill and receipt for the purchase. It also has an integrated Magnetic slot reader (MSR) for reading credit cards, loyalty cards, employee ID cards etc.The system sits on a wireless LAN infrastructure, comprising of Access Points and antennae, which are in turn connected to the wired LAN through a LAN standard RJ45 connector.

At the beginning of a shift, the mobile sales person swipes his ID card in the MSR to log into the system. When a purchase needs to be billed, the mobile sales person scans in the barcodes on all the products being bought. At each scan, the PDA hits the database and extracts the SKU relevant information, in much the same way as a fixed POS terminal would. The scanned items are added to the shopping cart. The software running on the PDA would directly update the back-end system as the billing progresses, and an on-line validation is always being carried out. In case of discounts and schemes being applicable, these can be applied on the spot and the billing adjusted accordingly.

At the end of a bill, the amount is collected, and the receipt is printed out on the printer. In case of a loyalty program being in place, the customer's loyalty card is swiped in the MSR, and the points for the purchase are accordingly updated into the system.