What is the best way to receive reporting data from a POS system?

If a database were to be designed to electronically receive data reports from a POS system which format or method is best?What is the best way to receive reporting data from a POS system?
What is the data that you are storing? In other words, you have to define what each record will contain. It all depends on what data you get from the POS system.



As an over simplified example, Big Box Store sold a 42 inch plasma TV, a Bicycle, and a Car battery. Cost was $800, $200, and $50 respectively. You now have 2 fields, Item description and a price. You might want to add other fields such as model or part number, manufacturer, and more. How big are your fields. Some fields may need to be fairly long while the manufacturer could be reduced to a code of only a few letters.



There is no best method or format. There is what is required depending on the data that you want to save.



How you access the data once it is saved brings up another problem. Do you set it up so all records are a fixed size for easier random access operations or do you use a random length record and either use a record pointer system or only access the data sequentially? This time the design parameters may be dependent on the storage media. How you access the data after it is stored will also influence how you store the data in the first place.



What is best will be what best fits the problems that you have.



Shadow Wolf