Patent ID: 7523182

Claim:
A remotely located point of sale device comprising: at least one application controller operably coupled to the remotely located point of sale device; the application controller having at least one microprocessor operably coupled to at least one memory device; the application controller operable to communicate at least one operational characteristic of the remotely located point of sale device to at least one destination; a program of instructions storable in the at least one memory device and executable in the at least one microprocessor; and the program of instructions operable to build a performance history based on the at least one operational characteristic of the remotely located point of sale device, to identify a standard measure of satisfactory, periodic performance for the remotely located point of sale device based on the performance history, to identify operational characteristics of the remotely located point of sale device based on the standard measure of satisfactory, periodic performance, to compare a current operational characteristic of the remotely located point of sale device to the standard measure of satisfactory, periodic performance and identify differences that exceed the standard measure of satisfactory, periodic performance, to evaluate the differences that exceed the standard measure of satisfactory, periodic performance and determine if the differences indicate a malfunction of the remotely located point of sale device and to approximate economic losses resulting from the malfunction.