ICRTouch Back Office & Database

Hi there,

I have a two till icrtouch based system at a supermarket, they are connected by lan wires through a router and so sync but there is no back office in place at the moment. I have a couple of question I'd love answer by the wonderful experts here

My dealer is leaning me towards a non icrtouch back office suite, but I am not really inclined to it as from what I have read on the net TMS is the best because it's made by the same guys as Icrtouch

Which good back office options are out there, what kind of costs are involved.

Also a handheld terminal for stock ordering purposes would be ideal, how is this option integrated into a back office system?

Finally, I'm a novice programmer who would love to have access to the icrtouch database in order to create apps as such that help with my daily, weekly and monthly business workflow, what format and where is the icrtouch plu information stored and how accessible is it? I heard throught the grapevine that there was command line functionality in icr touch but i haven't come across it.

Any advice and help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance