Abstract: A hand held portable device is provided that includes a signature pad for receiving a customer's signature and a carbon copy receipt printer that can print out a receipt with customer information, product information and the customer's digitized signature on both a merchant receipt and a customer receipt. The hand hold portable device can also be provided with a bar code reader and a thermal transfer bar code printer. The hand held portable device is adapted to allow a user to input product information, inventory information, customer information and accept customer signatures. The portable device allows the user to select between reading a bar code, printing a bar code label and printing a receipt containing at least one of the digitized signature received by the digitized pad and the bar code information read from the bar code label. The hand held portable device can also download data to a main computer via a communication system with a connector or a radio frequency link.