Tutorial: Point of Sale Maintenance

The Portal provides a way for an administrator to change the way in which POS terminals at a Site operate. The major advantage of this functionality is that the administrator does not have to be on-site to perform the maintenance duties. In this tutorial we will discuss the features of the Maintenance section of the Point of Sale Menu in detail. WARNING: Please exercise caution when using the features described in this tutorial as misuse can cause undesirable results at the terminal.

We begin this tutorial by navigating to the Point of Sale Menu. Select Menus and Point of Sale from the Navigation Menu. The Maintenance link will open the Maintenance section of the Point of Sale Menu. In this tutorial we will discuss the screens accessed from the three links of the Maintenance section, Tenders, Edit Files and Edit Ini File.

Click on the Tenders link in the Maintenance section of the Point of Sale Menu to open the Tender Maintenance screen. It should also be noted that the Tender Maintenance screen is accessible by selecting the Tenders link from the Sites section of the Sites Menu. The Tender Maintenance screen allows you to set up the methods of payment at a Site in your Company. Certain standard tender types will be supplied during installation and these should only be edited under advice from a Zen Global technician. However, you may add new tender types as needed. For example, if you wish to report on sales that are paid for by American Express (AMEX) separately to those that are paid for by EFTPOS, you will need to set up a new tender type for AMEX. If you wish to charge a surcharge for sales paid for by Diners Club credit cards but not sales paid for by EFTPOS, you will also need a separate tender type for Diners Club. In this section of the tutorial we will demonstrate how easy setting up a new tender type in the Portal can be.

The Tender Maintenance screen has a drop-down at the top to allow you to select the Site that you are editing tenders for. All terminals in the selected Site will receive any changes made in the Tender Maintenance screen. A second drop-down allows you to select a Tender  to edit by its ID number. Four buttons at the bottom of the screen provide the following functions:

• New: Creates a new tender type for the Site.

• Delete: Removes the tender type from the Site. It will no longer be possible for your customers to pay for a transaction using this tender if you press this button and confirm.

• Save: Saves any changes that you have made to the tender type.

• Reset: Reverts any changes made to the tender type back to the last time it was saved.

In this tutorial we will create a new tender type for AMEX payments. Make sure you have the correct Site selected and press the New button. Enter a unique Tender Number in the field provided. There are three tabs of information that needs to be filled out for a new tender type:

• Details: Contains general information about the tender type:

• POS Tender Description: Enter the description that will be displayed at the POS terminal and on receipts for payments made by the tender type in general transactions. In our example, we will enter "AMEX".

• In Use: This checkbox allows you to set whether the tender is currently in use. This allows you to remove the tender type from use without actually deleting it from the system permanently. We will tick this box to allow our tender type to be used immediately.

• Table Tender In Use: This checkbox allows you to set whether table accounts can be paid off using the tender type. Again, tick this box for now so that table accounts can be paid using AMEX.

• Table Tender Description: It is possible to set a different description for table payments using the tender type if desired. For our example, simply enter "AMEX" in this field so that the descriptions are the same.

• Maximum Limit: This allows you to set a maximum transaction limit for the tender type. In our example we will set this at $1000.

• Floor Limit: When a sale using the tender exceeds the floor limit, a supervisor is required to approve the transaction. In the example, we will set this to $1000, meaning that the supervisor is not required to approve an AMEX transaction, since the maximum transaction is also $1000.

• Minimum Limit: This allows you to set a minimum transaction limit for the tender type. In our example we will set this at $0, meaning that any sale can use AMEX as a payment method.

• Maximum Cashout: Specify the maximum allowable cash that can be withdrawn in addition to a sale for the tender type. This is mostly used with standard EFTPOS where Sites may allow a certain amount of cash to be withdrawn in a transaction with that tender type. Let's set the Maximum Cashout to $0 for our AMEX tender type, meaning that cash may not be withdrawn at the Site when AMEX is the only payment method.

• Surcharge: This allows you to specify a percentage surcharge, charging the customer a percentage of the sale for using the tender type. This is common for Credit Cards so that the Site can recoup some or all of the cost of using the tender charged by the financial institution. In our example we have set the AMEX Surcharge at 1.3%.

• Surcharge Tax Rate: Specifies the tax rate of the surcharge. We will enter 10% since this is the standard Australian GST rate.

• Surcharge Department: Allows you to select a Department for reporting on surcharges. We have selected our default Surcharge Department in the example.

• Bank Account: Allows you to specify a bank account for direct debit transactions to be deposited into. We have not selected a bank account for the AMEX example.

• Control: Configures the way that the tender is handled by the terminal:

• Allow Over Tender: Should the customer be able to pay too much with the tender type resulting in change for the sale? If so, tick this box. In our AMEX example, we have set the tender to not be allowed to pay too much in a transaction.

• Require Supervisor: Is it necessary for a supervisor to approve a transaction for the tender type? This is a common requirement for tender types such as Gift Vouchers. Again we have not selected this option in our example.

• Enable Rounding: Should a sale using this tender type as payment be rounded to the nearest five cents? In Australia, cash sales are rounded but other tender types such as EFTPOS are not. This option has not been selected in our example.

• Open Drawer: Should the cash drawer be opened when a sale with this tender type is finalised? Our example will not select this option, although if the AMEX receipts were being stored in the till we would need this option to be selected.

• Cashout: Can cash be withdrawn during a sale using this tender type? In our example, we have not selected this option.

• Allowed To Void: After the payment of a transaction has been made using the tender type, can it be reversed? We have chosen not to allow this option for AMEX in the example.

• Collect Card Details: Should the POS terminal record details of the card? We have decided not to enable this option although it can apply to EFTPOS, Credit Card or Gift Card tender types.

• Must Authorise: Is the customer's signature required for payment using the tender type? If selected the POS terminal will await confirmation of the signature from the employee before finalising the sale. This is important for Credit Card tender types, so we have enabled this option in the AMEX example.

• Ignore Expiry Date: Should the expiry date be ignored? This may be allowed for a Gift Card or Gift Voucher tender type but should not be set for Credit Cards or EFTPOS, so we have not selected it in the AMEX example.

• Validate Card: Does the tender type need a further validation? This may be necessary for Gift Card tender types for example. We have decided not to need further validation of the card in our AMEX example.

• External: Contains special options for the tender type in relation to external factors:

• User Exit: Should something happen in the terminal after the tender is used? This field can be used to enter an application to run after the tender has been accepted as payment for a sale. This is mostly used to run one of the AMC side applications after a specific tender has been accepted. For example, a tender for a debtor account charge would need to run the AMC DebtorTender.exe application to record the account details for the sale. To do this you would enter "C:\Tillmast\DebtorTender.exe" (assuming the C:\Tillmast folder is the install folder for the POSPortal) in the User Exit field to tell the POS to open this application for the tender. In our example with the AMEX tender, we have left this field blank, since we do not need to run an application when the tender is used.

When you have finished entering the details for the AMEX tender type, press the Save button to commit the new tender type to the database. Each terminal in the Site will be updated to use the new payment method.

In the next section of this tutorial, we will discuss file maintenance. By clicking on the Edit Files link in the Maintenance section of the Point of Sale Menu, you will open the POS Promotion File Maintenance screen. This screen allows the user to create and edit promotional messages to be printed on the receipts from the point of sale.

There are nine promotion files available for you to edit and each can be customised to the requirements of each Site. Select the Site that you wish to edit files for, and select a promotion File to be edited. The Enabled drop-down allows you to disable a promotion message without having to delete it, meaning that you can easily re-enable it at a later date. The Help section of the File Maintenance screen outlines some formatting tags which may be useful when editing the file:

• <D> sets the line to be formatted with double height and width, meaning that the line will be bigger than a normal line when printed. This format applies to the entire line on the docket.

• <H> sets the line to be formatted with double height, meaning that the line will be stretched in the vertical direction when printed. This format applies to the entire line on the docket.

• <W> sets the line to be formatted with double width, meaning that the line will be stretched in the horizontal direction when printed. This format applies to the entire line on the docket.

• <C> centres the line of text on the docket. This format applies to the entire line on the docket.

• <E> inserts an expiry date according to the settings at the point of sale terminal. This is a useful function for fuel dockets and other promotions that expire.

• <BR> inserts a new line in the docket. Although the text is automatically wrapped to the next line, sometimes it may be necessary to insert a line break at a specific point in the file.

The File Contents section is where you can edit the file details. Anything that is written here will be printed on the receipt from the terminals at the Site, formatted by the tags listed in the Help section of the screen. The Clear button can be used to delete any text in the File Contents section, and the Update button is used to save any changes made to the file. When the File Contents are saved, the files are sent to the terminals at the selected Site, updating their receipt docket details.

The Edit Ini File link in the Maintenance section of the Point of Sale Menu opens the POS Terminal Ini File Maintenance screen. An ini file is a Windows configuration file, and the point of sale terminals each use ini files to configure their options. Each ini file performs a specific configuration function for the terminal that relate to sets of options that the terminal can have, such as display options, discount options or debtor options, for example. Being able to adjust the ini file configuration settings in the Portal allows a user with appropriate access to configure the terminals at a site remotely.

Select the Site that you wish to edit the terminal configuration settings for. If you wish to edit a specific Terminal setup, select it from the drop-down list. Alternatively, you can opt to Update All Terminals by ticking the provided checkbox, meaning that all POS terminals at the site will be updated to the new configuration settings. Ini files for the POSPortal terminals are located in one of two directories, either the Windows (C:\Windows typically) or Data (usually C:\Tillmast\Data) directories. To search for the ini file that you wish to edit, select the Directory that it is stored in and then use the File drop-down list to select the ini file. Ini files contain sections of configuration settings which are denoted in the file by square brackets [ ]. Select the Section of the ini file that you wish to edit.

Once the directory, file and section have been selected, the grid is updated to display the current configuration settings in the section of the ini file selected. Options contain Name / Value pairs, meaning that the Name is the key that the POSPortal looks for and the Value is the setting that is applied. Only Values can be edited, after all if we edited a Name of an option the POSPortal would be unable to find the Value associated with it. An optional Description column is available that will provide further information on what an option is used for. The Description can also be edited and should be used to remind the user how to adjust the settings for an option as needed.

There are three buttons in the POS Terminal Ini File Maintenance screen that perform the following functions:

• Copy, used to copy selected options to the other terminals in the Site. This can be used if you forget to tick the Update All Terminals checkbox to copy the settings to the other terminals after the details have been saved.

• Update, saves the current configuration settings to the ini file and sends the updated file to the POSPortal terminal.

• Delete, removes a selected setting from the ini file. When the POSPortal does not find a required setting, a default is created, so in effect the Delete button can be used to restore the configuration file to default settings.

In this tutorial we have investigated the maintenance of the Point of Sale terminals in the Portal. We have discussed how to create tenders to allow different payment methods to be used at the POS. Next we discovered how to create promotional messages on the receipts that are printed by the terminal. Finally we looked at how to configure a terminal's ini files in the POS Terminal Ini File Maintenance screen. These features allow a user with appropriate access to the Portal to configure a Site's POSPortal terminals remotely. In a future series of topics in this help system we will look more closely at the POSPortal, AMC Convergent IT's point of sale system.