Love it ... But how about an Hourly Report

[Granita]

I have been trying to find the right POS program for some time now. I run several Espresso Drive Thrus and I have spent much time forcing a Windows touch screen program to fit with the operation. The problem has always been no matter how I slice it; our old 40 department register (programmed to the hilt) was way faster (and preferred overwhelming by he employees during crunch times!) After many, many tries to restructure and make the touch screen menus faster, we came to the inescapable conclusion is physical keys will always be much faster than touch screens. Thus I started looking for keyboard only POS and stumbled upon DHPOS.

Like many I have to say I originally dismissed a DOS program, but, tinkering with computers since the IBM PC XT days, I downloaded it for nostalgia’s sake. Within about 20 minutes the trip down memory lane faded into WOW. I was impressed by its simple elegance. With a programmable keyboard and clever menu structure I finally found a POS system that can be faster than the old cash register.

I do though have one “But” and one “Wish”

The first “But” is reporting (this keeps me from implementing DHPOS immediately.) I make many staffing and operations hours by looking at the data hourly. Is there anyway of getting a total sales dollar by hour of day report? (I wouldn’t mind more slices, but I could live with just that) I have to believe many others would find this report helpful.

The wish to do with the Gift Cards system the forum says you are working on. I have multiple locations. I would dearly like the ability to share the gift card database between locations. It would not have to be real time. I would be very happy with a system that could synced just once a day (even if there is some manual component to syncing it). I do know this might be pushing it … but nothing is difficult for the man who doesn’t have to do it.

p.s. Although I am not currently using it I have still put $5 in an envelope and it is on its way … Thank you Dale

[FormicaFun]

Well,

Even though DHPOS doesn't yet support the gift card feature, I do have a thought for you. Many credit/debit processesors<sp?> offer a gift card service. Where you buy the cards (even custom designed) and just use your existing equipment to process them. That way you can sell the gift card here, and have someone redeem it there.

-Ry )

[Dale Harris]

Granita,

In my key shop I also track sales by hour by using the simple expedient of taking a sales reading every hour and writing it down on a printed grid. This takes about 2 seconds to do and has worked pretty well over the last 30+ years no matter what register I have used.

I am working on a gift card feature but on the register only mode there would be no way to reconcile gift cards between different stores. There will also be a option to do gift cards through X-Charge and that will always keep track of the balance on each gift card no matter how many stores are involved.

[ChrisKraus]

If possible, You could post that spreadsheet for people to use.

[Granita]

One of the reasons I went to computers was my manual data systems were not as reliable as I would have liked. In particular the data is most valuable for those hours that are busiest, and that is, of course when the data is the most suspect. At peak times we can be doing 45 transactions an hour, which makes it very difficult to do things manually even when properly staffed.

All of the data I need is on the journal file, essentially in the wrong format. My BASIC programming skills are very, very rusty (13+ years since I wrote anything and I wasn't exactly a super programmer either) but it seems writing a program to do this would not be hard. Perhaps somebody is willing to give me some help or guidance.

[peachey13]

have a look at the file format page Found Here