Trying out POS on Network - Problem?

[RollerBall]

OK, I've now got round to getting the old network bit going. I've got 2 XP PCs running, one with a wireless connection and the other hard wired. I've got POS installed in C:\DHPOS on both and a global install at C:\GLOBAL\DHPOS on just one. After twigging that when you set the server path in the 'working' registers you call that 'LOCAL' and only when you run POSCONFG.EXE in the GLOBAL folder you call that 'GLOBAL' everything went tickety-boo.

So I start up each register and put a cash fund of 100.00 in each. I do a sale in one of 49.95 (inc tax, but forget tax because that all works really well - great job Dale) and a sale in the other of 14.50. The I close each register. Reg A tells me it's got cash of 114.50 and Reg B cash of 149.95.

The I run POS in the GLOBAL. I don't have to input anything because it already knows - it tells me it's got cash of £64.45 ie 49.95 + 14.50 but less the opening 100's.

Is that right? Have I set something up incorrectly?

[FormicaFun]

Sounds right to me.

[RollerBall]

Does it?

It's Day 2

I open Reg A with a cash find of 50.00 and Reg B with a cash fund of the same amount.

On Reg A I do a sale of 79.95 paid for by Debit Card. When I close the register it says it contains cash of 50.00 and a debit card slip for 79.95

On Reg B I do a cash sale for 79.95 (inc tax) and then I decide to remove 80.00 in cash from the register for some reason.

Then I close it and it says that it contains cash of 19.95.

OK so far - but you can see where this is going.....

Then I run my global POS to close the store for the day. It says I have a debit card slip for 79.95 and cash in the register of -30.05.

Mathematically correct after adjustment, but does it make sense? By Globally ignoring the opening cash funds I have to keep a manual record of what's happening where, don't I? I'd rather that the totals I see everywhere are what I get if I grab em in my hands, not what I get after doing my sums in the back room...

[Andrew]

I don't think this is a bug, but hopefully Dale can clear that up - in my thinking...

When you close the tills (local POS) they indicate the cash fund, which would print on the closing receipt, and be filed in the journal. This figure is individual to each till of course.

When you close the global POS - it does not ring up sales - hence does not have a cash fund, and as you have the cash fund per till on those receipts, I assume this is not sent to the global copy of POS as a total figure.

You should be ensuring that the cash fund (float) is correct in each individual till, by having one single float amount on the global POS would not tell you how much and from which tills contributed to that total amount - that comes from those crucial closing receipts and/or journal.

Remember - DHPOS is not an accounting package

[Dale Harris]

Andrew is correct. The "open cash fund" is a LOCAL figure and not saved in the GLOBAL folder. Since the GLOBAL register will not ring up sales there is no reason to balance the GLOBAL register at the end of the day.

Each individual LOCAL register must be balanced.

[RollerBall]

OK, the Global register doesn't ring up sales ...... but it still shows a total of what is actually in each local register at the end of the day. That's for cheques (sorry...checks ), credit card slips and debit card slips. So why not cash as well to be consistent? Why should cash be any different?

A -ve cash amount doesn't make a lot of sense to me when i know I've got a wad of cash in my hand that I've just accumulated when I tallied up the local registers.

Only my opinion..

[Andrew]

Yes but that wad of cash is mostly from your float is it not? So it was your cash to begin with, it does not count towards sales figures and hence does not tally on the global POS.

Floats need to be balanced on each individual till, not the server. Global sales figures are provided as a guide to your income for the day - floats do not count.

Also - you mentioned taking $80 from the till - I hope you used the payouts feature to account for that.

[RollerBall]

Payout system? Of course, otherwise the local closing report wouldn't be correct.

Here's a snippet of a message I dropped to Dale (slightly modified for context)

I don't know if this is what was intended, but I'd have thought the global figure should be inclusive. It'd make checking much easier - so long as each register's actual total agreed with its closing printout tab and the overall total that you got back in your hand agreed with the global printout tab, you'd know everything was fine, you wouldn't need to check any further and cash management would be a sinch.

Floats aren't to do with sales, but they're still cash so you have to account for em (OK, we know that POS isn't an accounting package....) because they've been out of your hands and in effect entrusted to your employees.

As the global cash figure bears no relationship to what's actually in the local tills and to check if the numbers reconcile I've got to add up all the local totals and then subtract the floats that I would have to have made a manual list of at the beginning of the day, which I'm not gonna do because of the work involved, I wouldn't have thought there's much point in showing a global cash figure at all really, is there?

I'm only asking because that's what I've been doing today, simulating using POS in a multi-register environment. I found the global closing cash figure weird and I would have thought other people would as well.

Added thought ..... OK I've overstated it a bit (you do don't you ) - I'd have to add the TOTAL of all the floats I allocated in the morning to the closing global total and see how that compares to the total wad of cash I've got in my hot little hand - but what I'm saying really is that POS might as well do that for me as it's adding up various entries anyway.

[peewee3ie]

i works form me. the way i do it could be wrong when i open the globle it ask me for cash flote and i put in the total of all tills. and at the end of the day it balance out.

here is how i would do it for a 2 till shop

Open globle and put in cash flote of 200.00

Open Till1 and put in cash flote of 100.00

Open Till2 and put in cash flote of 100.00

if i do a sale on till1 of 50.00

if also do a sale on till2 of 50.00

if i close till1 cash in till would read 150.00

if i close till2 cash in till would read 150.00

if both tills are closed and i close the globle it would read 300.00

so you can see that both tills add up.

[Andrew]

Tony, the global copy of DHPOS should not prompt you for a float, as it does not ring up sales. It's main menu should also appear with only 4 items on it: File Maintenance, Close Register, Reports, Associates.

If it doesn't - then that isn't running from the global POS folder, and if it is - it isn't set as the global register in POSCONFG.

[RollerBall]

That's right

Have to say, it still seems strange to me that as the Global figures are all just the Local ones added together the only exception is cash.....

[Dale Harris]

Since the GLOBAL register does not ring up any sales or control a cash drawer there is no point in the "CASH IN REG.", "CHECKS IN REG.", "CASH FUND" etc. being in the closing screen / receipt. In a perfect world these figures would all be zeros.

However to save all the closing information from each register to the global register requires only one line of code if you save everything. But if you want to pick and choose what information goes to the GLOBAL register that would take many more lines of code.

So the idea is to just ignore the balancing information on the global register and save some code space in POS.EXE

[RollerBall]

Hey - just a minute you two (trouble is probably not enough people use the network feature so they can't contribute to this discussion)

If what you are saying is right (ie the closing report of the Global register can be ignored) then WHY is there a Cash Fund entry in it. You don't enter it when you start the Global register as we know - so the only place it can come from is from the totals of the locals. See below what I mean (actual snippets of the closing reports)


CLOSING REPORT - REGISTER 1
=========================

SUB REG CASH: 49.95
CASH DROPS/PULLS: -80.00 1
+ CASH FUND: 50.00
CASH IN REG: 19.95
CHQUES IN REG: 0.00
CREDIT IN REG: 0.00 0
DEBIT IN REG: 0.00 0


CLOSING REPORT - REGISTER 2
=========================

SUB REG CASH: 0.00
CASH DROPS/PULLS: 0.00 0
+ CASH FUND: 50.00
CASH IN REG: 50.00
CHQUES IN REG: 0.00
CREDIT IN REG: 0.00 0
DEBIT IN REG: 79.95 0

CLOSING REPORT - REGISTER GLOBAL
===============================

CASH DROPS/PULLS: 0.00 1
+ CASH FUND: 0.00
CASH IN REG: -30.05
CHQUES IN REG: 0.00
CREDIT IN REG: 0.00 0
DEBIT IN REG: 79.95 0

My case rests. It was always intended for the Global report to have a total cash fund figure - but at present it's not going in.

Please (pretty please) can we have it the way it was originally intended.

Thank you Uncle Dale

[Dale Harris]

Rollerball,

Thank you for telling me what I originally intended when I wrote the network feature.

It is strange though that I remember it so differently. Weird.

[RollerBall]

My wife does it to me all the time Dale. She quotes words I'm supposed to have said 20 years ago in support of something she's arguing with me about now, so I'm quite used to it.

So I'll take that as a 'No' then. OK.