Item Numbers, Tax-wise Sub-totals

[Narasimha Bhat]

I would like to request two new features in the receipt:

• 1. Print item numbers (instead of or in addition to stock numbers) in the
  left most column
  2. Provide sub-totals of amounts based on tax rates (right now POS has
  tax sub-totals, but not amount sub totals)

For Example (please pardon the indentation and use of word Code here):

Code: Select all

Item   Stock No.    Description          Qty    Rate     Tax  Amount

  1         12345       Toothpaste      2       4.0         T1     8.0  
  2         54321       Red Apples      1       2.0         T2     2.0
                                          Sub-total of T1 items  8.0
                                          Sub-total of T2 items  2.0
                                                           Total       10.0
                                           Tax T1 @ 10%     1.0
                                           Tax T2 @  0%      0.0
                                                           Tax total    1.0
                                                           Grand Total 11.0 

I'd be willing to provide programming help to put these in (Is POS open source?).

Regards,
Narasimha

[Andrew]

DHPOS isn't open source.

Also - your example receipt would only fit on 80 column wide receipts, for those with 40 column wide printers, the current receipt works great.

[FormicaFun]

I do like this idea, but what if we changed your format just slightly. Here's what I mean....

Code: Select all

   ITEM NUMBER DESCRIPTION               TAX   PIECES  UNIT PRICE     EXT.PRICE
           815 DOUGHNUTS                  T1    5    @      0.65 EA.       3.25
                                                          SUB TOTAL        3.25
                                  TAX1     0.65  @   7.500%        0.24
                                                          TOTAL TAX        0.24
                                                              TOTAL        3.49
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     DEBIT TENDERED        3.49
                                                         CHANGE DUE        0.00

Is this required by your local tax law?...or just something you'd like to see added? I do (yet again) agree with Andrew, in that this will only work on 80 collum printers, therefore will be a hard sell to get added in. I think the current receipts work fine. After all, is this something we need, does it serve the greater good? As much as we may hate to admit it...we are slowly running out of room in the programming for new features, therefore must become rather conservative in what we do add in. However, you input is greatly appreciated, and I look forward to hearing Dale's perspective in this.

[Narasimha Bhat]

Request #1 comes from a wholesale store owner.

The flow in his store is as follows (and this is typical of most wholesale stores in this part of India): Customer orders the items at the cashier and pays for them. The cashier passes on a copy of the receipt to the baggers who fetch the items from the storage racks and pack them up for the customer. There are a number of baggers who work in parallel for each customer. If the receipt had item numbers, it would help the baggers identify the items by its number (for example bagger 1 would work on items 1 to 4, bagger 2 on items 5 to 8, etc.). Finally, when the customer leaves the store, a person at the door checks that the number of items on the receipt match those in his pack. So, here again, the item numbers are required.

Could we make the item numbers occupy the stock number column? i.e, the User has a choice of using either stock number or item number in the first column (but not both) so that it fits in the 40 column wide receipt?
By the way, I'm able to print the 80 column wide receipt on a 6" wide paper, by changing the cpi settings on the printer.

Request #2 is for the convenience of implementing local laws. It meets the needs of the tax authorities, who would like to see sale proceeds categorized according to tax rates.

Just recently, India introduced VAT (value added tax) which has made it almost compulsory for businesses to switch to computerized billing from age-old manual (hand-written) billing. I'm helping a couple of business men with this, as a sort of community service activity. Believe me, this is very hard to do, since these business owners have hardly touched a computer before. I really like DHPOS, since it is so very easy to use.
If we could get requests#1 and #2 in, POS would most certainly meet the needs of most business owners here.

Regards,
Narasimha Bhat

[FormicaFun]

Narasimha,

Good luck with the conversion to the VAT system....I've never expierienced it first hand, but have heard from the folks in corperate accounting it can be a nightmare if you're not used to it. As far as both topics are concerned, it will ultimately come to Dale's opinion as to if/when this is added to DHPOS. I do know that currently the X-Charge project is top priority, but both items seem like simple enough requests.

The more I've thought about them, I really do like the tax subtotals idea alot. After all, the system already has to compute it, why not just output it while we're at it?

The cog in the wheels of the item number thought is how much "space" it will take up on each line. We would need to allow for all items in a transaction to be numbered, and the current limit is 100 items per transaction? True, three characters may not seem like alot, but if I'm not mistaken we already have 39 characters on the 40 column setup, and 79 on the 80 column setup in use...so that one might not be possible. However, as always, look for Dale's response....he'll give us both the full story.

-Ryan