New version 6.15 of POS released.

Dale Harris · Post by **Dale Harris** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:49 pm

<center>Download link

http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm</center>

Below is the new feature in POS version 6.15

"Z" readings
A "Z" reading is a tally of your sales from the first sale ever rung up on the register when it was just taken out of the box. It cannot be reset. They are usually used in malls to keep track of the sales of their cart and kiosk vendors.

The point of this is that the mall can take a "Z" reading from each of the cart registers once a week, or once a month. Then they subtract the previous "Z" reading and they will then know what the cart sold in the time period without having to worry about how many times the daily sales were reset.

The "Z" reading works like an odometer. When it reaches its maximum it will "turn over" to zero. For the POS program the maximum is 999999999999.99 and if you add 10¢ to that you will get 000000000000.09. Got the concept? It is not likely that you are going to reach 999999999999.99 in sales too often and this point will probably not come up in your lifetime.

The "Z" reading is displayed in the upper left corner of the "Close" screen of the POS.EXE program only if the display of the "Z" reading has been turned on. You turn it on using the "Sales history - "Z" reading" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program. The POS program will update of the value of the "Z" reading even if the "Z" reading is not displayed.

When the "Z" reading is displayed on the screen and if your register prints receipts, you can print out the "Z" reading by pressing [F1].

So what if a user has two (or more) register files on his computer. They could be identical except for the file name. On the first half of the month the user could use one of the files and on the second half of the month the user could use the other file. Since they look and work the same the mall would have no idea that different files were being used at different times of the month. When the mall takes the "Z" reading only the sales from the register file currently being used would be included. The sales from the other register file would not be in the "Z" reading that was just taken by the mall. The mall is being cheated.

To prevent this from occurring all register files on the same computer use the same "Z" reading. This means that all register files, in any folder, on any drive, on the same computer will share the same "Z" reading. If you have register files for "JEWELER" and "KEYSHOP" on the same computer then a sale rung using the JEWELER register file will increase the "Z" reading for both the JEWELER and the KEYSHOP registers. So it would make no difference how many register files the user used to ring up sales for the month, the "Z" reading would be increased on every sale.

The downside of this is that if you do use the "Z" reading then once a computer becomes an actual register in a real store you cannot use the other register files to "play" with or for other vendors, or for other purposes. However if you do not use the "Z" reading (meaning that you do not keep track of it, the register always keeps track of it) then this will not apply.

Remember that if you turn the display of the "Z" reading off, the register file will still update the "Z" reading on every transaction, only the display of the "Z" reading has been turned off.

Deleting and reinstalling the POS software on a computer will not affect the current "Z" reading. Wiping the hard drive and then reinstalling the operating system and POS software will reset the "Z" reading to zero. Replacing the computer with a new one will reset the "Z" reading to zero even if the current POS files are copied to the new computer. Resetting the "Z" reading to zero will cause the mall to ask you some interesting questions, you would probably want their representative to be there when you do it.

ChrisKraus · Post by **ChrisKraus** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 2:28 pm

So Where Is The Z-Sales Value Stored Then? I am guessing the system registry from your descriptions.

- Chris

smckane · Post by **smckane** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 3:10 pm

Something tells me that that questions will not get a straight forward reply - if you know where the value is stored then you can alter it. Hence, with the Z-Read location, I don't think Dale will be terribly forthcoming :-)

I may be wrong though

Stewart

Post by **Andrew** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 3:33 pm

.o0( sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing... )

bazza · Post by **bazza** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 5:29 pm

to confirm,

i have fully tested the Z value and it works successfully with multiple POS files, even on multiple drives.

I tested it with 4 POS files namely:
C:\POS\POS1.POS
C:\POS\POS2.POS
D:\POS\POS3.POS
D:\POS\POS4.POS

They all reflected the same Z value.

Dale, although I haven't tried this, if someone has networking activated, can there be a global Z value for all computers, for the registers on the network?

Dale Harris · Post by **Dale Harris** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:20 pm

Chris,

The whole point of the "Z" reading is that it cannot be changed. Therefore it would not be productive to tell anyone how it is stored.

Bazza,

There is no network total "Z" reading, it is for each computer. Remember this is for a tiny business that is being hosted by a mall. If you are large enough to have networked computers then the mall will have other ways to varify your sales or you may be paying a flat rate rent rather than percentage of your sales. If you are not in a hosted enviroment then you would not be using the "Z" reading at all. The only person you could be cheating would be yourself. One other point is if you had the GLOBAL folder on the same computer as a LOCAL register folder then they would both share the same "Z" reading.

ChrisKraus · Post by **ChrisKraus** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 2:44 pm

Dale Harris wrote:Chris,

The whole point of the "Z" reading is that it cannot be changed. Therefore it would not be productive to tell anyone how it is stored.

Bazza,

There is no network total "Z" reading, it is for each computer. Remember this is for a tiny business that is being hosted by a mall. If you are large enough to have networked computers then the mall will have other ways to varify your sales or you may be paying a flat rate rent rather than percentage of your sales. If you are not in a hosted enviroment then you would not be using the "Z" reading at all. The only person you could be cheating would be yourself. One other point is if you had the GLOBAL folder on the same computer as a LOCAL register folder then they would both share the same "Z" reading.

<HR>
No, I am wondering WHERE it is stored, not how it is stored. In the .POS file? The .TBL file? The .XYZ file? This wouldn't be enough information to help someone break in to the Z Reading.

- Chris

Dale Harris · Post by **Dale Harris** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 2:48 pm

Chris,

Sorry, no hints.

Dale

anabus_maximus · Post by **anabus_maximus** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 12:42 pm

why do you even want to find it

ChrisKraus · Post by **ChrisKraus** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 3:04 pm

anabus_maximus wrote:why do you even want to find it

<HR>
I don't want a software program putting things that I don't know about in places that I don't know about.

- Chris

Dale Harris · Post by **Dale Harris** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 7:45 pm

Chris,

Do you use Excel? When you installed Excel do you know everysingle change it made to your computer?

I can assure you that the "Z" reading in no way modifies any DOS or Windows system files.

Dale

Post by **Andrew** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:21 pm

ChrisKraus wrote:I don't want a software program putting things that I don't know about in places that I don't know about.

Yet I assume you use Windows and Microsoft software and know where it puts everything.

Chris, if the location of such crucial information as the z reading was revealed it could allow unscrupulous persons to try and access it and alter or remove it. This is the exact same reason why the DHPOS code is not available as a whole - as it would allow persons access to the passwords, totals etc...

Just accept that the z reading is simply a value stored somewhere on the computer and stop being so darn paranoid.

peewee3ie · Post by **peewee3ie** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:55 pm

ChrisKraus

If you need to know where the z total is. Then I think you should not use Dale's POS Software.

do you know every time you turn on and off you computer or start a program and close it, it writes a log file in different places on your computer?

DHES

New version 6.15 of POS released.

update on Z value

Z reading

Re: Z reading

It is somewhere

Do you know?

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