If you save the information on disk, then at the end of a sale when you are asked for this information you may search the file for it instead of entering it.

Press [F1] to begin a "whole field" search from the beginning of the file. In a "whole field" search both terms must match exactly. Search for "DAVE" and only "DAVE" can be found, "DAVE ADAMS" or "DAVE SMITH" will not be a match.

Press [F3] to begin a "partial field" search from the beginning of the file. In a "partial field" match any match will do. Search for "FORD" and "HARRISON FORD", "ROCKFORD", or "FORD TRUCKS" will all match.

Press [F5] to continue the current search from the present location in the file, ie. if the first "FORD" you find is not the one you are looking for press [F5] to find the next one.

Phone mask
A phone mask allows you to format the appearance of the phone numbers in the POS program. If you do not enter a phone mask then all your phone numbers will be displayed like 1234567890

To go to the phone mask entry screen when in the "customer info" feature press [F8].

In the box at the bottom of the screen you may enter any text you wish as a "phone mask". When displaying a phone number the program will replace any "#" in your phone mask with the digits in a phone number. For example, if your mask is (###) ###-#### ex. ##### and the phone number is 1234567890 then the phone number will be displayed as (123) 456-7890 ex.

Phone digits are filled into the "#"s from the left, you do not have to have a digit for each "#". If you have more "#" than there are digits in the phone number then the remaining "#" will be replaced with spaces. If you later change your phone mask to ##-###### (##) then the same number will be displayed as 12-345678 (90). The phone mask is stored separately from the phone digits, changing the mask will not change the actual digits, only the way they are formatted.

When you enter a phone number the maximum number of digits is limited to the number of "#"s in your mask. The maximum allowable "#"s in a mask is 16."

Managing your customer database.
Taking information from your customers and putting it into a database, along with sales information for each customer, is mostly useless if you cannot do anything with it. To access your database you must use the "Customer info" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program. This feature not only lets you set up the customer database but by pressing [F4] while there it lets you access the database.

The information on all your customers is kept in a computer disk file the name of which ends with .CST. For example if your named your register MARTHA your customer file will be MARTHA.CST. This file is divided into "records" with each record being the information on one customer. Each customer record is further divided into "fields" with each field containing a particular piece of information on that customer.

Listed below are the fields for each customer....

                       OPTIONAL FIELDS
          ID number: You may give a customer an ID number.
       Company name: Name of company.
      Customer name: Customers name.
     Street Address: Number and street name.
       City Address: City, state, number code, etc.
    Phone number #1: Home phone number?
    Phone number #2: Work phone number? Cell phone?
             E-mail: Online email address.
     Tax Exempt ID#: If customer is exempt from sales taxes.

                        REQUIRED FIELDS
    First sale date: Date of first sale made by customer.
     Last sale date: Date of last sale made by customer.
   Last sale amount: Money amount of last sale.
 Total sales trans.: Number of sales by customer.
 Total sales amount: Total money amount of all sales.
   Last refund date: Date of last refund made by customer.
 Last refund amount: Money amount of last refund.
Total refund trans.: Number of refunds by customer.
Total refund amount: Total money amount of all refunds.
        Sales since: Total money of sales since a date.
      Refunds since: Total money of refunds since a date.
     Check approval: Is customer allowed to write checks?
    Credit approval: Is customer allowed to charge items?
     Current status: Is this customer record current?
   Selection status: Is this customer record selected.

You choose which optional fields you wish to use to take customer information. The sales person must enter this information at the end of a sale.

All required field information is kept on every customer and the program updates this information at the end of each sale except for the last four fields.

When you first enter the customer database feature you will be at the main menu. While there you may use the up and down arrow and page keys to scroll and page through the database or [HOME] and [END] to go to the beginning or end of the file. On the top left of the screen will be 15 customer records shown by one of the "optional" fields. By pressing the left or right arrow keys you may change which field is displayed. One of the records will be highlighted. This is the current record. On the right half of the screen will be displayed all of the information of the current record, all 24 fields.

While at the main menu you may make some changes in the currently displayed customer record...

[F5] Will allow / disallow the acceptance of checks for that customer.
[F6] Will allow / disallow the acceptance of credit.
[F7] Will delete / undelete the customer record.
[F8] Will select / unselect the customer record.
NOTE: A deleted customer cannot be selected. If you delete a current customer he will be unselected. If you delete a customer's record nothing will actually happen to it until you later "remove" these deleted files. However you may not select a deleted file. Think of it as being in the recycle bin but the bin has not been emptied.

NOTE: If you disallow a customer from using either a check or credit for a purchase then when that customer makes a purchase the disallowed tender will not be a payment option at the end of the sale.

NOTE: You select files in order to later do something with them like export them, print them, etc.

Also while at the main menu you may choose to perform 6 tasks.

1. ADD / FIND / EDIT / DISPLAY SALES
From the main menu press [1] for this task.

FIND
To find a particular customer record press the up or down arrow key to chose one of the optional fields you wish to search for. Once you have chosen the field, type in the data you wish to search for. For example if you wish to find a customer named "Bart" press the up or down arrow key until the "Customer name" field is displayed and then type BART into the text box.

If you now press [F1] you will search from the beginning of the database until you find a customer who's entire name is BART. You will not be able to find a customer who's first name is BART and also has a last name listed, or has BART as part of his name like DILBART. This is called an "exact match search". Also note that in an "exact match search" that the number of spaces between words count. DALE HARRIS separated by one space will not match DALE HARRIS separated by two spaces.

If, however, you press [F3] to start a search you will be doing an "any match search" in which any occurence of BART in the target field will be considered a match. Spaces still count.

Searches for phone numbers are different. All phone numbers searches are "any match searches" and the position of the digits counts. For example if you enter 423 at the left of the text box then only phone numbers that begin with 423 will match, if 423 is in the customer's phone number in any other position it will not match.. If you enter only a 7 in the 4th position then all phone numbers with a 7 in the 4th position will match, if a customer's phone number has a different number in the 4th position it will not match even if it has a 7 in a different position.

If the program finds a match but it is not the match you are looking for (the wrong BART) then press [1] to continue the search. Press [2] if it is the correct match or 3 to cancel the search.

EDIT
Once you have found the correct customer record you may edit it if you wish to. After editing you must press [TAB] to save the changes or [ESC] to cancel the changes.

ADD
This option allows you to add new customers to the database without having to ring them up onto a sale. After typing in the customer information press [TAB] to add them into the database and then you will be able to type in the information for another customer. Press [ESC] to quit.

DISPLAY SALES
Once you have found the correct customer record you may display every sale or refund ever made by that customer that is still in the .SLS file.

2. SELECT / UNSELECT FILES
When you choose this feature you will have three options. You may select all of the records in the file (except deleted records), you may unselect all of the records in the file, or you may scan the file.

SCAN
The basic concept of a scan is the you set up the criteria for a scan and then the program looks through all of the records and selects (or unselects) every record that matches that criteria.

For something simple, like looking for every customer that purchased more than 1000.00 worth of stuff, it is that easy. But if you then want to eliminate all of those customers who had more than 100.00 in refunds and don't have a 312 area code it can get more complicated.

First you have to decide which records you want to scan. Your choices are all of the records, only those records that have been previously selected, or all records that have not been selected yet. Press [F9] to toggle through the choices. Remember that deleted records are never scanned.

Do you want to do something if the criteria matches a field or doesn't match? For example lets say that you want to select all of the customers that DO NOT live in Chicago. Well you could do multiple scans to select every city that is not Chicago or press [F3] to change "Do if it matches" to "Do if it doesn't match".

Next decide what you want to do when you find a match (or no match). Your options are to selected it or to unselect it if it has already been selected. Press [F8] to toggle your choice.

Why would you want to unselect something that you already selected? Lets use the example above. You have already scanned once and have selected all those records where the customer lives in the 312 area code. Now you must eliminate all those customers that have not purchased more than 1000.00 worth of stuff. So enter "999.99 or less" and unselect all of the matches.

You may only search one field at each pass through the customer file. So if you wish to make a complicated search like "Area code 708, but not Schaumburg, and only those with total purchases over 5000.00 but in less than 75 transactions" you can do this but it will take four scans to do it.

What you search for depends on which fields you are searching. If you are searching one of the optional fields then the search works just like when you are searching for a particular customer only you will find all of the matching records instead of just the next one. To switch between an "exact" match or an "any" match press [F1]. Phone number scans also work the same way and all phone searches are "any."

There are three types of searches when scanning the "required" fields. To search for a date you must enter a year AND a month AND a day. For example 2002 09 18 you cannot enter just a year. If you want to search from the beginning of a year then enter 2002 01 01. You may search for a particular day by chosing "Equal to" or press [F1] to choose "Equal to or before" or Equal to or after".

There are three types of searches when scanning the "required" fields.

To search for a date you must enter a date into the text box. You may enter a year only, or a year and month only, or a year, month and day. If you enter a month you must also enter a year and if you enter a day then you must also enter a month and year. You may search for a particular date by chosing "Equal to" or press [F1] to choose "Equal to or before" or Equal to or after". If you enter only a year and search by "Equal to" then all dates in the file with that year will match. If you enter a year and a month then the month must match too.

To search for an amount, either a money amount or a transaction count, enter the value and press [F1] to toggle through "Equal to", "Equal to or less" or Equal to or more". A special note on refunds. - 50.00 is less than -25.00 however when searching for money amounts "less than" means closer to 0.00. Therefore if you are searching for refunds "Equal to or less" than -100.00 that will mean everything from 0.00 to - 100.00.

The last type of match is an approval match. For check or credit approval you can match either "OK" or "DO NOT ACCEPT"

3. EXPORT FILES
You may export customer information to either your printer or to a file that can then be loaded into either you word processing, data base, or spread sheet software.

First you must select which fields you wish to export and the order you wish to export them. When you enter the "export" function there will be a column in the middle of the screen with a small box in it that you can move up and down by pressing the arrow keys. Move the box to the first field you wish to export and press the [SPACEBAR], a "1" will be placed there. Now move to the second field you wish to export and press the [SPACEBAR] to print a "2". As you can guess the order the numbers appear is the order the fields will be exported. You may press [F1] to erase the numbers to start over.

Now you must choose which records you wish to export. Press [TAB] to toggle between only selected records, only unselected records, or all records. (Remember that deleted records cannot be exported.)

Press [F5] to set up to export your records as text. Text may be sent to either your printer or a disk file. If you choose to print you may print each record (all chosen fields) on one line like this...

If you choose to send you text to a disk file then each record will always print on one line. Text disk files can be loaded into any word processing program.

NOTE: If you print one record per line then yout printer must use a fixed width font like Courier to have your columns line up properly.

Press [F6] to set up to export your records as data files. Data may only be sent to a data file. Each record will be sent to one data line like this...

with a comma between each field. Quotes (") will be replaced in your text with apostrophies ('). Data files may be loaded into any data base or spread sheet program.

Press [F7] to see a sample of your out put on the screen or press [F8] to begin exporting.

4. REMOVE DELETED RECORDS
When you delete a cutomer record it is marked as deleted and nothing else happens to it (except it will be unselected if it is already selected.) It is still there taking up disk space and you may undelete it if you wish. This function will actually get rid of the deleted records and free up disk space on your hard drive.

To do this it will copy your entire customer data file without copying the deleted records, then kill your original file, then rename the new file back to the original file name. This will require almost as much free disk space as your original file. If your original customer file is 15 megabytes long then you must have 15 megabytes of free disk space to use this function. When the process is over the additional needed disk space will be returned to free disk space.

Once a customer record has been removed it is permantly gone, there is no "undo".

5. SALES SINCE.
You give this feature a date in the past and it will find the total sales and refunds since that date for either one customer or all customers. For example, if you have 5 years worth of sales totals for your customer but you want to find out how much a customer has spent in the last 6 months, this feature will do that.

6. FIND NEXT...
You may use this feature to step though you customer database to find those customers who can or cannot use checks or credit, are selected or unselected or current or deleted. The search starts from your present location in the customer database.

For example you can use this feature if it is your job to call those customers who cannot write check in your store, or look at only the deleted record to make sure that they are supposed to be deleted.

Date format
You may choose to display dates in the following formats. All below are the same date.

If you enter some text in the box the bottom of the screen receipts will have a "You saved" line but using the text you typed in. This line will appear just below the list of items you sold and will post the total of all reductions (not discounts.)

Employee Setup
On the first screen of "Employee Setup" you may choose to track sales by employee, or not. If you choose to track sales by employee you may choose to allow PIN numbers, track employee tips, and to allow a sales person to enter new employees or delete old ones from the employee list without a password. If you choose to require a password you may create the password.

On the second "Employee Setup" screen you may enter the names of each employee.

WARNING!!! If you choose to track sales by employee you MUST have at least one employee name in the file or you will not be able to ring a sale.

PIN numbers may not be entered using the POSCONFG.EXE program. However you may delete any existing PIN numbers. To delete a PIN, when the name is highlighted press [TAB] and the asterisk [*] by his name will be erased this means that that employee's PIN has also been erased.

If you allow employee tracking the in the POS program an employee must choose her position in the employee list (employee #5 for example) before she may enter certain functions on the POS program such as PURCHASE, RETURN, NO SALE, etc. If PIN numbers have also been allowed then instead of entering her position in the employee list she must enter her PIN number. When PIN numbers are allowed almost every function will require a PIN number before it can be accessed.

One of those functions is opening the register. Since PINs are authorized using the POSCONFG.EXE program but are entered using the POS program this means that you should not be able to open the POS program when you first allow PINs because no PINs have been entered. To avoid this problem you may open the register when PINs have been allowed without entering a PIN if no PINs exist. However if even one employee has a PIN number then that PIN must be entered to open the register.

If an employee is fired, quits, or forgets his PIN number you may use the POSCONFG.EXE program to erase it. There is NO WAY to look up a PIN number. PIN numbers are never printed on the screen when typed. Only the person who typed in the original PIN number will ever know what it is.

If you choose to track employee tips the register will prompt you for the amount of the tip at the end of each sale. When starting a sale you must use the employee number of the employee receiving the tip not the employee who is actually ringing the register. You want the person who waited on the customer to receive credit for the sale and the tip, not the cashier. If you print sales checks and track tips there will be a line on the sales check for the customer to write in the amount of the tip. If you track tips the amount of each employee's tips will be printed on the closing receipt. (See "Sales Check" under "Printer Setup")

This program does not know your employees, it only knows that some sales were rung by employee #1 and her name is Amy. If Amy leaves your employ and is replaced by Barb, and you make Barb employee #1 then any sales recorded by Amy will now be credited to Barb. Do not re-use employee slots for new employees until after the next time you reset the merchandise file.

Go to after sale.
You may use this feature to determine where you go after a purchase, return, or payout has been completed.

You may choose to go to the main menu. From there you may then choose which feature of the program you wish to use next.

You may also choose to go to the start of the next purchase. However if you choose this option it will bypass asking for the sales person to enter an employee number (it will use the same employee number as the last sale) or PIN number even if that has been enabled. If the register is not used long enough for the screen saver to kick in, and the current sale has nothing yet rung up, then when you press a key to turn off the screen saver you will be returned to the main menu.

If you choose the "next sale" option then when you finish a return or a payout you will also go to the next purchase. It is assumed that you will have many more sales than returns or payouts during a day. From all other features (no sale, void, reports, etc. you will always return to the main menu.

To return to the main menu from a purchase you must void out the current sale.

Inventory
(To use "Inventory" you must be keeping track of your inventory in the stock table.)

(When using the "Reports" feature from the POS.EXE program you can make an inventory report. To also print the value of your inventory you must choose here to print either a "cost" value for your inventory (what you paid for your merchandise) or a "sell" value (what you will receive when you sell your merchandise.))

This function will actually run another program that will allow you to enter your mid-year or year-end inventory into a file. From the POS program you may then use "File maintance" to load this file. When an inventory file is loaded your current inventory will be erased from your stock table and replaced with the inventory in the inventory file.

To use this program a copy of your stock table must be in the same directory as this program even though the stock table will not be changed until the resulting file is loaded by the POS program. The inventory program uses the stock table only to verify that the correct stock numbers and descriptions are being used by the inventory program.

The inventory program does not have to be run on the same computer as the cash register program is on. The inventory program will copy the inventory file to a floppy disk and the POS program will read the inventory file from the floppy.

You do not have to enter the items into the inventory program in any order nor do you have to group all of the same items together. For example if you enter 12 of item number 555 and then enter fifty other items, and then add 7 more 555's, and then sixty-two other items, and then 4 more 555's, the program will know that you entered 23, 555's.

(See Organizing your inventory)