Payment Options
This register accepts four payment options, cash, checks, credit or debit. Your store may not. Use this feature to turn any of these payment options to YES or NO. If the option is set to NO the sales person will not be offered the choice of this payment option.

You may also turn the option of "multiple form of payment on the same sale" to YES or NO. If NO each sale must be paid in total by one payment option, i.e. she must pay in only cash OR check OR credit. If this option is set to YES then she may pay using cash AND check AND credit.

NOTE: "Debit" is actually a subdivision of the "credit" form of payment. This means that during a sale after selecting "Credit" as the payment method that you will then be asked if it is really "Credit" or "Debit." (Assuming that you will accept both.) On the closing screen "Credit" and "Debit" are listed under "Credit" with a single total but on the closing receipt or in "Reports", "Credit" and Debit." are reported separately. Since "Credit" and Debit" are actually the same payment method you cannot pay part of the sale using credit and part using debit.

Cash back
You may also allow "cash backs" in credit and / or debit payments. "Cash back" will be a line item in the closing screen and closing receipt. The "cash back" total on the closing screen and receipt is the total for both credit and debit cash backs.

STORE CREDIT
You can use gift cards for an "exchange" type of business. For example if your store allows customers to bring in old game cartridges for credit to use the credit to purchase new or additional used game cartridges, you can buy back the old game cartridges by putting the value that was credited to a gift card. Then the money can only be used in your store. Redeeming merchandise from a customer is handled as a "2. Return." NOTE: To use store credit for a new returnees you must have previously created some zero value cards to be kept by the register. Old returnees can use their current gift cards.

SELLING GIFT CARDS
Once you have set up gift cards you can sell them by going to a "Purchase" transaction and pressing [F10]. This will allow you to sell up to 30 gift cards in one transaction. Gift cards are not taxed and cannot be discounted or reduced.

When you sell a gift card you are not actually selling anything. A gift card is actually an interest free loan from your customer to you. If the card is lost or otherwise unredeemable then the gift card is a tax-free gift to you. (Not really, you still owe the money to the customer, he just has no way to ever collect it.) Therefore if after you sell a gift card and then check your sales on the closing screen you will notice that you have not sold anything in your net or gross sales. Your payment method sales will increase because the program has to account for money in the register but your actual sales will be unchanged. This also means that the "Z" reading for your register will also be unchanged. On the closing screen will be the total number of gift cards sold and their value.

(See Checks)

Gift cards
To sell gift cards, or use them to purchase merchandise, you must first allow gift cards to be used in your store by going to the "Payment options" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program. Once there you must set "Accept gift cards." to "YES". Just as important while you are in this feature you must also press [F1] to configure gift cards. You will have 3 options.

1. Do not sell gift cards.
2. Gift card number is typed, scanned, or swiped.
3. Randomly generated gift card numbers.
If you choose option 1 you will not be able to sell or use gift cards in your store. If you choose option 2 then to sell a gift card you must either type in the gift card number, scan the barcode on the gift card, or use a card reader to read the magnetic stripe on the gift card. These last two options would require that you have obtained actual gift cards to use in your store with either, or both, magnetic stripes or barcodes on them. Option 3 will generate a random number for each gift card however when you are asked to enter the value of the card you may press [ESC] to go back and type in a number. Gift card numbers must be at least 6 characters long and up to 20 characters.

There are three options you may choose to utilize...

"Allow payouts to cash out the gift cards." If this is set to "YES" and payouts are also set to "YES" (from the main POSCONFG.EXE program menu) then from the POS.EXE program you can choose option "2. Returns - Payouts" then from the sale screen press [F10]. You may now choose to return to the customer the remaining value (or partial value) of the gift card as any form of payment. Normally this feature is only used when gift cards are used as "Prepaid Accounts" to return unused value at the end of the season / year. NOTE: If you do not setup "Payout" stock numbers in the stock table then you will only be able to use "Payouts" to cashout gift cards.

"Allow zero value gift cards" If this is set to "YES" then you may create gift cards with a 0.00 initial value. This is used if you want to issue gift cards instead of cash when there is a return, make some up and keep them handy. It can also be used to pre-register "Pre-paid Accounts" Another use is to give store credit like in a game cartridge swap store.

"Allow money to be added to an existing gift card." This also should be allowed if you are using gift cards for "Pre-paid accounts." NOTE: You can always added value to a card on a "Return"

The next set of gift card options are...

1. Print a certificate to use as a gift card.
2. Do not print a certificate to use as a gift card.

If you have obtained actual gift cards to use in your store then you would not want to print out a certificate to use as a gift card. If you have no actual gift cards then you must print a certificate to use as a gift card. If you choose to print a certificate to use as a gift card you will be able to enter up to 10 lines of text to print on your gift card certificates, or the text will be printed on the receipt issued when the gift cards are purchased if certificates are not printed. This text may be used to explain any conditions on the use of the gift cards. While typing the text you may also use the up or down arrow keys to move to the labels GIFT CARD, NUMBER #, ADDED VALUE, and CURRENT VALUE,. If you type in new labels they will be used on certificates and receipts. In addition if you change the "GIFT CARD" label it will be used in many other parts of the program.

If you sell more than one gift card in a single transaction then a certificate to use as a gift card will print out for each gift card. You can sell up to 30 gift cards in a single transaction.

INCREDABLY IMPORTANT
The current value of each gift card is not kept in the card, it is kept in your computer. There is a master index file for all cards on your hard drive and also a file for each card. This means that if anything happens to these files, or your computer, that the value of all outstanding gift cards will revert to NOTHING! Your customers will be VERY unhappy! Backups of your gift card files are essential. When you close the register at night you must backup your gift card files. This will probably require a high volume storage device such as a CD or RAM drive. To backup your gift card files you must make a copy of the subfolder that has the same name as your register files. For example, if you named your register data files MYSTORE then in the folder you keep your POS program files there will be a sub folder named MYSTORE, this is the folder you must back up. If you are using this software over a network then the subfolder will be on the server drive only.

Since the card value of each card is stored in the register that sold it (or the store network) this also means that if you have two or more stores, that a gift card can only be used in the store that issued the card unless you have somehow networked together the computers in multiple stores. The program keeps a transaction file of each gift card. These files can be accessed through the "Reports" feature of the POS.EXE program. You select the gift card you want by entering the gift card ID and the report will display a list of every transaction made with that card.

GIFT CARD NUMBER 26512254844
BALANCE          79.31       

TRANS TYP    DATE       TIME       AMOUNT  BALANCE
2563A + CASH 08-24-2006 12:21:02   +50.00    50.00
1547C SALE   08-31-2006 16:12:15    -5.36    44.46
2837A SALE   09-01-2006 08:42:03     -.82    43.64
8517B SALE   09-01-2006 12:02:34    -6.87    36.77
1785C SALE   09-01-2006 15:52:41   -18.85    17.92
3011A SALE   09-02-2006 08:21:17    -8.25     9.67
8678C + CASH 09-02-2006 10:52:12   +75.00    84.67
3112A RETURN 09-02-2006 12:04:43     5.36    79.31

While this report will not tell you what was purchased with each transaction you can use the transaction number to go to the register that rang up the transaction and look up the details of the transaction either in the file of past transactions or the journal. This is assuming that you enabled those features.

When purchasing, you can use gift cards as a payment option (if you have allowed gift cards.) When paying by gift card you will be asked for the gift card number. You will not be allowed to enter an amount. The program will charge the remainder of the amount due to the gift card. So if you wish to charge only part of the sale to the gift card you must enter the other forms of payment first. If the gift card does not hold enough value to cover the sale the gift card will be cleared out and the value subtracted from the amount due. You will then be asked for an additional form of payment even if you have not allowed multiple forms of payments for a single sale. If you have zeroed out a gift card by tendering it for a sale and the amount on the gift card did not cover the total of the sale you can use up to two additional gift cards (3 total) to try to cover the amount of the sale.

VOIDING GIFT CARDS
If for some reason you have sold gift cards in error and completed the sale, you cannot void the transaction. The only way to void a gift card is to use "Payouts" to cash out the individual cards one at a time.

USER DEFINED
The sixth form of payment is "User defined." Some stores take "who knows what" as a form of payment, such as food stamps, EFT, etc. In the "Payment options" feature for the POSCONFG.EXE program you can use the up or down arrow keys to eventually get to the "USER DEFINE" label and change it to anything you want. The you can ring "who knows what" as the sixth payment option.

Payouts
This feature allows you to make cash payouts from your register to pay vendors, cash pay checks, petty cash, or other reasons.
To do this you must have the payment options you wish to use in your stock table, you may create any stock number or description you wish however the price must be set to 0.00, the tax rate set to rate #0, ie. 0.000% and the category must be set to 255. (It is also a good idea to label slot #255 in the category list "PAYOUTS".) For example you may have the following lines in your stock table...

STOCK NUMBER DESCRIPTION          PRICE  TAX   CAT
        9991 CASH PAY CHECK        0.00   0    255
        9992 RECEIVE C.O.D.        0.00   0    255
        9993 PETTY CASH            0.00   0    255
        9994 OTHER PAYOUT          0.00   0    255

You must also use the "Payout" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program to turn "Payouts" on.

If this feature is active, then when you choose to ring up a Return you will be asked to choose if it is a Return or Payout. Payouts will require a master or return password if those passwords have been set up for Returns.

Payout receipts should be signed by the person receiving the payment and should be kept by you as a record that the payout was received.

Payouts will subtract from your 'Cash in reg.' but not from you daily sales. Also if you make a merchandise report using the "Report" feature the payouts will not be added into the sales total at the bottom of the report because a payout is not a sale.

Only cash payouts may be made.

Pole displays
If the monitor on you computer cannot be seen by your customers you may want to connect a pole display to your register.

A pole display is a device that usually displays two lines of 20 characters and faces your customers so that they can see what is being rung up on the cash register. Pole displays are serial devices and plug into the serial port of your computer, this means that you must configure your serial port to the settings that your pole display needs to read the data from the port.

You will find the serial port settings for your pole display in the manual for your pole display or contact your pole display's manufacturer.

The first setting you will need is PORT, i.e. to which serial port you have attached your pole display. Serial ports are numbered COM1:, COM2:, etc. Other settings are SPEED or BAUD, DATA BITS, STOP BITS, and PARITY. These settings are entered into the "Pole display" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program.

To actually send the data to the serial port (and thus to your pole display) you must run the program POLE.EXE if your computer runs a version of Windows or you can use "direct access" if you computer runs DOS or Windows '98 or earlier. If you choose to use POLE.EXE it must be started before the POS.EXE program is started and must be left running while the POS.EXE program is running.

IMPORTANT: If you change the settings for your pole display using the POSCONFG.EXE program and POLE.EXE is currently running, you must exit and restart POLE.EXE for the new settings to be used.

IMPORTANT: If you set up the program to use "direct access" and the settings are incorrect or you do not have a pole display attached to the selected serial port the POS.EXE program will run extremely slowly or will lock up completely.

The settings for the pole display are shared by all register files that are in the same folder on the same computer.

NOTE: So far this feature has only been tested with the "Logic Controls" brand of pole displays but it will probably work with others also. The settings for Logic Controls pole displays are SPEED = 9600, DATA BITS = 8, STOP BITS = 1, PARITY = NONE

MONITOR POLE DISPLAY
If you do not have a pole display it may be possible to show the pole display output on a regular computer monitor. To be able to do this you must have a computer that can drive two separate monitors. Windows XP computers can do this and many laptop computers also have this ability even if they run a version of Windows earlier than XP. You can also use a second computer to show the pole display output as long as it is networked to the computer that is running the cash register software.

To actually show the pole display output on a monitor you must run a separate program file BIGPOLE.EXE. This program must be run from the same folder from which you are running the POS.EXE program (unless you are using two computers connected to a network to run POS.EXE on one computer and BIGPOLE.EXE on the second computer.) If you are running both programs from the same computer start BIGPOLE.EXE first. At the first screen, move the output to the second monitor, then continue. After the program description you will be offered 3 display options.

Option #1 displays in the largest font. However it cannot be displayed in a screen window and must be displayed using a full screen display. If you attempt to display 20 characters wide in a window the program will crash. This is why you must move the program display to the second monitor and begin using a full screen before it switches to 20 character mode. Even then the program may die when 20 character mode begins.

Option #2 will use a smaller font but can be displayed in either a window or full screen.

Both options 1 and 2 will act like a regular pole display and will only show the current pole display data.

Option #3 will use the same font as option #2 so it can be displayed in a window or full screen. However it will show the last 23 sets of pole display data that will scroll up from near the bottom of the screen. The bottom line of the screen will show a running total for the sub total, total tax, and total of the sale. The screen will clear at the beginning of the next sale.

After choosing the option you want you will be asked to enter a PATH. If you are using one computer, and both the POS.EXE and BIGPOLE.EXE programs are running from the same folder then leave the PATH blank. If you are using two computers over a network then you must enter the PATH from the computer running BIGPOLE.EXE to the computer and folder that is running the POS.EXE program.

There is an even new monitor option BIGPOLEQ that you can use on 7 inch monitors.

Printer Setup
The most important feature to enhance is the printer. If your register is not setup to use a printer then no receipts or reports can be printed from your register.

 YES  Print receipts on a printer.
PAGE  Print on a page printer or print continuously.
   0  Number of blank lines between receipts. (Continuous) 0 - 20
   0  Number of top margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
  60  Number of printed lines per page. (Page) 50 - 99
   0  Number of bottom margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
 YES  Use form feed at end of page. (Page)
  80  Print 40 or 80 characters wide.
   1  Print 1 or 2 receipts per transactions.
  NO  Print an extra receipt for credit sales.
 YES  Save journal info to a text file to print later.
 YES  Ask before printing sales receipt.
 YES  Ask before printing opening receipt.
  NO  Allow printing of sales checks.
  NO  Forced line feed.
 YES  Pause before printing second receipt.
  NO  Print blank line between items.
 YES  Print additional alternate transaction numbers.
  4   Number of digits in receipt transaction numbers.
 YES  On 40 character wide receipts remove stock numbers and tax. 
                    Printing Parameters

Dual Printers
Every POS system should also print reports. As a first option this program will print reports on the printer that is used to print receipts. However if you attach a second printer to your computer you can use the first printer to print receipts and the second printer to print reports. Normally the first printer would be a 40 character wide printer that prints on a roll of paper and the second printer would be an 80 character wide computer page printer that prints on sheets of paper.

You would have to attach each printer to a different port on your computer like, LPT1: / LPT2: or LPT1: / USB or two different USB ports. Theoretically you could use a serial port but serial printers are not recommended, will not work under Windows versions after '98, and may not work anyway.

To use the receipt printer as the report printer you need to do nothing other than set up the receipt printer using the parameter settings above.

To use a second printer to print reports from the main POS.EXE menu you must go to the "8. Reports" feature. From the "Reports" menu press [F5] and another print parameter screen will appear like this…

YES 	Print reports on a second printer.
PAGE	Print on a page printer or print continuously.
0	Number of blank lines between receipts. (Cont.) 0 - 20
0	Number of top margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
60	Number of printed lines per page. (Page) 50 - 99
0	Number of bottom margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
YES	Use form feed at end of page. (Page)
80	Print 40 or 80 characters wide.
NO	Forced line feed.

If "Print reports on a second printer." Is set to "NO" then reports will be printed on printer #1, the receipt printer. If "Print receipts on a printer." from the main print menu is also set to "NO" then neither receipts or reports will be printed.

If "Print reports on a second printer." Is set to "YES" and "Print receipts on a printer." from the main print menu is set to "NO" then receipts will not be printed but reports will be printed on printer #2.

For 2nd printer printing, from this screen, you will also have to select the printer port, set the cutter bar (if your printer has one) and program the printer error trap.

NOTE: If you set up a second printer it will be used to print all reports not just reports from the "Reports" feature. This includes time clock reports, printing out the stock table, etc. With a second printer set only receipts will print on printer #1.

Serial printers may work on computers running under DOS or Windows 3.1 to Windows '98. Windows 2000, ME, and NT do not generally support DOS programs that try to use the serial port. Serial printing has not been tested under Windows XP.

If you have Windows '95 or later you may now print through Windows using the Windows printer drivers. This means that any printer that Windows can print to, this program can also print to.

If your printer, like most printers, is connected to the regular parallel printer port you should have no problems.

Printer drivers
To run any printer, Windows requires that you load printer drivers for that printer. This includes printers that do not really require printer drivers like most receipt printers. Therefore what you must do for most receipt printers is to load the printer driver that comes with that printer or to load the "Generic" printer driver. Whatever printer driver you do load you must make it the Windows default driver.

To load the "Generic" printer driver for a receipt printer, from the Windows screen click on [Start] then [Settings] then [Printers]. Now click on [Add a printer] and continue until you get to a window that lists different printer manufacturers, on of the "manufacturers" will be "Generic", choose that one and click on [Next]. Now all you have to do is to follow the instructions on the screen. Just make sure that you make the "Generic" printer your default printer.

Generic printer driver problems
There are problems with using the generic printer driver. The generic printer driver is used when you must use the APRINT program to print and you do not have the printer driver for your specific printer. This will usually only occur if you are using the DOSBox software to run this program on 64 bit computers. Normally the best option for a printer attached to the parallel printer port is to send the print stream directly to the LPT1: port or to use the printer driver for your printer.
If you must use the generic printer driver it will only print 66 lines on the printer if in the "Printer setup" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program you set "Print on a page printer or print continuously." to "CONT." This means that if you print a receipt or report longer than 66 lines that only 66 lines will be printed. This also applies if you print 2 or more receipts, a maximum of 66 lines will be printed.
A partial but ugly solution is to use the following settings…

PAGE	Print on a page printer or print continuously.
0	Number of blank lines between receipts. (Cont.) 0 - 20
0	Number of top margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
60	Number of printed lines per page. (Page) 50 - 99
0	Number of bottom margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
YES	Use form feed at end of page. (Page)