Fischer
Point-Of-Sale System
FIPOS User
Documentation
September 15, 2007
SYSTEM OVERVIEW
FIPOS has been created by Fischer Scientific for the stores in
Saltaire and
OPERATOR OVERVIEW
FIPOS has been designed to be extremely easy to use for the average customer transaction. The touchscreen enters price and quantity information quickly and reliably, with a tactile feel and audible response to each touch. Cash transactions show the change to be given. House charges allow easy entry of the customer’s name and collection of signatures and PIN data. Credit and PIN based debit charges are supported for the major card carriers using the Heartland Payment Systems Internet Gateway. All transaction print a receipt.
ADMINISTRATION
OVERVIEW
FIPOS allows easy administrative access to produce activity reports, add inventory items, edit prices and taxes, etc. All administrative processes are password controlled, and the administrative password itself can be changed by an administrator.
OPERATOR QUICK START
If the program is not currently running, double-click the FIPOS icon on the touchscreen.
The data entry screen presents all of the functions needed to enter orders and accept payments.
To begin a new order, use the numeric keypad to enter the cost of the item being purchased. Do not use decimals: for an item costing $1.25 enter 1 2 5. Now choose what category the item belongs to: this is the upper right corner of the screen. Touch one of the colored buttons for
Touching a category will automatically enter the line into the order. The line item will appear in the grid, and the total will show.
If more than one item is being purchased, this is repeated until all the items are entered and appear in the grid.
If this is a cash transaction , to complete the order touch the CHECK OUT button. You are asked to enter the amount of cash tendered using the touchpad. As before, enter the amount tendered without any decimal point. Then touch ENTER. The change to be given will be shown on the screen, and the receipt will print. The order is now complete. The screen will be cleared automatically when a new order is started by entering numbers on the touchscreen. Alternately, the ‘New Order’ button can be touched, or the ‘Enter’ button can be touched. In each case the screen is cleared of the old order, and a new order is prepared.
If this is an In-House customer, you will first choose the PAYMENT TYPE: IN-HOUSE. This will bring up a keyboard to allow the customers name to be found. Enter the first few letters of the customer name in the touchscreen keyboard. All similar names will be displayed in the grid. Choose the correct name by touching the anywhere in the correct row. The name is then displayed just below the grid. If it is correct, touch NAME OK. This returns you to the main screen, with the customer’s name and address and customer ID presented in the textbox at the bottom of the screen. Now press CHECK OUT. The screen will prompt you if the customer requires a signature or PIN to complete the order. Have the customer sign within the area on the device, then have him press the OK button on his screen. Likewise have him enter his PIN and press the green ENTER button on the device. If the PIN matches, the order is complete and the receipt will print out. If the PIN does not match, you can force the customer to try again, or you can cancel the order, or you can ignore the error and complete the transaction.
If this is a direct charge or debit card transaction, just press CREDIT or DEBIT. Then press CheckOut. The system will request card information and perform the charge, which may take up to 30 seconds. A receipt will be printed if successful, and a message will display an error if one occurs. In the case of an error, the screen returns to the order unchanged. You may try a different card, switch to a cash transaction, or switch to an In-House transaction.
If a credit card does not swipe due to a bad strip, the data may be entered manually by pressing the Manual Entry button on the screen. Note this feature cannot be done in Debit situations.
For a debit card you must collect a signature and have the customer enter a PIN. Visa and MasterCard check cards (debit cards) can be run like a credit card transaction.
The card transaction is accomplished using the Internet connection. If the Inrtenet is down the system will switch to a telephone connection. This will take an extra 30 seconds and you will hear some dial tones come from the PC. Progress is shown on the screen.
To begin the next order, you may either touch the NEW ORDER button, or just start entering the price of the first item for the next customer.
MORE OPERATOR DETAILS
Pre-Priced items:
Pre-Price Item is a separate checkbox on the screen and must be touched during the data entry for any preprice item. It is best to touch PrePrice before entering the unit cost of the item.. PrePrice will automatically add a preset amount to the item cost.
PLU
To enter a PLU item, enter the PLU number then touch
An error beep is sounded if a PLU is entered but the ENTER button has not been pressed.
CREDITS
Any line item may be a credit for an item returned by the customer. Press the CREDIT checkbox, enter the cost of the item, then choose the Category of the item. This will enter the credit into the orded grid outlined in red to distinguish it from the others.
If a customer requests cash to be charged to his house account, first be sure to choose the House Account name, then enter the amount of cash being given, then touch Cash-Out as the category. The line will appear in the grid like all the others.
ABANDON LINE
This function will clear any information concerning the line currently being entered, and return the screen to where it is ready to accept a new line. No other order lines are affected. It is to be used only when it is easier to start a line over, rather than trying to change existing data.
HOLD / RECALL
An order may be held in temporary memory by pressing the HOLD button (upper right corner). The entire order is stored as-is, and a new order is started. New orders can be entered into the system, leaving the held order untouched. The saved order can be recalled only when there is a new order on the screen, by pressing the RECALL button. That is the same button location as HOLD. The order will be recalled and order entry can be resumed.
SCALE
Pressing the SCALE button will initiate a scale measurement. Use the keypads to enter the price per pound, then press the category to finish the line.
‘@’
Pressing the ‘@’ key will bring up a new screen which can do proportional arithmetic. For example, if the customer is buying 4 cans of soda which sells for $6.99 per six-pack, this screen will calculate the price per can and enter the data in the main screen.
When the screen first appears, enter the number of units being purchased. This will appear in the first textbox “Buy Qty”. The touch the second textbox “Group Qty”, and enter the number of units in the group (in this case, 6). Then touch the third textbox “Group Price” and enter the full price, including pennies (in this case, 699 no decimal). Now press the OK key. The quantity being purchased is now put in the QTY area, and the price per unit is placed in the UnitCost area of the main screen. Now choose the category to complete the line.
DISCOUNTS
Discounts can be made with the system, but by default the Discount amount is not visible. It can be made visible by going to OPTIONS and choose SETUP > Discount Options > Hide/Show. This will toggle the visibility
Discount options are 25% and 50%, or can be entered manually. Discount reverts to 0% after each order. The discount is taken when the line is written to the order grid: only the discounted amount is shown, not the original amount.
The discount percent number can be changed. Touch the Discount textbox, then enter two numbers on the keypad. You can also use the Back and Clear buttons on the keypad. Be sure to enter two numbers: if you want a 9% discount, enter 09. if you want a 45% discount, enter 45. Once two digits are in the Discount textbox, the system assumes that you will begin entering the original unit cost of the item, and switched automatically back to that mode.
HOUSE
There are 2 types of House Cash accounts: Prepaid (drawdown) accounts, and Postpaid accounts. PrePaid accounts will use a sum of money until it is gone. The amount of money available in the account is shown on the screen at checkout time, and is printed on each receipt. These accounts cannot go below a zero balance.
Postpaid House accounts can have either a positive or negative balance: otherwise they behave just like the above.
The current balance of a house cash account can be found by running the customer balance report from the Options screen. Or by opening the customer maintenance screen from the Options screen. Or by running the “Customer Cash Balances” report.
Orders are closed for either type of account when the order is entered if the cash balance is positive. For PostPay accounts, orders are closed when a payment is made that brings the cash balance to zero or greater.
It is important to note that house credit card accounts can have a cash balance separate from a credit card balance. The two are not linked at the time a report is made. Only when the accounts are reconciled weekly are the cash balances combined with payments due. At that time the cash balance is corrected. See below.
If a house cash account is converted to a credit charge account, a message will appear when the new account type is chosen warning the user to correct the cash balance. This message is to remind the user that it is the responsibility of the administrator to determine the status of the cash balance at that time. If the customer has a positive cash balance it should be left untouched: it will be drawn down as the customer charges purchases. If the customer has a negative cash balance, it should be brought to zero. This is because the customer has open orders which will now be charged to the credit card at the end of the period, essentially converting the negative balance to a charge account balance.
HOUSE ACCOUNT
Any house account can receive cash as a credit into the account. Select RECEIVED ON ACCOUNT as the PAYMENT TYPE from the main screen. This operation must be the ONLY transaction and cannot be combined with a sale. If the customer wishes to pay money in and buy at the same time, separate the two items by accepting the cash first, then doing the order.
To credit a house account, first select IN-HOUSE and select the customers’ account. Then select RECEIVED ON ACCOUNT. Enter the cash being given, using the touchscreen, then press ENTER A receipt will be printed showing the current cash account balance. In the case of PrePaid and postpaid accounts, this is their complete balance. In the case of House Credit card accounts it will only show the cash balance, not the total credit outstanding. The cash and credit balances will be reconciled at the next credit card reconciliation session.
Credit and debit cards can be used for these payments also.
Choose the account first, press “Received On Account”, then CREDIT
In the case of a House Credit card (
NOTE: The ‘Customer Balance’ report will show the cash balance and the outstanding charges, but they are not reconciled. The cash accounting should be seen as a separate account which is not touched until the weekly accounting and charge-out function is complete. At that time the cash account is compared to the charges for the week. If the cash account is less than the charges, it is returned to zero and the net is charged to the account. If the cash account is larger than the charges, it is diminished by the charge amount and there is no charge-out for that account. In either case the customer’s cash account will be correct after the charge-out function is compete.
EDITS
Any order line may be edited while an order is being entered. Each line is displayed in the grid, and touching a line of the grid will outline part of the line. Double-clicking a line will bring up a grouping of editable fields for that line. The double-click must be done quickly, just like a mouse double click.
In the edit mode, the quantity, unit price, and category areas are shown with the orderline information. Any one of them may be changed:
If the quantity is to be changed, touch the Quantity textbox: it will turn yellow, and the quantity is not empty. Use the touchscreen to enter the correct quantity.
If the unitcost is to be changed, touch the UnitCost textbox: it will become yellow, and the original unitcost is shown. You can use the Backspace or Clear key to change the display, then use the touchscreen to change the unitcost.
Touch any of the category buttons to change the category, or use the Credit and PrePrice buttons to change the entry.
When done, press the ENTER key.
If no changes are needed, press NO EDITS (in orange).
If the line must be deleted, press DELETE LINE (in red). Be careful here: the line is gone forever, no questions asked!
When the edit is complete the program returns to where it was before entering EDIT mode.
The cashier cannot make changes to an order after it the receipt has been printed.
ADMINISTRATIVE
FUNCTIONS
Access these items by touching OPTIONS on the main screen. You will be asked to enter an administrative password. Initially the password is ‘---------’, lower case, no space, no quotes.
The OPTIONS screen has several pulldown menus, each governing different options.
STORE SETUP. Here you can set the Administative password under Store Setup, edit the PrePrice rules, add PLU, and edit the tax rates, show the DISCOUNT options on the main screen, setup the processing schedule (weekly credit card transactions), allow Liquor transactions, or end the terminal software.
CUSTOMER MAINTENANCE allows customers to be entered into the system, and allows customer order info to be edited.
Open Customer Maintenance present the edit/entry screen. To Edit, enter the first few letters of the customers’ last name using the keyboard. You can also use the DownArrow to display a list of similar names: choose the correct name. Data can be entered and editing. Credit card info will be filled automatically when a card is swiped: be sure to add the card Type (VISA, AMEX etc) and the Security Code. Each customer may have a PIN and signature required, or neither as they wish.
REPORTS are:
The reports will show on the screen. They can be resized on screen, browsed by page, and can be printed by touching the PRINT area at the top of the screen.
Also there are the:
Interim Day report ( X Report)
Final Day report (Z Report)
These report totals for the day. The Final report closes the books for the day: all sales after that time will be reported on the next day’s Interim report. These reports both print on the receipt Printer.
The Day Report consists of sections for :
‘Business Total’ consists of the sum of grocery (tax + nontax), meat and deli (tax and nontax), produce and bakery.
Card paid orders which have been voided do not appear in these totals.
Card paid orders which have been refunded do appear.
PERIPHERAL SETUP is a maintenance function for the Ingenico reader, the weight scale, and the receipt printer.
HOUSE CHARGE OUT is a support function. You may perform a weekly credit card charge-out for one or all customers in the system.
Also here are functions which allow the operator to make credit and debit returns and refunds and voids.:
ABBREVIATIONS
The following is a list of abbreviations used within the system.
House Charge types:
Categories:
Order Status types:
Station Types:
Signatures are stored and used in the Customer file.
All signature and card data is stored in an encrypted, very secure format
Accounting Features:
There are two different ways for accounting for one customer: the cash account and the house account. You can have a cash balance for a customer which is separate and independant from the house account balance. ChargeOut function will sum them up and send out a charge whenever the function is run. Also, moneies received in cash will change the cash account and can also close out house accounts if enough money is received. But the house account line items will only close if a full payment has been received for all outstanding balances. If cash came in but it ws not enough to cover each and every outstanding charge for that account, the house account lines will stay open until the ChargeOut function is run and total up all the outstanding balances for the acount. Also, note that a house charge will not ever affect the cash balance seen on the Customer Maintenance screen.