Selling Items

The POS Lane's primary function is to record the sale of items sold to your customers.

There are a few different ways of entering the item to be sold:

• Numeric Touch Pad Entry
• Scanning the Printed Barcode on the product.
• Department PLU Button touch entry 
• Selecting from an Inquiry list.
• Gift Cards are sold by using the Load Gift Card Load/Query functions.    

The way an item is sold is determined by how it is setup in the Back Office.

An item should be entered in the system, using the Back Office software.

Every item must be setup with a scannable UPC (Universal Pricing Code) number or PLU (Price Look Up) code if no Scannable barcode is printed on the item.

   Selected items can be sold with a Serial Number

• Commissions can be attached to the entire sale or individual items within the sale.

Selling an Item by Numeric Touch Pad entry

• Enter the PLU code for the item on the Numeric Key Pad and touch the 'Enter' Key.

Scanning the Barcode

• An item will only scan within a sale.
• If Serial or suitably configured USB scanners are installed they will not beep or register an item rung in while the Lane is logged out or the Cashier is in a payment or any lookup mode.
• Keyboard wedge type scanners are NOT recommended with this software, even though they will work on a basic level.
  The reason is because Keyboard wedge scanners only communciate one way and the scanning 'Beep' function cannot be turned off by the Lane when it does not need it.
  Serial and USB scanners can communicate both ways.

If an item is scanned that cannot be found in the database, a large message will show on the screen and further operations will be suppressed until the message is cleared.

From within an Inquiry

If an item cannot be found on file by scanning then it may be in the system but under an old or incorrect Barcode or PLU. Non-Scanning items can be looked up by their description or Vendors (Shelf) Code if it is available on the product.

• Sales can be made directly from the Product Lookup Screen

Touch PLU buttons.

PLU Buttons are setup in the Back Office. To sell an Item from a PLU Button -

• Touch a PLU button on the top 'Quick PLU Bar' (Lower middle of the screen).

OR Touch a Department Button at the top right of the screen, then -

• Touch a choosen Item from the PLU buttons (in that department) presented on the right.

• Each Department has its own list of PLUs displayed on the right of the screen.
• Only items with a PLU number between 1 and a maximum of 9999 will show up as a touch button.
• PLU numbers from 10000 on have to be accessed by keying in their number on the touch Keypad. (5 digits or more).
• Departments that have no PLUs in them can be suppressed from displaying by setting the ‘Make Button On POS’ flag to a value of zero in the Back Office
  Setup/Data Grouping/Inventory-Sales/Departments table.
• The colour and order of the PLU and Department buttons are set in the Back Office.
• Unless otherwise set, the PLU Buttons will default to their parent department's colour.

Multiple Same Item Sales

If you wish to sell more than one of the same item at any time…

• Touch the 'SELL' button for as many items as you want to sell, the, the number will increase with each touch. Then Scan an Item or Press a PLU Button.

OR Touch the ‘Keypad’ button to display the Keypad if it is not visible.

• Enter the amount on the numeric touch pad (Touching the @ button is optional), then scan an item, or touch a PLU button. Then Scan an Item or Press a PLU Button.

OR

• Enter the amount on the numeric touch pad, then touch the @ button.
  Use the Keypad to key in the PLU number to sell.
• Touching the ‘Enter’ Key on the Keypad will add 1 more entry of the previous item sold.
• You have to touch the @ button only if you are going to key enter a PLU after the amount to sell e.g. [6] [@] [1] [2] [3] [4] [Enter] will sell 6 items with PLU code 1234
• Each time an item is sold, it will appear on both the cashier and customer display.
• Both displays will show a total, tax amount and item count for the sale as it progresses.

Unpack Items

Sometimes a multiple pack of an item is sold using the same Barcode as the single pack of an item. (A 6 Pack of cans just held together by plastic hoops are a good example of this.)

• The 'Unpack Item' button is designed to work around this issue.
• It requires a specific setup in the Back Office.

Here is how it works: -

• If a '6 Pack' of cans is scanned normally it scans through at the '6 Pack' price.
• If the 'Unpack Item' button is pressed and a single can is taken out of the 6 Pack and scanned (same barcode) it will scan through at the single Item price.

To Setup an Unpack Item, go to the Back Office - Inventory - Item Maintenance menu option.

Two items must be setup -

• The Multi-Pack item carrying the Barcode on the pack. This will then sell at the multiple price.
• The Single item on a different lookup code (PLU), with the single item price.

The Two Items are then linked together in the POS Options of the Item Maintenance screen.

• Start with the Parent Multiple Pack and choose POS Options.

• In the POS Options Screen - PLU Links Tab, enter the code for the Single item in the 'Substitute and Sell...' box.

• Save the entry and send changes to the POS Lanes (POS Lanes - Send Changes)

The two items are considered individually stocked items.

Using the Back Office, it is possible to keep track of the stock on hand of both, by breaking the 6 Pack down into individual items, subtracting the 6 Pack from stock, and adding 6 individual items to stock.

• The above operation is done in one convenient step using the Repack function in the Back Office - Inventory - Item Maintenance screen.

 Enter the Parent Cases opened and the Individual packs created to create the correct stock position for both items.

• Click 'Make transfer' to complete the Internal Stock Transfer.

Serialized Item Sales

Any item can be flagged as 'Serialized' in the Back Office - Inventory - Item Maintenance screen - Serialized Tab option. 

• If the item is Serialized (Checkbox Option ON) then the POS Lane will show the 'Serial Number Entry' screen when sold IF a Customer is entered in the sale already.

• If there is no customer in the sale, then the cashier will be prompted to enter a customer before the sale of the item is allowed.
• Serialized Items sold will show in the Back Office report(s) only.

The second part of the setup is to enable put an entry for an MPS Gift Card in the Back Office Setup - POS Lanes - Credit/Debit Setup.

• Save the entry and Exit the Setup screen.
• Allow Autopoll to send the changes through to the Lane, or Manually invoke POS Lanes - Send Changes - Item Changes, then - Lane Grouping Data.
• At the Lane the Integrated Debit Credit option must be setup before Gift Cards will be activated.

To Load a Gift Card, touch the 'Discounts - Gift Card Load/Query' button.

Select or specify the dollar amount to be loaded onto the card and touch the 'OK' key to Issue or Reload the card.

• The Card can then be swiped throught the Magnetic Swipe reader. 
• If the read and communications to the Mercury Server are successful then the Loaded/Issued amount will be displayed as a normal sold item. 

• The amount on the Gift Card is then on the Receipt like any other sales item.

• When payment is tendered the Sale is Closed, the system again communicates with Mercury payments to update the card status
• The card can now be used like a Charge Card to pay for merchandise in the store.
• Select the 'Other Charge' button at the end of a sale to see the MPS Gift Card selection.
• Gift Card Sales will report to PLU 7700000000000 and the Department that item reports to.
• The Purchase and Balance on the card is also shown on the customer's receipt.
• If a balance Inquiry is selected, then the System checks with Mercury Payments to obtain the balance on the card, which is then displayed at the top of the Gift Card screen.

Commisions

By default, commisions for any items sold are assigned to the Cashier Logged in to the Lane.

• A cashier can assign commisions to other Cashiers or members of the Sales Team.
• Cashiers or Sales Team members must be setup in the Back Office with the 'Allow Commission' flag set ON (Checked)

To assign commisions to other Cashiers or Sales team members,

• Optionally, select an item.
• Touch the 'Lookup - Commission' button.

• Select a Sales Person from the list.
• Assign a commission to just the item selected in the previous step, or to all items in the sale.

• A Commissions report is available from the Back Office - Store - Sales Journal - Item Sales Reports menu selection.

Stock On Hand Update considerations: -

On Central lanes the Stock On Hand in the Central database is updated as items sell on Sale close. 

On Remote lanes The stock on hand figure on the back office and Lane will be decremented by sales ONLY after the Unattended polling program has polled and processed the completed sale.

• The system can be set 'close to real time' by setting the back office to poll every 45 minutes or so.
• Please ensure the machine that is running the Polling Scehduler is set in a secure environment on a UPS Backup system if it is going to run unattended.
• The machine should be safeguarded as much as possible from accidental reboots or crashes caused by power outages or other users working on the system in unrelated software.

Subtotal displays

The sale displays a running subtotal as it progresses.

• Touching the top yellow area of the Cashier screen will always cause the sale subtotal to be displayed on the Cashier and on the optional customer VGA screen.
• Touching the Up/Down arrows on the left side of the yellow Cashier subtotal section will scroll through a long list of items sold.
• Touching an item on the screen will display the individual item price and tax costs.

If a Line Display unit is attached to the POS Lanes, it will display Item descriptions and amounts, Subtotal Amounts, Total Amounts and Change Due as the sale progresses.