New POS version 6.37 released on 10-18-05

[Dale Harris]

New features in POS 6.37...

BUG FIX
The REMOTE.EXE program will now save all 6 PATHs not just 4.

TAX
When in the tax column of the stock table you can now press [F9] to change the tax rate chart.

APRINT
When returning from another program file to the POS.EXE program it will no longer display the question about if you have APRINT running when the printer port is set to FILE: This question will only be displayed when you first start POS.EXE.

ROUNDING
"Rounding" will have a new option to round the sale to the nearest 10¢. WARNING! If you currently have the program set to round to "1" you will have to return to the "Rounding" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program to reset this feature.

SLEEP
From the main POS menu pressing [F9] will put the program to sleep. This may help reduce the system resources used by the POS program while it is asleep. Pressing any key will then awaken the program.

POLE DISPLAY
If your computer runs straight DOS or Windows versions 3.1 to '98 you may set the POLE display output to "DIRECT ACCESS". This means that the POLE.EXE program will not be needed to run the pole display. This is good because POLE.EXE is Windows software and will not run on a DOS only machine. However direct serial port access will not work from the POS program if your computer runs Windows versions after '98 so then you will have to use POLE.EXE.

WARNING! If you set “pole display” to "DIRECT ACCESS" and there is no pole display attached to the selected serial port, or there is a problem with the pole display, or the settings are incorrect, then POS.EXE will run extremely slowly or just stop altogether.

TIME SALES
When you are in the main menu of the POS program, or in a sale that is empty (nothing has yet been rung up), you can press [END] and enter the “timer” feature. This will allow you to start or stop timers allowing you to sell time. Time can be sold for things like using computers in a cyber café, paintball arena, parking, etc. Timers can only be used for 24 hours; they cannot time things over a span of days.

If you are using a network, timers operate over the network. A timer started on one register on the network can be stopped from any other register on the network.

Use the “Time sales” feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program to setup the timer feature.

There are two modes for timing. If you set from 1 to 51 timers they will be displayed on the screen. Start time and elapsed time will be displayed. Use the arrow keys to move the lightbar to the desired timer and press [TAB] to start the timer or [DELETE] to stop the timer.

If you set zero timers then no timers will be displayed. Pressing [TAB] will print a “start time” receipt. Pressing [DELETE] will allow you to enter the time stamp from the start receipt and then will calculate the elapsed time.
You may choose to print time receipts whenever you start or end timing.

Time is sold in “time units.” Allowable time units are 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour. For example if you are selling 15 minutes on a computer for 1.00 then your time unit will be 15 minutes. Well why not just sell 1 hour for 4.00? Well you may want to round out the time to the nearest 15 minutes. This will be possible in the program if your time unit is 15 minutes but not if your time unit is 1 hour. If you choose a time unit of 1 minute you cannot sell more than 999.999 time units because that is the maximum number of “pieces” allowed in the POS program. However 999.999 minutes is 16.66 hours so this may not be a problem in your store.

To actually ring up time in a sale you will have to enter an item in your stock table to use to ring up time. The price for the item must be for the chosen time unit. For example if you are charging 1.00 for 15 minutes then your item could be entered in the stock table like this…

<pre>STOCK# DESCRIPTION PRICE
123456 15 MINUTES ON INTERNET 1.00</pre>
Once you have entered a “time” item in the stock table you can then configure the timer feature. First set the number of timers from 0 to 51. Next set the minimum time allowed. This will be the minimum time that someone can be charged for. This is not dependent on the “time unit” that you will be using. For example you can use a time unit of 15 minutes but set the minimum time to 20 minutes.

Next set the time unit that you will be using followed by the rounding factor. There are 3 rounding factors that you may choose. “1. No rounding” which will charge for the exact time used to within 1/1000th of your chosen time unit. For example if your time unit is 15 minutes and the customer uses 34:13 minutes then he will be charged for 2.281 time units. “2. 4/5 rounding” will round up or down to the nearest full time unit. “3. Round up” will always round up to the next full time unit. Of course if the rounded time is less than the minimum time then the minimum time will be used.

You can now enter the stock number for selling time that has been entered into your stock table. If you enter the proper stock number then after you stop a timer and return to the main POS.EXE program the information from the timer will be automatically rung into a sale. A stock number will also allow the timer feature to look up the price for the unit of time and print it on the “start time” receipt.

If you stop two or more timers only the information from the timer that you stopped last will be entered. If you do not enter any stock number here then the timer info will not be automatically transferred to a sale when you return to POS.EXE. If you enter an incorrect stock number then you will receive an “INVALID STOCK NUMBER” error when you return to POS.EXE.

Below is a sample start receipt and a sample stop receipt.

<pre> DALE’S CYBER CAFÉ
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Your start time for unit #1 is
10-12-2005 15:14:17

Your time is measured from this
time until this receipt is turned in.

Time is charged in units of
15 minutes at 1.50 per unit.

The minimum time allowed is 15 minutes.

Time is not rounded.


DALE’S CYBER CAFÉ
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
START TIME FOR UNIT #1 15:13:10
STOP TIME 15:23:22
ELAPSED TIME 00:10:12
MINIMUM TIME ALLOWED 00:15:00

TIME IS NOT ROUNDED.

TIME UNITS = 1.000

10-12-2005</pre>
To print “time receipts” your register must be set up to print regular sales receipts. The parameters set for regular sales receipts are used to print time receipts.

There are 4 options for printing time receipts and they can be set differently for start receipts and stop receipts. “1. Always print” will always print a time receipt. “2. Ask DEFAULT = YES” and “3. Ask DEFAULT = NO” will ask you if you want to print the time receipt. “4. Never print” will not allow time receipts to be printed.

Notes: Closing the register at night will not turn off timers that are running. When you open the register in the morning you should check to see that the timers are all off. After stopping a timer the time in time units will be printed at the top of the screen.

Download from the usual place...
<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

[Dale Harris]

There seems to be a couple of problems with 6.37 if you use PIN numbers and set "Go to after sale" to "The next sale"

After being in a sale if you return to the main menu and start another sale the program would not ask you for a PIN number.

If you return from the timer feature and did not stop a timer there would no longer be an employee assigned to the sale.

I think I have these things fixed. The file below is version 6.37a but only contains the files POS.EXE and TIMER.EXE. Give them a try and report back.

<center> http://keyhut.com/edgar.zip </center>

Or a full upgrade download at...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos.zip </center>

[Robert_Nel]

Hi Dave,
I think there might be a miner bug in POS 6.37a regarding the rounding off of decimals.
1- When rounding is set to 0.10 the total sales reports show no decimals , only full figures. The purchases are with decimals and receipts print out with decimals.
2- When rounding is set to 1 the total sales reports show decimals and the purchases show full figures with no decimals and receipts print out with no decimals.
Great program
Robert Nel

[Dale Harris]

Robert,

Well, boogers.

The problem is not only with that report but with all the reports. I did change the FILEINFO code to work correctly but then cleverly did not re-compile the file into the .EXE version before I uploaded the whole POS thing.

I have now. Use this link to get the fix.

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos.zip </center>

[Robert_Nel]

Hi Dale,
The "tax" rate does not seem to show up in the purchases. POS set to .10 rounding and tax set to 14%.

Thanks
Robert Nel

[Dale Harris]

Robert_Nel,

What do you mean be "doesn't show up?" The sale is not taxed at all? The tax rate is not printed on the receipt?

How is your tax chart set up? Added or included tax? A single tax rate or from both columns?

Is the tax OK if rounding is set to something other than 10¢?

Dale

[Robert_Nel]

Hi Dale,
Sorry , I'm very embaressed. Trying out POS637a at home PC before installing at the Pub. My mistake , I did'nt set the tax in the stock table.
Works fine.
Thanks
Robert Nel