Please display or print out this document using the "Courier" font otherwise columns in charts will not line up. If your word processing program cannot select a font, this is fine because then it will use a fixed width font like Courier.

A Microsoft Word version of this document can be downloaded from http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/register.doc

DO NOT READ THIS MANUAL! If you are familiar with cash registers and computers the software itself has enough instructions that you can figure out just about everything. However for those of you who like to see things in ink, here is a bunch of ink.

This is a plain text document that contains no formatting so that ANY word processing program can display and print this document.

Following is the usual legal stuff...
============================================================
 The software "Cash Register By Dale Harris" and this manual
             is copyright by Dale Harris, 2001       
                       Version 6.38
     -------------------------------------------------
       THIS SOFTWARE IS NOT WARRANTED TO DO ANYTHING

   The author of this software (Dale Harris) does not give either an implicit or implied guarantee that this software will perform any function or be suitable to any purpose whatsoever.
   The author further states that it is solely up to the user to determine if the use of this software and the data it generates will conform to any laws or regulations of any local, state, or federal governments or taxing bodies.
   The author may not be held liable for any programming errors in the software or for non-notification to the user of any software errors known or unknown by the author.
   This software and any support for this software may be discontinued at any time without prior notice.
   By using this software the user assumes all liability for the use of this software."
============================================================
and now, back to reality.

HERE ARE THE MAJOR TOPICS IN THE ORDER THAT THEY APPEAR IN THIS MANUAL

Overview of the program           Program printer	
Minimum mode                      Receipt coupons
Enhancing the Cash Register       Receipt header & footer
Multiple registers on 1 computer  Receipt language
Category list                     Receiving
Checks                            Rounding
Color or B&W                      Sale parking
Currencies                        Sale recording - VOIDS	
Customer information              Sales history - Z Read
Date format                       Scales
Discounts                         Scanner
Employee setup                    Screen saver	
Go to after sale                  SoundScan
Inventory                         Stock table
Journal                           Tax rate
Key press beep                    Time sales
Network                           Vendor list
Open cash drawer                  Ringing up a sale
Passwords & name                  Reports
Payment options                   Receiving Merchandise
Payouts                           Taking an Inventory		
Pole displays                     Price check
Printer setup                     Price check

OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAM

TWO PURPOSES!
   This cash register software has a split personality. It is designed to be extremely easy to set up and ring sales, or do a heavy duty job of tracking everything that goes on in your store. Since YOU have to enter the information about your store to track that information, and tell the register what you want it to do, it can't be both very easy to set up and heavy duty at the same time.
   "Difficult" is a relative term. To get the most out of this software you will not have to code anything, learn weird formats, or jump through hoops. Basically you will just have to answer a bunch of questions and fill in a lot of information, ie, if you are tracking 600 different items in your store, you will have to tell the program about them. Are you using a printer? Great, tell the program about it.
   On the other hand if you just want to have a cash register for a garage sale, or a ticket booth, etc. then load the program, fill in your tax rates (if any), and ring up sales. How can I make it easier than that?

                 WELCOME TO "CASH REGISTER"

What this program will not do.
   This program WILL NOT validate credit cards, require you to use a mouse or any pointing device, or cost you anything, it's FREE.

============= A pathetic plea for HELP! ==============
   While this program is free that does not mean that you cannot help the cause. If you have a web site how about mentioning that you use the program and link to http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/pos.htm
   If you write software you may want to write a 'helper' program like those listed at http://return.no-ip.org/downloads.
   If you have surplus POS hardware like receipt printers, pole displays, scanners, cash drawers, etc. rather than throwing it away how about sending it to the address below so I an use it for testing.
   As a last resort if this software has saved your business, sanity, and hundreds or thousands of dollars how about mailing $5.00 to…
   Dale Harris, 5654 N. Olcott, Chicago, IL 60631, USA
=======================================================

This program will work with the following equipment.

1. Any IBM or compatable computer running any version of DOS or any version of Windows.

2. The program itself will print receipts on almost any printer (computer printers and receipt printers) that connects to the computer through the parallel printer port except some Epson Color Stylus printers. Serial printers may work on computers running under DOS or Windows 3.1 to Windows '98. Windows 2000, ME, NT, and XP do not generally support DOS programs that try to use the serial port. 
   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. Read the instructions in "Printer setup" to use this feature.

3. Cash drawers connected to a receipt printer will function assuming that the receipt printer itself functions. (See #2, above.)
   SOME cash drawers attached to your computer through the serial printer port will function. 

4. All barcode scanners of the "keyboard wedge" type and most USB scanners will function. Many scanners connected through the serial printer port will function.

5. "Logic Controls" pole displays have been tested to work with this program. Others may also work as long as they plug into a serial port on your computer.

What this program will do.
   This program will convert any IBM or compatable personal computer into a fully functional cash register. 
   If you have a network this program can run multiple registers at the same time that will share data files.
   This program will directly print receipts on almost any printer. This includes regular computer printers or specialized cash register printers. 
   If your printer, like most printers, is connected to the regular parallel printer port you should have no problems.
   If your printer connects through a serial port it may be possible to configure this program to directly print on the printer.
   If you are using Windows '95 or later you may configure this program to use the Windows printer drivers to print on any printer that Windows can.
   You may choose to print receipts either 40 or 80 characters wide. You may choose to print either one or two copies of each receipt with an optional extra receipt for credit sales.
   If you have a cash register printer and cash drawer combination or a cash drawer connected to your computer through a serial port this program will open the cash drawer at the end of a sale.
   This program will print a header and footer on each receipt. You may program it to print up to three coupons on receipts.
   This program will optionally save the journal on disk as a text file.
   This program will keep track of up to 13000 different items. For each item it will keep track of a 11 digit stock number, 24 character description, regular price, sale price, tax rate, pieces sold, dollars sold, pieces in inventory, merchandise category, vendor, model stock, warehouse pack, cost and vendor stock number. During a sale you may look up items in the stock table using search features.
   This program will keep track of the sales of up to 56 employees.
   This program will print sales reports based on total sales, employee, category, vendor, or a combination of these factors. Reports are printed based on current sales or sales history. Reports can be printed on a printer, saved to disk as a text file or saved to disk as a data file that can then be loaded into your database or spreadsheet software.
   This program will record up to the last 10,000 transactions and will display any of them on screen at any time. Only sales in this record, and from the current day, may be voided.
   This program will accept customer information (name, address, phone, etc.) and record it on disk and/or print it on receipts. You may export this information to your printer or to a data file that you can then load into any word processing, database, or spread sheet software.
   This program will park up to 75 in-progress sales to ring up a new sale.
   And of course it will ring up sales and refunds. It will allow you to include discounts, reductions and coupons into your sales. It will print a daily sales report at the end of the day and reset the sales figures for tomorrow.
   This program will not tie up your computer. While it can be used as an "always on" cash register you can also exit the program at any time without resetting any sales or merchandise totals. When you restart the cash register all your sales and totals will be right there as though you never left.
   
INAPPROPRIATE USES
   This program has the following limitations and will be inappropriate for some business applications.
   (NOTE: if you set "rounding" to "1" then you may multiply the maximum money amounts below by 100.)

Maximum different items in stock table = 13,000: If you use "Sales history" you should not have more than 15,000 different items in your store in an entire year.

Maximum lines per sale = 60: If your customers regularly purchase 50 or more different items per sale, like in a large grocery store, you would have to break up the sale into multiple transactions.

Maximum items per line = 999: However if you sold 1500 of something you could ring up 999 and 501 of them on two lines.

Maximum salespersons = 56: If you are Wal-mart, why are you looking here?

Maximum price per item = $9,999.99: If you sell yachts, this program is not for you.

Maximum price per line = $999,999.99: If you are a manufacturer who could sell 500 pieces of an $1800.00 item I think that you can afford to purchase a different cash register program.

Maximum sale = $9,999,999.99: See above.


MINIMUM MODE
   When you first try to use this program it will do almost nothing. It will allow you to ring up sales and refunds, calculate sales tax, and include reductions and coupons into your sales. It will display a daily sales report at the end of the day on the screen and reset the sales figures for tomorrow. And that is it. It will not print anything and it will not store any information other than the day's sales. This is called the "Minimum Mode" of this program. Do not despair, everything you need to enhance this program to full functionality is in this program and will be explained later. 

Starting the cash register.
   If you download the file POS.ZIP from my website or receive it through an e-mail or other message you must unzip this file which will create several new files on your disk drive.
   If you run a program like WinZip (or double click on the POS.ZIP icon and WinZip is loaded first) and then use WinZip to OPEN the program files this is NOT the same as unzipping the files and will not allow some parts of the program to function. If WinZip loads first you must use WinZip to OPEN the file POS.ZIP but then you must press the WinZip [EXTRACT] button, select "All files", and the press the [Extract] button. This will unzip the files and as an added bonus you can now run the program without running WinZip first.
  One of the files that will be created will be POS.EXE, this is the cash register program. If someone gives you an unzipped version of this program on a disk the POS.EXE file will be on the disk you received.
   Run the POS.EXE file to start the cash register program. If there are no .POS files on your drive (and since you just put the program on your computer, there won't be) you will be offered the option of...
 1. Run the POSCONFG program or 
 2. Set up a minimal cash register.
Press [2] to set up a minimal cash register
   You will now be asked to enter a file name for your register, a password, and the tax rates for your location.
   The password is important. Unless he knows the password someone cannot use the POSCONFG.EXE program to change the .POS file and change the setting on your cash register. Even more important is that the password will be required to close the register and reset the daily totals. Since in minimum mode this register will not keep a journal of every transaction you would have no way of knowing if a sales person closed out and reset the register during the day. This would mean that at the end of the day you would only receive an accounting of part of that day's sales.
   Passwords are encrypted before being stored. However I am not the NSA, the method of encryption is not super complex and passwords could be recovered from the file by a competent programmer with enough time and desire.
   On the tax rate screen enter the general merchandise tax rate for your location as tax rate #1. For example if food at your location is taxed at 2% and medicine is taxed at 1.5% and gasoline is taxed at 8% and everything else is taxed at 5% then you will enter 5.000% as tax rate #1. The other tax rates will be entered as rates #2 to #9.
   The tax rate screen will have two columns where you can enter tax rates. Unless your location requires two different taxes on the same item, for example a federal tax and a provincial tax that must be tracked separately, then only fill out the LEFT column of tax rates.
   When you have entered this data your cash register will start.
 
----The following is a paid political announcement----------

KEYBOARDING
   Here are some general functions of the keyboard when using this program.

   If you are on a screen with many options, one will be highlighted. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight to the option you want (or press a number key) and then press [ENTER] to selected it.

   To cancel an option or get back to where you came from press [ESC]

   If you are on an option that can be toggled, say between YES/NO or ON/OFF or 40/80 or anything else press [TAB] to do the toggling.

   If you are entering a number press [DELETE] to erase the number or [INSERT] to restore the number to its original value. NOTE sometimes numbers cannot be changed until you erase them first.

   If you are entering text try using [HOME], [END], or [CTRL] + arrows to see what happens. Pressing [INSERT] will allow you to insert text instead of overwriting it.

   Pressing [F2] will usually pop up a calculator on the screen. The calculator is not available when an error screen is displayed.

   Only from the main menu of the Cash Register program can you press [F9] to put the program to sleep.

---We now return you to your regularly scheduled program----

   In addition to starting your register the above instructions have also created a ????????.POS file on your drive. If you named your register "MARTHA" the .POS file will be named MARTHA.POS and all other files associated with this register will also be named "MARTHA" such as MARTHA.REC, MARTHA.A15, MARTHA.JNL, and so on. However the most important file is the .POS file, it IS your cash register. Later, when you run the POS.EXE program again it will find your MARTHA.POS (or whatever) file and it will not ask you if you want to run POSCONFG.EXE or start a minimal register, it will just load the .POS file you just created and start the register. Elsewhere in this manual you will find out what will happen if you have two or more .POS files on your drive.

Ringing a sale.
  Now that you have started your cash register you will now see the main menu for the Cash Register...

1. Purchase            - Ring up a sale.
2. Return              - Ring up a refund.
3. File Maintainance   - Run POSCONFG.EXE program,
                         Set tax rates,
4. No Sale-Cash in/out - Tracks cash pulls and drops.
5. Void                - Does nothing in minimum mode.
6. Lock Register       - Lock register.
7. Close Register      - Display and reset daily sales totals.
8. Reports             - Display / print sales report.
9. Associates          - Does nothing in minimum mode.
   
   This doesn't look promising, does it. But remember you are in "minimum mode", it's not supposed to do much. Later when we discuss enhanced modes you will ask yourself, "What am I supposed to do with all this?"

PURCHASE / RETURN
  Following is much more information than a normal person familiar with computers would need to use this program. Basically you read the screen to see what options you have. Press the buttons listed to access those options. Fill in the information you are asked for, ie. if asked for the amount tendered type in the money that the customer gives you and press [ENTER]. If asked for a phone number, enter a phone number. In my store this was known as the register for the brain dead. If you could read English you could use it with about 5 minutes of practice.

   If "1. Purchase" is highlighted press [ENTER] to see the purchase screen...

|   |Qty| Stock Number |      Description      |Price |Amount| Tax%|
|  1|  3|             0|MERCHANDISE            |  2.49|  7.47|8.750|
|  2|  1|             0|MERCHANDISE            |  1.00|  2.00|8.750|
|  3|   |              |                       |      |      |     | 
|  4|   |              |                       |      |      |     |
|  5|   |              |                       |      |      |     |
|  6|   |              |                       |      |      |     |
|  7|   |              |                       |      |      |     |
|  8|   |              |                       |      |      |     |
|  9|   |              |                       |      |      |     |
| 10|   |              |                       |      |      |     |
+---+---+--------------+-----------------------+------+------+-----+
|                                              |
|                                              |
|                                              |   Sub Total:   9.47  
|                                              |         Tax:   0.83  
+---PURCHASE-#2759-----------------------------+       Total:  10.30  
|          +---------------+   +--------------+|   Cash paid:  20.00  
|          |Enter          |   |Enter         ||  Change Due:   9.70  
|          |Price: ____.__ |   |Quantity: ___ ||              
|          |Tax Rate 8.750 |   |              ||
|          +---------------+   +--------------+|
+----------------------------------------------+ Press [+] to total 
                   [F5]VOID   [F7]MODIFY TAX [F9]REdUCTION [F11]BACK

                            PURCHASE SCREEN

  You enter information at the bottom of the screen for price and quantity and the information is listed above. At the upper right of the screen is a running total of the purchase.
  You first enter the price of the item you are ringing up. If the tax rate listed is incorrect press [F7] until the correct rate is listed, a 0% rate is always available. Press [ENTER] when the price and tax rate are correct. You may now enter the number of pieces to be sold. If you are selling something by length or weight you may press [.] to enter decimal pieces (###.###). For example, if you are selling 5 3/8 yards of something that is sold by the yard you may enter 5.375 pieces. Press [ENTER] when the pieces are correct or press [F11] or [ESC] to go back to the price. When the pieces are entered, line #1 will be filled in at the top of the screen and the "Purchase" section will be filled in. You may now enter additional items to the sale. If you enter more than 12 lines to this sale the screen will display lines 13 to 24. By pressing [PAGE UP] or [PAGE DOWN] you may view other pages if they have merchandise listed on them. A maximum of 60 lines (5 pages) is possible on one transaction.
   If you press [F5] you may void one line of this sale or the entire sale. Pressing [F9] will allow you to reduce the price on the last line entered or all of the lines of the sale. You may reduce the price by a dollar amount for each item or a percentage of the price. You may also do a coupon reduction which is a dollar reduction for the entire sale.
   Notice how any key you need to press to do anything is listed on the screen.
   When you have entered the last item press [+] to total out the sale. You will now be asked if the customer wishes to pay by cash, check, or credit.

Cash
   Enter the amount of money the customer gives you or just press [ENTER] for exact change, the change due to the customer will be displayed. If the customer gives you a different amount, say hands you an additional 12 cents then just re-enter the amount tenderd for a new change due. If you press [ENTER] without entering a new amount you will return to the main menu.

Check
   In minimum mode you will only be asked for the amount of the check, similar to CASH above. In enhanced modes you will be asked for customer information to be printed on the receipt.

Credit
  You will be shown the total amount to be charged to the credit card.

RETURN
   Returns work just like a purchase except that the amounts are subtracted. At the end of the sale you are shown the amount to be returned to the customer.

CLOSE REGISTER
   You will be shown the day's sales broken down into cash, check, and credit transactions for both purchases and returns along with the transaction counts for each type of sale. Sales tax collected is broken down by tax rate. Since in minimum mode you have not setup the use of a printer the program cannot print a closing receipt.
   "Close register" will display the current sales rung up for today. You may then either return to the cash register, close the register and then resetting the sales totals to zero, or exit the program without closing and leaving the sales totals intact.

   Now that you know the least that this program can do in minimum mode, it is time to start thinking of enhanced modes and what this program can really do.

SO WHAT GOOD IS MINIMUM MODE?
   Well, it is very easy to set up.
  
   It does not require any equipment other than the computer.

   It does the math. Quick: What is 4 items at $1.98, plus 3 items at $5.49, plus 1 item at $9.88, plus tax? Kind of tough even with a calculator isn't it? But it is no problem for this program. 
 
   It will tell you your daily sales at any time.

   It will do the original function of a cash register. You can compare the sales on the register to the money in the cash box.

WHAT KIND OF BUSINESSES CAN USE MINIMUM MODE?
   Minimum mode is suggested for very small or temporary businesses, such as a garage sale, newspaper stand, snack bar or ticket booth at high school sports tournaments, library fines, school book sales, school carnivals, flea markets, towel fees. 

               ENHANCING YOUR CASH REGISTER

   OK, now we get serious, now we see how your minimal cash register can be converted into a real Point of Sale System. To create a POS system you will need to run the POSCONFG.EXE program.
   After a couple of screens of instructions and warranty information you will come to a screen where you may either pick a register file or create a new one. If you created a minimal register using the POS program, choose it. If not, then create a new file by pressing [TAB] and entering a file name, password, and register name.
   The password that you enter when creating a file is very important. It is the master password for your register. To use the POSCONFG.EXE program to again access your .POS file to change the operation of your cash register you will have to enter the master password. In addition, the master password overrides all other passwords. For example, if you set a password to access the tax table from the POS program you can then access the tax table by entering the tax password or the master password. A special use for the master password involves the stock table. Some parts of the stock table can only be changed if you access it by using the master password. If you access the table by using the stock table password, only portions of the table can be changed.
   Passwords in this program are encrypted before being stored. However I am not the NSA, the method of encryption is not super complex and passwords could be recovered from the file by a competent programmer with enough time and desire.
   
Multiple Registers
   If there are no .POS files on your disk drive, then when you start the POS register program the program will offer you the options of either running the POSCONFG.EXE program to create a .POS file or making a minimal register (which will also create a minimal .POS file.)
   If there is ONE .POS file on the disk drive the register program will load the file and open the register. You will not be given the option of starting a new .POS file.
   If there are two or more .POS files on the disk drive the register program will ask you which register you want to load. In effect you may have multiple, different registers on the same computer. This means TOTALLY different. Different function settings, different stock table, different employees, different transaction numbers, different everything. Try to remember that the computer is NOT your register, the software is. The POS.EXE file runs your register, the .POS file (and like named files) IS your register.

Advantages to multiple registers.
   You may set up a TRAINING.POS file that mirrors your actual .POS file and is used to train new employees. Anything done using the TRAINING.POS register would have no effect on the real register.
   If you are running a flea market each "store" could have its own register on one computer.
   If you are teaching a course in retail operations each class or each student could have its "own" register.
   If you are running a chain of stores you could set up the registers for each store on one register and then distribute them to the individual stores.

Disadvantages to multiple registers.
   If you are not in your store and a sale is rung up, was it rung up on the "real" register or a "phantom" register? Your customer sees the sale rung up on a computer, he gets a receipt with the correct store info on it, he would have no way of knowing that the sale was rung up on a phony register.
   If this worries you, then have only one .POS file on your computer and do not leave the POSCONFG.EXE file on the computer. Additionally if you name your register file MYSTORE then the MYSTORE.POS file will automatically be loaded when the POS program starts, all other .POS files will be ignored. 
   Once you create a new register or are accessing an existing one, you will be presented with this list of features that you may enhance in your register.
   If you are planning on running multiple registers in your store over a network you may want to read the network instructions first.

Category List   Network               Rounding
Checks          Open Cash Drawer      Sale Parking
Color or B & W  Passwords & Name      Sale Recording-VOIDS
Currencies      Payment Options       Sales History-Z Read
Customer Info   Payment Options       Scales
Date Format     Pole displays         Scanner      
Discount        Printer Setup         Screen Saver
Employee Setup  Program Printer       Stock Table
Goto after sale Receipt Coupons       Tax Rates
Inventory       Receipt Head & Foot   Time Sales
Journal         Receipt Language      Vendor List
Key Press Beep  Receiving

   As you move the lightbar over these features a short description of each feature will appear at the bottom of the screen. When the lightbar highlights the feature you wish to enhance press [ENTER].

*** CATEGORY LIST ***
   Note: If you are going to be contributing to the Nielsen SoundScan service read the "SoundScan" section of this user's guide first.
   (See "Stock Table") In the stock table you may assign each item to a category. You may group all of the different types of candles you sell into the category of "Candles" even if they are widely separated in the stock table and come from different vendors. When you print out reports you may sort the reports by category. Sales reports by category will give a percentage of total sales by each category.
   You may assign up to 256 categories numbered from 0 to 255. It is a good idea to leave category #0 unassigned, that is the default category for any item entered into the stock table. That way if an item comes up with a category of "     " you know that you have not assigned it to a category.
   Before you assign an item to a category the category name must be in the category list so it will be a good idea to fill in your category list before you begin entering items into your stock table.
   The names in the category list may be in any order. However please remember that whatever order you choose, that the categories will be sorted and printed in that order. If you move a category name from one place to another you will have to manually change the category assignment for EVERY item in your stock table that is linked to that category name. Choose your order wisely! Leave blanks in the list for future additions. Blanks are ignored unless an item in your stock table is assigned to it.
   Once you have entered your category list (and your tax and vendor list) you may begin entering items in your stock table. When you are entering your stock items and you reach the "Category" column the current category name will be replaced by the position of that name in the category list. For example: if GLASSES is category #45 when you move the lightbar to GLASSES the number 45 will replace it. You may now change the category assignment by changeing the 45 to the number of another category. To keep you from having to remember all of the category numbers the category list will appear at the bottom of the screen. Hold down [CTRL] and press the [PAGE] keys to page through the list.
   Please remember that the items in the stock table are not linked to a particular category name but to the position of that name in the category list.

*** CHECKS ***
  This feature will allow you to display on the screen what type of checks your associates may not accept, or do not accept any checks, you decide. You may enter up to 69 locations, countries, states, provinces, cities, other, from which checks may be accepted.
   Associates may enter a check number, I.D. number, I.D. issuing government, and phone number into the transaction. Each one of these data may be designated as optional, required, or "do not ask".

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 "checks" 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."

*** COLOR OR B&W ***
   This feature programs the register to display the screen in color mode, black and white mode, or black and BRIGHT WHITE mode.
   If you choose  the COLOR mode you may then choose a background color for the POS program, the POSCONFG and RECEIVE program will not change the background color.
   The standard background color for the POS program is BLUE. You may change this to either BLACK, GREEN, CYAN, RED, PURPLE, BROWN, or GREY.
   Since things that may be displayed on your new color background may be the same color as your new background they will be changed to BLUE. For example, if you choose RED as your new background then anything that is normally displayed in RED will now be displayed in BLUE.

*** CURRENCIES ***
   If you are using only one type of currency in your store do not enter anything in this feature. If no currency or only one currency is entered then this feature will be ignored.
   You may set this register to accept up to 9 different currencies. For example Dollars, Pounds, and Euros. The national currency of your location must be set as the default currency. All calculations in the register program will be in the default currency except taking payments and making change. Taking payments and making change will be in the  currency of your choice. For example, if your default currency is in dollars, at the end of the sale the total will be displayed in dollars, pounds, euros, etc. at the current exchange rate. (You enter the currencies you wish to list, up to 9.) You then enter the amount tenderd in the selected currency and the register will tell you how much to give in change in dollars, pounds, euros, etc. You then select the 'change' currency. In effect you could calculate your sales in DOLLARS, accept a cash payment in POUNDS, a check in YEN, credit in PESOS and give change in EUROS, and the register would calculate all of the different currencies at the current exchange rate.
   To accomplish this you must use the "Currencies" feature to enter the different currencies that you wish to accept. Enter the name of each currency in plural, ie, enter "DOLLARS" not "DOLLAR". The top currency in the list must be your default currency, ie. your national currency.
   To the right of each currency, except the top one, you must enter the "print field" for each currency. This formats how amounts in the currency will be displayed and depends on what normal amounts in a currency may be. For example, if a currency could be expected to be in the range of .01 to 9,999,999.99 you would have a print field for that currency of "#######.##". If a currency would be in the range of 1 to 999,999,999 you would have a print field for that currency of "#########". If a currency would be in the range of .001 to 999,999.999 you would have a print field for that currency of "######.###". In a print field only (#)s and one (.) may be entered if needed. 
  (Note: the default currency "print field" is determined by what the value in the "Rounding" feature is. If "Rounding" is set to .01 or .05 then the default currency "print field" will equal "########.##" If "Rounding" is set to 1 then the default currency "print field" will equal "###########")
   Special consideration must be made for currency that has an extremely low value. If a currency has a normal range from 1000 to 99,999,999,990,000, and the lowest denomination in that currency is 1000 then you would enter a print field for that currency of "##########" and add "/ 1000" to the currency name, ie. "GALLEONS / 1000". This would mean that whatever was entered, printed, or displayed in that currency would be one thousandth of the actual amount. If you were told to give change of "GALLEONS / 1000   235" you would actually give 235,000 galleons in change. This method also will round out amounts to the nearest 1000 galleons. 
   If you set up your register to use 2 or more currencies then when you start the POS program you will be asked to enter the exchange rate for each currency compared to the default currency. If a currency has less value than your default currency then the exchange rate will be LESS than 1. If a currency has more value than your default currency then the exchange rate will be MORE than 1. If this is not true for an exchange rate then the rate is expressed based on the other currency compared to the default. To convert to the correct rate divide 1 by the rate. For example, 1 KNUT = 1.175 GALLEONS but GALLEONS is your default currency. Therefore 1 / 1.125 = .85106 so the exchange rate for KNUTS is .85106 when compared to GALLEONS. In the case of a currency of extremely low value the exchange rate must be MULTIPLIED by the offset. For example if you are using "GALLEONS / 1000" and the exchange rate is .000012554 then you must multiply 1000 X .000012554 = .012554.

Samples, assuming that your default currency is DOLLARS
1 DOLLAR = .963 KNUTS, EXCHANGE RATE = .963
1 DOLLAR = 25.36 SICKLES, EXCHANGE RATE = 25.36
.623 DOLLARS = 1 GALLEON, EXCHANGE RATE = 1.60513 (1 / .623)
1 DOLLAR = 256300 KNUTS, EXCHANGE RATE = 2563 "KNUTS / 100"

   If your country is changing from one currency to another (for example Lira to Euros) your country may require that the total amount of the sale will always be printed on the receipts in both currencies. To have the program do this you must use one currency as the default currency and the other currency must be listed as currency #2 in the currency list of the POSCONFG.EXE program. Then to always print the total for currency #2 on all receipts press [F1] to make the line near the bottom of the screen read "[F1] ALWAYS print currency #2 total on all receipts." Then an additional line will be printed under the "TOTAL" line on all receipts like this...

            TOTAL    236.23
             EURO    189.72
---------------------------

*** CUSTOMER INFO ***
   This feature allows you to enter customer information into the register. You may choose to ask for...
ID Number
Company Name
Customer Name
Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number #1
Phone Number #2
Email Address
Non-taxable ID number

   For each of the above items you may choose to...
1. Not ask for the information.
2. Save the information to a customer database.
3. Print the information on the receipt.
4. Save and print the information.

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."

   If you save the customer 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.
   In addition to the personal information on each customer additional information on the past sales on the customer will also be listed.

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. 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 occurrence 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.

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 choosing "Equal to" or press [F1] to choose "Equal to or before" or Equal to or after".
   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 choosing "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...
Customer name   Street address   City address  Phone #1
Customer name   Street address   City address  Phone #1

or each field on one line with a blank line between records, like this...

Customer name
Street address
City address
Phone #1

Customer name
Street address
City address
Phone #1

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...

Customer name,Street address,City address,Phone #1
Customer name,Street address,City address,Phone #1

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 permanently 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.
06-25-2001
25-06-2001
JUN 25, 2001
25 JUN 2001

*** DISCOUNT ***
   "Discount" refers to a whole sale discount, like an employee discount or a "30% off Everything in the Store" sale. It is always a percentage. You may use this feature to prevent a whole sale discount or to allow up to 3 preset percentage discounts, for example 10% off, 20% off and 50% off. Or you could allow the employee to enter the percentage for a discount. 

*** 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.
   At the end of this manual are complete instructions for taking an inventory.

*** JOURNAL ***
   The journal is a record of every transaction (including opening, voids, no sales, closing, etc) made on your cash register. You may be legally required to make and store a journal of your register transactions. In addition it is a really good idea. The journal is your record of what was going on in your store. Was your register closed out at mid-day? Was that large void total from one transaction or many? How about all those refunds? Your journal will give you those answers.
   There are several strategies for making a journal with this program. The best and simplest is if your printer has 2 or 3 ply paper. The back copy is your journal, stick it in a file. It is possible that in your location that this is also the only legal strategy.
   You can set this program to print out two copies of every sale or return receipt. Keep a bin next to the register. Toss in every opening, no sale, void, and closing receipt and the second copy of every sale and return receipt. Each receipt will have a transaction number on it that you can compare to tell if a receipt is missing. But if a receipt is missing you will have no idea what it was for. To set the register to print two receipts see the "Printer Setup" instructions.
   The second best way to keep a journal is to write the journal to a disk file. At the end of the day you may choose to print out the journal on your printer or to save the disk file.
   If you choose to print out the journal at the end of the day make sure that there is enough paper in your printer. While a lot of unneeded information, like headers, footers, coupons, etc. that is printed on your receipts will not be in the journal file, it will still print out every transaction from that day, it could take a lot of paper. This may also be a legal strategy for your journal, governments love things on paper.
   If you decide to keep the journal file on disk it has to be moved. Whenever you open your register it will compare the date on the journal file to today's date. This is a good reason to keep the date and time on your computer correct. If the dates are the same then all transactions will be tacked on to the end of the journal. If the dates do not match, and the last previous transaction was a "close", then the register will ask you if you wish to delete the current journal and start a new one. You may automate the deletion of yesterday's journal by using the "Journal" function in the POSCONFG.EXE program or you may have the register ask the salesperson opening the register if the journal should be deleted.
   Your journal file will have the extension of .JNL  If you named your register file MARTHA then the journal file for your register will be MARTHA.JNL
   There are two places where your may move your journal file. At the end of the day you can copy it to a floppy disk. When closing the register your will be asked if you want to save the journal to a floppy. Insert the floppy into the drive, type in the drive letter (A: for example) and press [ENTER]. The journal will be copied to the floppy. Make sure that your sales people have a floppy.
   You can also save the journal on your hard drive in an archive, this option will be presented to you when you close the register. The archive is actually a separate journal file for each day of the year. The file name for each journal begins with the file name of your register followed by .D followed by a date code. If you named your register MARTHA then the Jan. 1st journal archive would be MARTHA.DAA the Jan. 14th file would be MARTHA.DAN The journal function of POSCONFG.EXE will convert between any date and journal date code and display it on the screen.
   Note that there is no place in the date code for the year. After a year the new journals will overwrite the old journals in the archive. If the date in your computer is wrong then the journal will be given the wrong date code and may overwrite a journal from this year.
   When you close your register you may print, save, or archive your journal, any two options or all three. From the "Journal" function in POSCONFG.EXE you may automate the handling of the journal file. First of course, you must turn on the journal file function (you can also do this from the "Printer Setup" function). Then select to automate the function, pick which options you want and if you choose to save to a floppy you must enter the drive letter and file name you wish to use.
   So now that you have saved your journal file what can your do with it? Even though the journal files do not have a .TXT .DOC or .WRI extension they are still text files, they can be read by any word processing program. Print it out, rename it, do whatever you want with it.
   The "Journal" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE will display or print out any journal file. When in the "Journal" feature press [F5] and you will be offered the option to load "1. Current journal" that is being updated when a new transaction happens, "2. The journal file named ???????.TXT", assuming that you copy the journal to a text file when you close out the register, or "3. Archived journal" assuming that that you archive the journal when you close out the register. If you want to load the archived journal you will be asked for the month and day of the archive you want.
   Once the journal is loaded you may scroll through it on the screen or search it for a sample "search" text you may enter. You may also print out the entire journal or print only the portion of the journal displayed on the screen.

*** KEY PRESS BEEP ***
   This function makes the cash register beep whenever a key is pressed on the keyboard. If you find that annoying, it also turns it off.
   Note: On some computers the key press beep will be very long and delay the program. In this case you must turn the key press beep off.

*** NETWORKING THE CASH REGISTER ***
IMPORTANT! If you are running this program over a network, then at the beginning of each day you must run the POS.EXE program from the GLOBAL folder before starting the POS.EXE program from any of the LOCAL folders. Only the GLOBAL copy of the program will update data files on a particular date. Once the program displays the main menu all files will have been updated and the POS.EXE program in the GLOBAL folder can be closed.

   This program can be used as a "stand-alone" register or it can be reconfigured to run over a network. A "stand-alone" register is where there is only one register in the store. All sales must therefore be rung on this one register because it is the only one. This makes for a very simple system in that there is only one set of data files and only one way to access them, which is through the one register.

   But what if your store is so busy that one register will not handle the customer traffic? You could run two copies of this software on two stand-alone registers but this leads to problems. If you are using a stock table, what is sold on one register will not be noticed by the other register. If you have two identical inventories (one in the stock table of each register) then when an item is sold from one register it will be subtracted from the inventory of that register but not from the other register. So to function properly you will need to have the registers linked together over a network so that they can share data files.

   Of course to run the registers over a network the first thing you will need is two or more computers linked over a network. I am sorry but deciding on what kind of network you should have, what hardware you should use, and how to set up the network is up to you. If you consult with someone else or some company to help you with these decisions tell them that you are trying to network DOS software that is network compatible. Have them read the next section of this users guide and make sure that they tell you what PATH you must enter to the "Global" folder.

SETTING UP COMPUTERS TO RUN "CASH REGISTER" OVER A NETWORK
   To setup this program to be used on a network you must have some basic knowledge of how files are saved on a computer disk in "folders" and what a "path" is to access those folders. If you do not have this knowledge it is best to seek some help from someone who does.
   
   When used over a network various "folders" must be set up on each computer being used as a cash register. First, each register must have what is called a "Local" folder. This folder will keep all of the program files and data files that are used by that register. These are called, of course, your "local" files. While you can name this folder anything you wish and place it anywhere you want on the hard drive, to keep it simple please name this folder POS and place it at this PATH - C:\POS

   You must create this C:\POS folder on each computer on your network that is being used as a cash register and place into that folder all of the program files from the Cash register program. If in the future you wish to upgrade the Cash Register program to a newer version you will have to load the new version into each C:\POS folder on every computer that is being used as a cash register. You may now place the icon from the POS.EXE program on your computer screen's desktop to be used to start the Cash Register program. Remember that your "Local" folder is located at C:\POS on each cash register computer.

   Now you must create one "Global" folder. The global folder will hold all of the data files that are shared by all registers. This folder is only created on ONE of the networked computers. This folder should be created on the most used cash register computer because if your network goes down only the computer with BOTH a "Local" folder AND the "Global" folder will be able to ring up sales until the network comes back up.

   While you can name the "Global" folder anything you wish and place it anywhere you want on the server, to keep it simple please name this folder GLOBAL and place it at this PATH (assuming that your server hard drive is F: ) F:\GLOBAL

   You must also place all of the Cash Register program files into the "Global" folder" and of course if you wish later to upgrade the Cash Register program to a newer version you will have to copy the new version program files to the "Global" folder also.

SETTING UP THE PROGRAM TO WORK OVER A NETWORK
   The stand-alone version of the Cash Register program and the network version of the Cash Register program are the EXACT SAME PROGRAM FILES. To convert POS into POSnet all you will have to do is to enter a network PATH into the POSCONFG.EXE program, give each register a register letter, A-Z, and declare one of the folders to be "Global" while the other folders are "Local".

   If you are converting from a "Stand-alone" setup to a network setup (meaning that you have been using the cash register program for a while on one computer that has not been used over a network and you now want to use the program over a network using the same computer plus others connected to the network) then first create the local folders on the other computers and the global folder on ONE of the computers. Now over the network copy ALL of the files from the existing local folder to ALL of the other local folders AND the global folder.

   If you are new to the Cash Register program then create a local folder on each of the computers to be used as a register and the global folder on ONE of the register computers. Now copy all of the program files to each of the local folders AND the global folder. IMPORTANT NOTE: When you start this program for the first time you will be asked to give your register a file name. You must use the SAME FILE NAME for your register data files on the global folder and each local folder.

   Now it is time to setup the Cash Register program to function over the network. Go to the LOCAL folder on one of the computers and run the POSCONFG.EXE program and go to the "Network" feature. First enter the PATH to the global folder. Assuming that the server drive is F: and you created the global folder on the server drive at \GLOBAL then the PATH you would enter would be F:\GLOBAL You now must give this register a "register letter" from A to Z. When using the program later, under some conditions, it will be very important to know from which register a transaction was rung. The "register letter" will be printed after every transaction number on every receipt, i.e. 1234A, so you must give each register a different "register letter." This software will NOT check to make sure that each register has a different "register letter" YOU must make sure that each one is different on each register. On the lower right of the screen you must make sure that this folder is set up as a LOCAL folder, press [TAB] to change it if you need to. When everything is correct press [ESC] to return to the main POSCONFG.EXE menu.

   Now repeat the above process for each of the other registers.

   Now you must go to the GLOBAL folder and do the same thing. Even though the program will be running in the global folder you must still enter the PATH. You must still enter the "register letter" because while the POS.EXE program in the global folder will not allow you to ring up transactions it will allow you to open and close the program thereby printing opening and closing receipts. Since the closing receipt from the global folder will give you the sales from the entire store it would be very helpful if you knew which one it is. And this time you must set the folder as the GLOBAL folder. This is important because it will prevent the program from doing things in the global folder that it should not do and allow the program to do things that the copies of the program in the local folders cannot do.

   Remember that the PATH to the global folder MUST be the same in the global folder and each of the local folders. If you entered F:\GLOBAL as the PATH in one folder then you must enter F:\GLOBAL as the PATH in all of the other folders.

   When the program is set to be used over a network (i.e. the network PATH is not blank) the main menu screen of both the POS.EXE program and the POSCONFG.EXE program will display the word "NETWORK" followed by the network letter for that register. If "NETWORK" is not displayed then that register is not part of the network (even if the computer it is on is on the network) and data from that register is not being shared with the other registers.

   So why are there local data files and global data files? Global data is shared by all of the registers, things like the stock table, tax rates, customer info, sales history, employees, receipt headers and footers, coupons, passwords, etc. This data can be accessed and changed by any register and the changes will then apply to all of the registers.

   Local data applies to only the register it is entered on, for example hardware issues. It is possible that each register was cobbled together from different parts at different times as new registers were needed. Different registers could be run on different computers running different versions of Windows (or DOS) attached to different receipt printers and different cash drawers. Therefore settings for things like printer setup, printer programming, color or B&W, keyboard beep, open cash drawer settings, etc. are all local.

   To find out if something is "local" and must be set on each register or "global" and can be set from one register and will then apply to all registers use the POSCONFG.EXE program to access the feature you are interested in. If this symbol (L) is near where you enter the data or setting then it is local, if the symbol is not there then it is global.

   Two of the things that are local are the journal and the record of past sales. This is why the receipts have the register letter following the transaction number. If you need to void a sale you must do it from the register that originally rang up the sale, it is the only one that will have the record of that particular sale in it's .REC file so that you can void it.

   The journal being local allows you to deal with just one register when trying to make sure that no sales have gone "missing." If you print your journal you do not have to compare the transaction numbers from each printed journal roll to make sure that the transaction numbers are sequential. For example, transaction number 2568 is on journal E and then 2569 is on A and 2570 is on journal C. Each register journal is separate and has its own sequential transaction numbers.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN "STAND-ALONE" AND NETWORK OPERATION.
Sale parking.
   Sales can be parked from any register and can then be picked up from any other register. However if one register is parking or picking up a sale the other registers will not be able to access sale parking until the first register is finished or has waited to get into this feature for 3 minutes. This is because if two registers access the parking feature at the same time it is possible to give two different sales the same parking ID or to park the two sales in the same slot thereby losing one of the parked sales.

Stock table.
   It is not a good idea to make structural changes in the stock table while sales are being made on other registers. Do not delete current items and moving current items around in the stock table is a REALLY BAD IDEA. When a sale begins the POS.EXE program locates where every item is in the stock table. If that item moves while the sale is being processed then the item cannot be found.

   Changing prices, tax rates, or other information is OK but if the item has already been rung into the sale on another register those changes will not be reflected in that one sale.

Closing the registers.
   The only noticeable change in closing an individual register is that you will not be able to reset the merchandise data from the register. The closing receipt will only report sales from that one register. All of the figures on the closing report (except "tips") are also from only that register. You MU
ST close every register before you close the "Global" register.

   After all of the registers have been closed you must run the POS.EXE program from the GLOBAL folder. Closing out this global register will print on the closing report the sales from the whole store, all of the figures on the global closing receipt are a total of all of the registers added together. Only when you close the global register will you be offered the option to reset the merchandise data. The global register cannot ring sales, returns, no sales, or voids.

Reports.
   While closing on a register is local, making a report (option #8) is global. So if you press [7] to see the closing screen it may tell you that the local sales for that register are 345.67 but if you press [8] to make a sales report it may tell you that the sales are 1234.56 for all of the registers.

Inventory and Receiving.
   On a "back room" computer you can run only the RECEIVE.EXE and INVENTOR.BAT programs if you wish. You will also have to run the POSCONFG.EXE program once to configure the folder as a "local" folder and enter the PATH to the global folder. This assumes that the back room computer is also on the network and you can actually run several back room networked computers if you wish to.

   When run over the network you will not need to, or be able to, copy files from one drive to another as all of the data files will actually be kept in the global folder.

   After you have entered your received merchandise or your inventory into the data storage file you will still need to load that file into the stock table, however only the copy of the POS.EXE program in the global folder will be able to load the file.

   If you do not wish the registers to be able to receive merchandise or enter inventory then remove the RECEIVE.EXE and INVENTOR.BAT from those local folders. Note: taking inventory requires both the RECEIVE.EXE and INVENTOR.BAT files.

*** OPEN CASH DRAWER ***
   If you choose to open the cash drawer through the COM: serial port then you must have a cash drawer that plugs into your computer through the computer's serial port.
   After choosing COM: you will be asked to choose which .BAT file you will be using to actually pop open the cash drawer, 3 for the COM1: port and 3 for the COM2: port. Highlight them one at a time and then press [F4] to test it. If it works press [ENTER] to make your choice permanent.
   To actually open a serial cash drawer the file SERIAL1.BAT must be in the folder on your computer drive that has the POS program.

PRINTER
   A "printer" cash drawer will have a little cable, that usually looks like a short telephone cord, that plugs into a port in the back of a receipt printer. If you have a cash drawer that does not have this cable or the cable will not plug into the port on the back of the printer then the register may not be able to open the cash drawer.
      It is possible that you may have a cash drawer that may share the printer port with the printer or use the computer's serial port or plug into a USB port or who knows? It may be possible for this program to be reconfigured to open those cash drawers. My email is daleharris@prodigy.net Write me, I'll write back.
   A receipt printer is a specialized printer for cash registers. One of the features it has is that it has a port to plug in a cable from a cash drawer. A regular computer printer will not have this port. A receipt printer is also programmed so that when it receives a "control code" from the computer it will send a signal to the cash drawer to open the drawer. A regular computer printer will not do this even if it has the port. 
   To be able to have this program send the proper code to the printer to have the printer open the cash drawer you must tell this program what the code is. To do that, you will have to find the code either in the printer's manual, contact the printer manufacturer, or see if your printer is listed on my webpage here http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/popopen.htm
   Use the "Open Cash Drawer" function in the POSCONFG.EXE program to enter the control code that opens the cash drawer into the register. 
   Just to annoy everyone printer manufacturers may give you the control code in one of three different formats.
   Decimal. In other words, regular numbers like 27, 45, 181. This would be great because decimal is how you have to enter the code into this program. The first decimal in a control code is almost always 27, so if the control code in your manual starts with a 27 you can be confidant that it is a decimal code, just type it in.
   Hexadecimal. These numbers are set to a base of 16 instead of 10. They are usually printed in two character groups and will have the letters A - F added to the numbers like 1B, 23, 51, A3. Hexadecimal control codes will usually begin with the number 1B, since 1B equals 27 in decimal. You cannot enter hexadecimal numbers into this software. Fortunately this program will convert hexadecimal numbers into decimal for you. At the bottom of the screen where you enter the control codes you will find a place labeled "Convert hexadecimal". Enter your "Hex" numbers there and press [TAB] to be shown the decimal equivalents. Enter the decimal numbers into the control codes.
   Letters. In computers every symbol that can be printed has a numeric equivilent. A = 65, a = 97, + = 43. Codes also have numeric equivalents, [ESC] = 27. If your manual tells you that the control code to open a cash drawer is something like [ESC], H, e, 4, or [ESC]He4 then you must convert these characters to decimal equivalents. Fortunately this program will convert letter codes into decimal for you. At the bottom of the screen where you enter the control codes you will find a place labeled "Convert letters". Enter letters there (remember that uppercase letters have different codes than lowercase letters) and press [TAB] to be shown the decimal equivalents. Enter the decimal numbers into the control codes. Remember that [ESC] = 27
   You may enter up to 6 decimal numbers into your control code, you do not have to use all 6. After you have entered your control codes, and if you have your printer & drawer hooked up to your computer, you may press [F4] to test opening the cash drawer.
   To actually open a serial cash drawer the file SERIAL1.BAT must be in the folder on your computer drive that has the POS program.

COM1
   If you choose to open the cash drawer through the COM1 serial port then you must have a cash drawer that plugs into your computer through the computer's serial port.
   This program has been tested to open serial cash drawers and has worked under DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows '95, and Windows '98. It has NOT WORKED under Windows 2000, NT, or XP.
   To actually open a serial cash drawer the file SERIAL1.BAT must be in the folder on your computer drive that has the POS program.

*** PASSWORDS & NAME ***
   Use this function to change the master password and the register's name.
   A register's name is only displayed at the main menu of the cash register program. If you are running multiple registers on the same computer displaying the register's name would be helpful. If you enter your company's name as the register name then that will be displayed on the main menu.

   Passwords are use to restrict access to various portions of the Cash Register program.

SHOULD YOU HAVE PASSWORDS?
     Just because you CAN have a password for a feature it does not mean that you SHOULD. If you password every possible feature it will mean that a supervisor will almost always have to be near the register to do almost anything.
     However two important passwords to have are the 'MASTER' password to prevent employees from using this program to change the configuration of your register and, if your register does not generate a journal, the "CLOSE" password to keep employees from closing the register at mid-day, and then reopening the register and telling you that a partial day's sales were the entire day's sales.

PASSWORD RULES
The master password overrides all other passwords and can be used in place of any other password.
Each password has a function number associated with it. For the feature to require a password to use it the function number must be "1" or higher.
If the function is not '0' but no feature password or master password exists then that feature will not require a password."
If the function is not '0' but the feature password does not exist then only the master password will allow access to the feature.
If the function is not '0' but the master password does not exist then only the feature password will allow access to the feature.

MASTER PASSWORD
   The master password overrides all other passwords and can be used in place of any other password.
   The master password is needed to access your .POS file using the POSCONFG.EXE program.  The master password is required to be able to change pieces and dollars sold in the stock table. If your master password is blank then no password will be required to access your .POS file and most other passwords may be bypassed just by pressing [ENTER]. Entering a master password is a REAL GOOD IDEA!

REDUCTION / DISCOUNT PASSWORD
  Password will be required to give a discount or allow a reduction / coupon in a sale.

RETURN PASSWORD
 Password will be required to ring up return / refund transaction.

FILE MAINENANCE PASSWORD
   Password will be required to enter file maintenance which takes you to this program, stock table, tax rates, time, etc.

STOCK TABLE PASSWORD
   Password will be required to go to the stock table. However you must use the Master password to enter the stock table if you wish to change 'pieces sold', 'amount sold', and 'inventory' in the stock table.

NO SALE PASSWORD
   Password will be required to open cash drawer without a "sale" or "return" transaction.

VOIDS PASSWORD
   This password has two different functions. If the function number is "1" then the password will be required to enter the "Voids" function to view previous sales and void out a sale. If the function number is "2" then you will be allowed to enter the "Voids" function to view previous sales without needing the password but you will have to use the password to actually void out a sale.

LOCK REGISTER PASSWORD
   This password has three different functions. If the function number is "1" or higher you will be able to lock the register fom the main menu using the password. In addition if the function number is "2" the register will automatically lock when you close out the register, or if the function number is "3" you will be offered an option to lock the register when it is closed out.

CLOSE REGISTER PASSWORD
   This password has two different functions. If the function number is "1" then the password will be required to enter the "Close" function to view the day's total sales and optionally to close out the register. If the function number is "2" then you will be allowed to enter the "Close" function to view day's total sales without needing the password but you will have to use the password to actually close out the register.
   NOTE: If your register is not keeping a printed or disk file journal then it is important to use the "Close" password. If you do not, then associates could close the register at mid-day and then restart it. It would then appear that the sales total for the restarted register is for the whole day and not for only part of a day.

REPORTS PASSWORD
   Password will be required to enter 'Reports' function.

EMPLOYEE PASSWORD
   Password will be required to enter 'Associates' function."

CUSTOMER LIMITS
   Not currently used.
   In the future this program will allow customers to purchase merchandise and instead of paying for it to put the purchase on a "tab". This password is for setting the limits of that "tab"

TAX PASSWORD
   There are 5 possible functions for the tax password. If the function number is zero then the tax password is not used. If the function number is not zero then the tax password will be required to change any tax information from the POS.EXE program. If the function number is set to 2 or 4 then the password will be required to access the tax chart and to be able to change the tax rate on an item being rung up in a sale. If the function number is set to 3 or 4 then the password will be required to access the tax chart and to make a sale tax exempt. 

*** 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.
(See Checks)





(See Checks)



*** 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
 
   Needless to say but you cannot use the payout feature if your register does not use a stock table.
   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 subtact 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.

        1. 20 character screen width, cannot be displayed in a window.
        2. 40 character screen width, can be displayed in a window.
        3. 40 character screen width with scrolling.

   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.

*** 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. (Cont.) 0 - 20
   0  Number of top margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
  60  Number of printed lines per page. (Page) 50 - 70
   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.

                    Printing Parameters
------------------------------------------------------------
Printers
   Every cash register should print receipts. This, of course, will require a printer. Most POS software will print only on specialized receipt printers. This program will print on both receipt printers and regular computer printers.
   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. 
   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.

Printer port
   There are 6 possible ports on the back of your computer to which your printer may be attached. You may have up to two parallel printer ports, LPT1 or LPT2. You may have up to two serial ports, COM1 or COM2. You may have up to two USB ports. 
   You may also print to the port FILE. This will allow you to send your print job to your printer through your Windows printer drivers, in effect this program will print to any printer that Windows can.
   To select a printer port use the "printer setup" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program. The default printer port is LPT1 so you do not have to do anything if your printer is connected to the LPT1 port as most printers are.
   From "printer setup" press [F5] to select the port. If you choose LPT1 or LPT2 you are done and need to do nothing else except to try to print a sample receipt.
   NOTE! Support for COM1 or COM2 is still underdevelopment and not complete. There is no error trapping currently for serial printers. If your serial printer is not working properly this program will not stop until the printer is fixed but will continue to send data to the printer even though nothing is actually being printed.
   If you choose COM1 or COM2 you will have to select various settings to configure the port to match the settings on your printer. To find the correct settings for your printer you will have to either look them up in your printer's manual or contact the printer's manufacturer. One special setting is MODE. If you get the printer to operate but the text does not line up properly set MODE = ASC.
   If you choose the port FILE then something completely different will happen. The printer data will be sent to a disk file instead of your printer. To get the data to your printer another program must be running while this cash regiser program is also running.
   The program APRINT.EXE is one of the files that you downloaded with this program. It will look for printer data in the FILE and when it finds it the data will be sent to your printer using your Windows printer drivers. For this to happen APRINT.EXE must be running. APRINT is Windows software and requires that you be running Windows '95 or later. 
   It also requires that another file be on your computer, VB40032.DLL, and that this file be in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder of your hard drive. Since this file is already on most Windows computer hard drives it was not part of the POS.ZIP file you downloaded to receive this program. If you are missing this file (APRINT tells you it is missing when you start APRINT) you may download it by using this link http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/vb40032.zip You must download this file to your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder and then unzip/extract the file.
   When you start APRINT.EXE it will display your Windows default printer in a box. You may click on "Choose printer" to select a different printer if you wish. you need only to select a "main printer". Save your selection and minimize the program.
   For APRINT to work you must start it before you start any of the Cash Register programs, you must choose the correct printer and that printer must be ready to print, it must still be running while the Cash Register programs are running, the Cash Register programs must be set to use the FILE port to send printer data, VB40032.DLL must be in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder, and you cannot close APRINT until after you have closed the Cash Register program.

APRINT.EXE was conceived and created by Jonathan Simpson. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for his Contribution to Cash Register.

Receipt printers.
   In general a receipt printer will print on a long roll of paper. This is called printing continuously because the paper stock is one long continuous piece of paper. This makes it very easy for the POS software because it does not have to worry about printing receipts that are too long or too short. When the printer stops printing you just tear off the receipt no matter how long or short it is.
  The things that you have to think about with a receipt printer are how many blank lines need to be printed at the end of each receipt to get the last printed line out of the printer before the receipt is torn off, the fact that receipt printers print only 40 characters per line, and how many plies are on the paper roll, ie, how many copies of the receipt are printed on one pass.
  To set up a receipt printer run the POSCONFG.EXE program and select "Printer Setup." Set "Print receipts on printer" to "YES". Set "Print on a page printer or print continuously" to "CONT." Enter a number into "Number of blank lines between receipts." Set "Print 40 or 80 characters wide." to "40." 
   If your printer uses a cutter to cut the receipt off the roll you must set this program to activate the cutter. Press [F1] to enter the code to make the printer cut the receipt. Entering this code is similar to entering the code to open a cash drawer attached to the printer, see the instructions for opening the cash drawer to learn how to enter the code to activate the cutter.
   If you now press [F4], and your printer is set up and attached to your computer, the program will print out a sample receipt.
   NOTE: if you are using a computer printer that has a tear bar on it to tear off the page when it stops printing then you may consider setting it up as a receipt printer following the above instructions. The only change you may want to make is to set the width to "80."

Computer printers.
   Computer printers usually print pages, normally 11 inches long. This is much tougher that setting up a continuous printer. No matter how short a receipt may be you will want it to finish off the page it is printing on and get ready for the next page. If a receipt is very long then you will want to print it on two pages, and then finish off the last page. This is called pagination, every receipt will start off at the top of a new page.
   To use page printing set "Print receipts on printer" to "YES". Set "Print on a page printer or print continuously" to "PAGE"

Form feed.
   The easiest way to set up pagination is to use the "Number of printed lines per page" and "Use form feed at the end of the page." Most computer printers will print 60 lines per page. Laser and inkjet printers will print 60 lines and automatically provide a 1/2" top and bottom margin on each page. Line or dot matrix printers will print 60 lines but ask the computer to print top and bottom margins. In either case set "Number of printed lines per page" to "60" and "Use form feed at the end of the page." to "YES". Now press [F4] and print out a sample receipt, press [F4] again to print out a second receipt.
   Both receipts should start at the same distance from the top of the page. If the second receipt starts at the middle of the first page then your printer may not use the "form feed" command, see "Line counting" below. If the second receipt starts lower on the page than the first page then try setting "Number of printed lines per page" to less than 60. If a blank page is printed between the two receipts then also try setting "Number of printed lines per page" to less than 60. (If your printer prints EXACTLY 60 lines per page then it will paginate after the 60th line is printed, when it then receives the form feed command it will then send out another blank page.) If needed, you may also try experimenting with the top and bottom margin settings.

Line counting.
   If "form feed" does not work on your printer, or you get weird results, then you must use line counting. This is simply having the computer count the lines it prints to calculate when a page ends.
  To do this set "Use form feed at the end of the page." to "NO". Now adjust the top and bottom margin settings and the "Number of printed lines per page" until you get two sample receipts to begin printing the same distance from the top of the page.

Receipt copies.
    Now that you have your receipts printing correctly you will want to think of how many of each receipt you want to print.
    A journal receipt is the copy of the receipt that is kept in your store. It is your record of every transaction that is rung on your register. You may be legally required to keep a journal of your transactions. If you are using two or three ply paper in your printer then the top copy will be your customer's receipt and the bottom will be the journal. If you are using single ply paper you may print two copies of each receipt, one for the customer, one for the journal. To set the number of copies, set "Print one or two receipts per transaction" to "1" or "2".
   Another option is to save the journal as a computer file. See the section "Journal" in this manual.
    You may also want an extra copy of any credit receipts, one for the customer, one for the journal, one to attach to the credit slip. To do this set "Print an extra receipt for credit sales" to "YES". This extra receipt will only print for a credit transaction.

Ask before printing sales receipt.
   This setting allows you to not print a receipt for a sale, return, void, or no-sale. At the end of the transaction you will be allowed to choose between "1. Print receipt" or "2. Do not print receipt". This assumes that you have set up the POS program to print receipts.
   If you choose to not print a receipt then no receipt will be printed. However everything else will still happen. The cash drawer will open, the sale will be written to the journal file, a transaction number will be used up. Be warned! If your printer prints on multiple ply paper and you are using the second sheet as your journal, you will not have a printout of the transaction on your journal. This may not be legal! You will however be able to tell that a transaction is missing because the transaction numbers will not be sequential.

Ask before printing opening receipt.
   This setting allows you to not print an opening receipt when you start the cash register. This assumes that you have set up the POS program to print receipts.
   If you choose not to print the opening receipt the cash drawer will still pop open but there will be no transaction and therefore no entry will be made into either the sales record file or the journal file. 
   This is an absolutely terrible idea. The purpose of the opening receipt is to make certain that the register sales totals were reset when the register was closed, and if not, to tell you how much is being added to today's sales that should not be there. If you do not print an opening receipt when you start the cash register then the next thing you should do is to go to the "close" screen to make sure that all of the totals are actually zero.

Sales Check
   If you allow the printing of sales checks then at the end of each sale you will be offered the option of parking the sale and printing a sales check or finishing the sale and printing the receipt. It is assumed that you wish to give the sales check to the customer who will pay later when you then will recall the parked sale. Of course to be able to park a sale you must enable sale parking.
  A sales check will look just like a receipt except that only the first line of the header will be printed followed by "SALES CHECK", of course there will be no payment information (change, cashpay, etc.) because the customer has not yet tendered payment. The "PARKED" code will also be at the top of the sales check.
   If you use the "employee setup" feature to allow the tracking of tips then the sales check will have a line for the customer to enter the amount of the tip. (See "Sale parking" and "Employee setup / Tips")

Forced line feed
   This is mainly for serial printer users. If your serial printer will not feed the paper while printing setting this feature to "YES" may fix it. If your printer is already feeding paper then setting this to "YES" will double space your receipts.

Pause before printing second receipt
   This will halt printing between multiple copies of the same receipt until you press any key. 

Print blank line between items
    This will print a blank line between the merchandise items on receipts. This only functions on 40 wide printing where each item sold uses two lines. so you will print two lines for the first item, then a blank line, then two lines for the next item, then a blank line, etc.

Print additional alternate transaction numbers.
   Some countries require a two part transaction number. The actual transaction number is reset to zero when the register is closed and starts the next day at "1". The second part of the transaction number counts the number of times the register has been closed. So today the transaction numbers may be 2687-1, 2687-2, 2687-3, 2687-4... and tomorrow the transaction numbers will be 2688-1, 2688-2, 2688-3, 2688-4... 
   This program will now do this. Use "Printer setup" setup feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program to turn on the printing of these new transaction numbers on your receipts. These new transaction numbers are in addition to the old transaction numbers and if you choose to print them both the old and the new transaction numbers will be printed. The new numbers will be printed on the left side of the dashed line that is printed after the header. The new numbers will also be printed in the journal file.

Number of digits in receipt transaction numbers.
   Some countries now require 6 digit transaction numbers, i.e., 000000 to 999999. If you set this feature to allow 6 digit transaction numbers then they will be printed only on the receipts and in the journal. All other parts of this program will use the last 4 digits of the transaction number. 
   For example, if you wish use the "Void" function to lookup transaction number 256987 you would have to lookup transaction 6987. Since the sales record file only stores a maximum of the last 10,000 transactions there is no possibility of there being two number 6987 transactions in the file.

Prints weird.
   If you are running this program from DOS you will have almost no printer problems if your printer is set up to print in a data processing mode. For most DOS printers that is the only mode they have so "No problem." 
   About the only problem you will have when printing from DOS is if the columns do not line up. This is caused by using a font that is not fixed width. A "W" is wider than an "I". Changing your printer to a data processing mode or the default font to "Courier" or other fixed width font will solve this.
Windows
   There are a lot of printers out there. Windows has many different printer drivers and controls. Here are some problems that may occur.
   Prints nothing! Well first of all have you set up the cash register to print receipts? If not, it will not print anything else either. Some printers / Windows combinations need to be specifically told that you will be printing from DOS. See your printer manual. If you are running this program from windows '95 or later then even though you are running a DOS program, Windows takes over controlling the printing and many DOS printer features are over-ridden even if you are running this program from the DOS prompt. But since it is a DOS program then Windows wants to send printing to DOS controls even though it has over-ridden them. Isn't this FUN? Another solution to this problem is to make the "Generic Printer" your default, see below.
   Columns don't line up. This is caused by using a font that is not fixed width. A "W" is wider than an "I". Changing your printer to a data processing mode or the default font to "Courier" or other fixed width font may solve this. Another solution is to set up the "Generic Printer" as your Windows default printer. Are you sure that you want to mess with your Windows settings? Think again?

*** PROGRAM PRINTER ***
   When your computer wants to send out some data to be printed is asks the printer if it is ready. If it is ready it sends back a number, usually 223. If it is not ready, out of paper, not on line, turned off, something else, it will send back another number or no number. Some computer / printer combinations will use a different number for "Ready". If yours does then you will see the "Printer Error" screen even though there is no error. This gets real annoying, real quick. 
   You may use the "Program Printer" function in POSCONFG.EXE to reprogram the "Ready" code that the cash register will accept.

*** RECEIPT COUPONS ***
   You may print up to three 10 line coupons on your receipts. These coupons can be for anything you want to offer that you can explain in 10 lines.
   Here are some suggestion of things that should be in your coupons...
   Your business name and address. You don't want them to take the coupon elsewhere, do you?
   An expiration date. If you are offering a $5.00 thing for $4.50 you don't want them coming back 5 years from now when it is selling for $12.00 and give it to them for $4.50. Also many people procrastinate until just before the coupon expires, if it never expires they will never bring it in.
   Value = 1/20 Cents. Trust me, this is a legal thing, just put it somewhere on your coupon.
   Other legal stuff. "Void where prohibited, licensed, or taxed." "Some restrictions may apply." "Cannot be combined with any other offer, discount, or promotion." "Must be over 18 / 21." Coupon must be presented / surrendered at time of purchase." 
   
   The width of your coupon depends on the width of your receipts. Use "printer setup" to set your width first because if you change it later you will have to retype your coupons.
   There are two variables  to set for each coupon. First is "how often", with a range of 0 to 9,999. This tells the register how frequently each coupon will be printed. A setting of 0 would mean never. 1 would mean 1 out of 1 or every receipt would have a coupon. A setting of 2 would mean 1 out of 2, 50 would mean 1 out of 50 and so on.
  The "Evenly" or "Random" setting determines which receipts will have the coupons. If the coupon frequency is divided "Evenly" among the receipts then the spacing between receipts that have the coupon will be the same. For example, if the frequency of a coupon is set to 18 and they are to be printed "Evenly" then every receipt that has a transaction number that is evenly divided by 18 will have the coupon printed on it. If the transaction that is divisible by 18 is not a sale, (opening, closing, no sale), then that receipt will be skipped. "Random" means that every receipt would have the same chance of having the coupon printed on it. If the frequency of a coupon is set to 18 and they are to be printed at "Random" then every receipt would have a 1 in 18 chance of having the coupon printed on it. Theoretically 3 receipts in a row could have the coupon printed on it or you could go 100 receipts with no coupon. But in the long run the ratio would be 1 receipt out of 18 will have the coupon.

*** RECEIPT HEADER & FOOTER ***
   You will probably want your receipts to have a header (the same text on each receipt above the sale) and a footer (the same text on each receipt below the sale.) 
   For a header you will want to have your store's name, address, and phone number. Also some text stating that keeping the receipt would be a good idea. "Retain this receipt to compare with your monthly statement or for return or exchange." or "No cash refunds without this receipt!" 
   A footer usually has a motto or slogan. "Keys made right." or "Satisfaction guaranteed"
   The width of your header and footer depends on the width of your receipts. Use "printer setup" to set your width first because if you change it later you will have to retype your header and footer.

*** RECEIPT LANGUAGE ***
   While this program itself will be persistantly in English it is possible to change the labels on the receipts (ASSOCIATE, DESCRIPTION, PRICE, TOTAL, AMOUNT TENDERED, etc.) to anything or any language you want assuming that it will fit in the allowable space, use either the Latin or Greek character set, and your printer will properly print those characters.
   To do this use the "Receipt Language" funcion. This will show you the current labels (or allow your to reset them to the default labels) and then type in the new labels that you want.
   Since it is possible that another language will use different characters, such as those with accents, additional alternate characters can be displayed by pressing [F3]. These are 80 selected characters from the uppen half of the ASCII character list of 128. The remaining 48 are either graphics characters or just plain weird, but you may enter them also even though they are not displayed if you know the code. To the left of each displayed alternate character will be a three digit code. To actually enter an alternate character into a label hold down the [ALT] key, type in the 3 digit code using the numeric key pad to the right of your keyboard (NOT the row of number keys above the "QWERTY" keys), and then release the [ALT] key. You must hold down the [ALT] key while you are typing in the 3 digit code.
   Four special labels in the receipt are the ones used for "reductions". They include a "field" for printing numbers in the label. The field consists of pound signs (####). It is very important that you DO NOT change the print field in any way. You may move the field to the left by having less preceding text or to the right by having more preceding text, but you may not change the number of pound signs or the decimal point if it contains one. In addition you may not have the following characters in these labels... exclamation (!), back slash (\), dollar sign ($), additional pound signs not part of the print field (#).
   NOTE: at the current time printing a sample receipt from the POSCONFG.EXE program will print only the default labels. Your labels will only be printed when printing an actual receip from POS.EXE

*** RECEIVING ***
(To use "receiving" you must be keeping track of your inventory in the stock table.)
   This function will actually run another program that will allow you to enter merchandise received into your store into a file. From the POS program you may then use "File maintenance" to load this file. When a receiving file is loaded your current inventory will NOT be erased from your stock table, the receiving file will be ADDED to your inventory.
   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 receiving program uses the stock table only to verify that the correct stock numbers and descriptions are being used by the receiving program.
   The receiving program does not have to be run on the same computer as the cash register program is on. The receiving program will copy the receiving file to a floppy disk and the POS program will read the receiving file from the floppy.
   You do not have to enter the items into the receiving 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 five other items, and then add 7 more 555's, and then six other items, and then 4 more 555's, the program will know that you entered 23 555's.
   Instructions on the receiving program are near the end of this manual.
 
*** ROUNDING ***
   There are three choices for rounding money amounts."

".01"   Will round all money amounts to the nearest .01

".05"   Will round all money amounts to the nearest .01 but will allow the sales person at the end of the sale to press [F8] to round out the total of the purchase to the nearest .05. With this feature turned set to ".05", when you press [+] to total a sale and are then able to choose the payment method (cash, check, charge) you may press [F8] to round out the sale to the nearest .05. Pressing [F8] again will restore the sale to the original amount.
   It does this by adding or subtracting a few cents from the first item in the sale. If the new price puts the sale in a different tax amount the tax will not change but will remain the tax on the total original amount.

".10"   Will do the same thing as ".05" except that it will round to the nearest .10 when you press [F8] at the end of the sale.

" 1 "  Will round all money amounts to the nearest 1 (NO DECIMALS) and will allow money amounts 100 times the usual limits. For example the maximum price for an item will be 999999 instead of 9999.99

NOTE: The amounts are stored as the same number internally in the program no matter how you set "rounding". This feature only determines how the values are displayed. For example if numbers are displayed as 23.85, 152.36, or .25 when "rounding" is set to ".01" or ".05", then those same numbers will be displayed as 2385, 15236, or 25 when "rounding" is set to " 1 "

*** SALE PARKING ***
   Ever come to the end of a sale and when you tell your customer the total she decides that then is a good time to start looking for her checkbook or the customer has left his wallet in the car and will be, "Right back," or the credit card machine has determined that your customer is from Mars and needs to check a database on Vulcan before it will validate his card? Well, bunky, until those other people get it together, YOUR STORE IS CLOSED! Unless you have another register in your store you could not ring up another sale until the first one was completed. (Or your voided it out and had to start over.) You have six other customers in line but can't ring up any of them. Bummer.
   Well with this program you can park up to seventy-six pending sales and ring up those six other customer's. Use the "Sale parking" feature in POSCONFG.EXE to allow 0 to 76 sales to be parked. It's almost like having a second register.
   Sale Parking can also be used to run a "tab" in a bar or restaurant. As consumables are delivered to the customer you recall their parked sale and add to their transaction. When the customer wishes to pay his check, you recall his parked sale, give him his total, and finish ringing his sale.
   To actually park a sale, or retrieve a previously parked sale, press [F6] from any current sale transaction. (Returns may not be parked.) 
There are 3 options...
   You may park the current sale in progress and begin a new sale.
   You may park the current sale in progress and retrieve a previously parked sale.
   You may void (erase) the current sale in progress and retrieve a previously parked sale.
   To park a sale you must give it a 4 character code. In a restaurant you would probably enter the sales person's number and the table number. 0425 would be for sales person #4 on table #25. If you are more interested in the table than the sales person then enter the table number first, ie. 2504. Your code may contain letters or punctuation.
   When you wish to retrieve a parked sale the parking codes will be sorted and displayed. This is why you always enter the sales person's or table number as two digits, "04" not just "4". The program uses an alphabetical sort, not a numeric sort. In a alphabetical sort 23, 15, 2, 18, 1 would be sorted as 1, 15, 18, 2, 23. But  23, 15, 02, 18, 01 would be sorted as 01, 02, 15, 18, 23. To retrieve the sale, enter one of the codes listed and press [ENTER].
   Parked sales are written to your drive. Parked sales will not be lost if there is a power loss, or if you turn the register off, or even if you close out the register. To clear a sale out of the parking lot you must retrieve it and then either finish the sale or void it out.

*** SALE RECORDING-VOIDS ***
   You may have the register record 0, 10, 100, 1000, or 10,000 of your last sales. After recording the maximum number of sales new sales will overwrite the beginning of the file. For example if you are recording 100 sales the 101st sale will overwrite sale #1.
   Actually, all transactions are recorded including opening, closing, no sales, and voids. From the "Void" function of the register you may call up and view any transaction, even the non-sale transactions. You may page through the transactions by pressing only one key. It is sort of like being able to view your journal on the screen.
   Your sales record file will have the extension of .REC  If you named your register file MARTHA then the sales record file for your register will be MARTHA.REC  Please be aware that a sales record file can be very large, one with 10,000 transactions will be over 19 Megabytes!

View transactions / Print past transactions.
   The VOID feature can be used to view all past transactions that are still in your sales record file including opening, closing, and no sales transactions. Opening, closing, and no sales transactions can always be reprinted from the VOID feature but you must use the "Sales recording - VOIDS" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program to turn on the ability to reprint other types of transactions.

VOIDS
   Only sales in your sales record file (not refunds or anything else) may be voided and then only if they are from the same day. You may also require a password before a sale may be voided.
   A voided sale will be totally erased from the register. The sales will be removed from the sales totals, the pieces will be returned to the inventory, even the transaction count will be reduced by 1. The transaction type in the sales record will be changed from "SALE" to "VOIDED SALE". However the amount of all of the voids and the number of voids will be recorded in the daily sales report as a separate number, ie. not added into the daily sales.

*** SALES HISTORY ***
   To use "Sales History" your cash register must have a stock table and you must be keeping track of your inventory in the stock table.
Use the POSCONFG.EXE program to turn "Sales History" to ON. A history file is over 600,000 bytes. Consider this fact before deciding to turn "History" on. 
   Sales History is updated at the end of each sale so it is always current unless turned off using the POSCONFG.EXE program.
From the 'Reports' feature in the POS program 'Sales History' will tell you how many pieces of, and the dollar amount, you have sold for any item for up to one year. You may specify 1 to 12 months of history. You may show one item or all items sorted by stock number, category, or vendor. The history rolls over after 12 months, i.e. the 13th month will overwrite the first month. 
   Displaying the History file from the POSCONFG.EXE program will only show the raw data in the file. Use the POS program to display a more usable format.
   When using the "Reports" feature in the POS program, month #1 is the current month. If it is the 3rd of the month a "one month" history will show only the sold amounts for the 3 days of the month so far. A "two month" history will show you the sales for all of last month and for the 3 days of this month so far.

"Z" readings
   A "Z" reading is a tally of your sales from the first sale ever rung up on the register when it was just taken out of the box. It cannot be reset. They are usually used in malls to keep track of the sales of their cart and kiosk vendors.
   The point of this is that the mall can take a "Z" reading from each of the cart registers once a week, or once a month. Then they subtract the previous "Z" reading and they will then know what the cart sold in the time period without having to worry about how many times the daily sales were reset. 
   The "Z" reading works like an odometer. When it reaches its maximum it will "turn over" to zero. For the POS program the maximum is 999999999999.99 and if you add 10¢ to that you will get 000000000000.09. Got the concept? It is not likely that you are going to reach 999999999999.99 in sales too often and this point will probably not come up in your lifetime.
   The "Z" reading is displayed in the upper left corner of the "Close" screen of the POS.EXE program only if the display of the "Z" reading has been turned on. You turn it on using the "Sales history - "Z" reading" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program. The POS program will update of the value of the "Z" reading even if the "Z" reading is not displayed. 
   When the "Z" reading is displayed on the screen and if your register prints receipts, you can print out the "Z" reading by pressing [F1]. Printing out the "Z" reading will also give you additional "Z" readings for total returns and total voids. While sales add to the regular "Z" reading, returns and voids will of course subtract from the "Z" reading. The mall management can use the return and void "Z" readings to see if the volume of returns or voids are way out of line.
   So what if a user has two (or more) register files on his computer. They could be identical except for the file name. On the first half of the month the user could use one of the files and on the second half of the month the user could use the other file. Since they look and work the same the mall would have no idea that different files were being used at different times of the month. When the mall takes the "Z" reading only the sales from the register file currently being used would be included. The sales from the other register file would not be in the "Z" reading that was just taken by the mall. The mall is being cheated. 
   To prevent this from occurring all register files on the same computer use the same "Z" reading. This means that all register files, in any folder, on any drive, on the same computer will share the same "Z" reading. If you have register files for "JEWELER" and "KEYSHOP" on the same computer then a sale rung using the JEWELER register file will increase the "Z" reading for both the JEWELER and the KEYSHOP registers. So it would make no difference how many register files the user used to ring up sales for the month, the "Z" reading would be increased on every sale. 
   The downside of this is that if you do use the "Z" reading then once a computer becomes an actual register in a real store you cannot use the other register files to "play" with or for other vendors, or for other purposes. However if you do not use the "Z" reading (meaning that you do not keep track of it, the register always keeps track of it) then this will not apply. 
   Remember that if you turn the display of the "Z" reading off, the register file will still update the "Z" reading on every transaction, only the display of the "Z" reading has been turned off. 
   Deleting and reinstalling the POS software on a computer will not affect the current "Z" reading. Wiping the hard drive and then reinstalling the operating system and POS software will reset the "Z" reading to zero. Replacing the computer with a new one will reset the "Z" reading to zero even if the current POS files are copied to the new computer. Resetting the "Z" reading to zero will cause the mall to ask you some interesting questions, you would probably want their representative to be there when you do it.

*** SCALE ***
   This program will support scales that produce a barcode label that contains the stock number and the price in the barcode. The POS program will then read the barcode and separate the barcode number back into the stock number and price. This program will not support scales that weigh the item at the checkout counter and then transmit the information directly into the POS system.
   Many scales will produce a barcode label to attach to a package that contains the stock number for the item and the price for the package (price per unit weight times the weight, i.e. 1.30 per pound at 4.5 pounds = 5.85. The price for the package printed on the label will be 5.85.) If the stock number for the item was 75698 then the barcode printed on the label may have this number encoded 275698405853. As you can see the digits 2 - 6 are the stock number and digits 7 - 11 is the price.
   Scale barcodes must contain 3 things, a 'flag' to tell the POS program that this is a scale barcode (which is the same on every scale barcode,) the actual stock number for the item, and the total price for the package.
   Use the "Scale" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program and enter a sample barcode number printed by your scale. If the stock number is less than 14 digits long then enter leading zeros to make it 14 digits long. If you compare several barcodes printed by your scale you will see that they all begin with the same digits or at least will have the same 1 - 3 digits printed in the same place on each label. For example you may have scale numbers like 234242111422, 216985412578, 269856475124, each one of these numbers begins with the digit "2." And, importantly, no other 12 digit stock numbers in your stock table will begin with "2." Now from left to right, under the stock number, place "F" under the part of the stock number that holds the scale flag (including any leading zeros) or just those digits that are the same on every "scale" barcode but different on all non-scale barcodes. 
   To mark the location of the stock number, place the letter "S" under the stock number digits. To mark the price, place the letter "P" under the digits representing the price. Be careful, one or more of the digits in barcode will be used for a parity check or other purpose and not be part of the flag, stock number, or price. Do not place any letters under them.
   For example if flag is '2', the stock number is 56987, and the price is 23.56 then you should enter...

                        00256987223561
                        FFFSSSSS PPPP

   Once you have filled in a sample scale barcode number and identified the parts by placing the letters underneath press [TAB] to set the flag in the program. This is important; the flag will not be set unless you press [TAB]
   Pressing [TAB] will also show you the stock number that you must use to enter the stock number for this item into the stock table. This will usually consist of the flag plus the stock number followed by trailing zeros. In the sample above the stock number for that item would be 256987000000. When you enter the item into the stock table you must enter the price per unit weight as the price. For example if the price were 2.98 per pound then you would enter 2.98 as the price. If the price were 8.45 per kilogram then the price entered in the stock table would be 8.45.
   Now when you scan a scale barcode into a sale it will recognize that the item is from the scale. It will look up the item in the stock table by 256987000000 (NOT 00256987223561), and use the description entered for that item. The POS program will use the price in the stock table for the price, and calculate the weight of the package as the pieces. For example if the price in the stock table is 4.30 and the price on the scale barcode is 12.36 then the weight (pieces) must be 2.874. NOTE: I do the best that I can but your scale and the POS program may round off differently and there may be a rounding error of .001 on the weight (pieces) or .01 on the price.
   For this feature to work properly it is absolutely required that the scale and the POS program have the same price (per unit weight) for the same item. If they are not the same, then you will have to ring up the package by entering (for example) the 256987000000 number as the stock number. Then manually enter the price and weight (pieces) so that the total price for that item comes out to the same price that is on the scale label.

*** SCANNER ***
   You may use a "keyboard wedge" or most scanners that plug into the computer's USB port to read bar code stock numbers into sales. Serial scanners MAY function, see below.
   "Keyboard wedge" and USB scanners fool the computer into thinking that the stock numbers being read by the scanner from the barcode are coming from the keyboard.
   If you enter a stock number into a sale using the keyboard the program will then ask you for the price and the number of pieces that are being sold. If you scan the stock number from a barcode the program will fill in the price from the stock table for that item, use '1' as the pieces, and ask you to scan the next item. So the program needs a way to tell if the stock number came from a scanner or the keyboard.
There are three options for the program to determine if a stock number has been keyed in or scanned. You must choose one.

1. Stock numbers greater than 99999 entered in less than 1 second were scanned all others were keyed. Note, with this option if you key in a stock number and then press [F8] instead of [ENTER] the program will assume the number was scanned.

2. All stock numbers are assumed to have been keyed.

3. All stock numbers are assumed to have been scanned. 

Serial scanner setup.
   If your computer is running Windows versions '95 or after you may be able to set it up to be able to take input from a serial scanner. You will need Windows Accessibility Options installed (See below on how to install them if they are not.) 

   From the Windows desktop screen click on [Start] then [Settings] then [Control Panel]. Now click on [Accessibility Options], then the [General] tab. Now click on [Support SerialKey devices] and then [Settings]. Select the serial port to which you have connected the barcode scanner and set the "Baud rate" to 9600, or whatever your scanner outputs as (Usually 9600). Now click on [OK] then [Apply] then [Ok]. You may need to reboot your computer to have it take effect. 
This may allow any barcode scanned using a serial scanner to go directly to the application running just as if you had typed it in via the keyboard. 

Installing Accessibility Options 
   If the "Accessibility Options" are not in your "Control panel" you may install them if you have the "Windows" CD. Put the Windows CD in the drive and then from the Windows desktop screen click on [Start] then [Settings] then [Control Panel].Click [Add/Remove programs]. Choose the "Windows Setup" tab at the top, tick "Accessibility", click [OK]. 
It will then copy files from the CD (or the hard disk!)

*** SCREEN SAVER ***
   You may enter 2 lines of text that will bounce around the screen as a screen saver for the register. You may also set the time delay in minutes before the screen saver kicks in. If you are running Windows and are using the Windows screen saver, it will over-ride the screen saver of this program.

*** SOUNDSCAN ***
   If you sell music CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes or DVDs you may want to participate in the Nielsen SoundScan rating service http://www.soundscan.com/ This service tablulates the number of CDs that are sold. For example when you hear that a particular CD has sold 2 millions copies that information comes from Nielsen SoundScan.
   To participate in the Nielsen SoundScan you will need a POS program that records each CD, cassette tape, VHS tape or DVD as it is sold, which my POS program will do. It must also produce a weekly file of only the CDs sold in the past week in a very specific format. That is what my new program SoundScan Filer will do. You will also need any commonally available FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software to actually transmit the CD/tape file to Nielsen SoundScan.
   If you wish to submit your sales to Nielsen SoundScan the first thing you must do is to contact them at http://www.soundscan.com/ to register. They will give you  information that you will need. Make sure that you get...

1. Chain number.
2. Store number.
3. File name. (The name of the file you will be transmitting.)
4. FTP site address.
5. User name or ID
6. Password.

   You may also obtain free FTP software (FTP Commander) from http://www.vista.ru/2inter.htm, there are instructions on using this software at the end of this section. Of course you may also use any FTP software that you already have. 

SoundScan Filer (SONDSCAN.EXE)
   This program comes with my POS software version 6.05 or later. The purpose of this program is to take the sales data of the CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes and DVDs that you have sold in the last week and transmit that information to Nielsen SoundScan.
To do this you will need a computer with an internet connection and an FTP program that will actually transmit the file created by this program over the internet to the Nielsen SoundScan FTP site. Since this program will save the file to a floppy drive your internet connection does not have to be on the same computer as your cash register. 

How SoundScan Filer works.
   This program requires that you are using the Dale Harris Cash Register software version 6.05 or later. In that program you must be using the stock table to track the sales of each item that you are selling and you must be using the UPC barcode number printed on each tape or CD as your stock number for each item.
If used on a network this program must be run only from the cash register's GLOBAL folder.
   Since only the sales of CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes and DVDs are to be transmitted to Nielsen SoundScan there must be a way for this program to tell if an item sold is a CD, cassette tape, VHS tape, DVD or something else. It does that by using the 'category number' that you assign to each item. For example let's assume that in the Cash Register program that you use the following categories for your merchandise.
                             1. ROCK CD
                             2. COUNTRY CD
                             3. RAP CD
                             4. ROCK CASSETTE
                             5. COUNTRY CASSETTE
                             6. RAP CASSETTE
                             7. VHS TAPES
                             8. DVD'S
                            50. CANDY
                            51. SODA
                            52. CD PLAYERS
                            53. HEADPHONES
                            54. CELL PHONES
                            55. PHONE CARDS
   Obviously only those items that are in categories 1 to 8 should be transmitted to Nielsen SoundScan. This program will ask you which categories from #1 to #??? you wish to transmit. Using the above example you would fill in '8' into the field.
   This means that while you can place the CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes and DVDs anywhere you want in the actual stock table, the categories for those items MUST be the first several items in the 'Category list.' Notice in the example that while those items use the first 7 slots in the category list (except for slot #0 which should always remain blank) that there is a big gap from slot 8 to 49 before the non-tape/CD categories are entered. This allows new tape/CD categories to be entered later. So using the above example you could actually fill in '49' for the cutoff where tape/CD categories end. It is up to you to decide where non-tape/CD categories will begin.
   IMPORTANT: Since this program uses the category number to report sales to Nielsen SoundScan, if when entering a new item into your stock table you omit entering the category number, or enter the category incorrectly, then while you will be able to ring up sales of that item, the sales of that item WILL NOT be reported to Nielsen SoundScan.

   On the main screen of this program there are several things that you will have to fill in.

1. Automatically load this program when the cash register closes.
   If you enter 'YES' then when the POS program closes instead of asking you if you wish to 'Reset the merchandise data' it will start this program. You do not want the POS program to reset the merchandise data because if it does then that data will not be transmitted to Nielsen SoundScan. After this program creates the file to transmit to Nielsen SoundScan it will automatically reset the sales merchandise data in the stock table.
   It is also possible to manually run this program no matter if you have set this feature to 'YES' or 'NO' And of course you will have to manually run this program the first time to set this feature to 'YES'

2. Sales of all items in categories 1 to ___ will be included
   The categories of the items that you wish to transmit to Nielsen SoundScan.

3. Register file name.
   When you created your cash register using the POS software you had to give your register files a file name, that name is what is displayed here. If this program is automatically loaded when the POS program closes then the file name will be filled in for you. If you have run this program directly then you must select the file name from the list of register files on the disk. You cannot change the filename here.

4. SoundScan file name.
   This is the file name you must use when this program creates the file to transmit to Nielsen SoundScan. This filename is issued by Nielsen SoundScan for your store to use. The file name will always end with the extension '.TXT' You may also enter a drive letter if you wish to create the file on a floppy or other removable media drive to take the file to another computer to transmit it.

5. Chain number.
   This number is issued by Nielsen SoundScan and is part of the file that is transmitted to them. Make sure that it is correct.

6. Store number.
   This number is issued by Nielsen SoundScan and is part of the file that is transmitted to them. Make sure that it is correct.

7. Date.
   This is the date that the file to be transmitted to Nielsen SoundScan is created, usually a Saturday. When this program is run it will fill in today's date. Change it if it is not the date you wish to use. The date must be in this format YYMMDD so May 8th 2004 would be entered as 040508.

8. Password.
   This is where you enter the password for this program. If a password is set then you will need it to access this program even if it is set to load automatically. The 'master' password from the POS program will not override this password. If the correct password is not entered when this program is run then it will simply close.

9. PATH and name of FTP software.
   It may be possible for this program to load and run your FTP software when you exit this program. You must fill in the file name of your FTP software and if it is not in the same folder as this program you must also enter the PATH to the folder that it is in. NOTE: When this program runs your FTP software this program will not close, you will have to return to this program to close it.

   Once the data above has all been entered there are several things that you may do.

[F1] Help.
   Show these instructions on the screen.

[F2] Calculator.
   I have no idea why you would need a calculator to use this program but here it is anyway.

[F3] Display categories.
   This feature will display the categories of your cash register to help you fill in #2 above.

[F4] Load settings.
   When you run this program it will automatically load the settings used by this program. However if you make changes in the settings, and you do not wish to use the changes, you may press [F4] to reload the original settings. NOTE: This program's settings are saved whenever this program is closed.

[F5] Create Nielsen SoundScan file and then erase sales data from the stock table.
   If you do one of these functions you must do the other also. Make sure that your parameters are correct because you can only do it once.

[F6] Run FTP software.
   After you have created the Nielsen SoundScan file you may run your FTP software to transmit it. If you choose to run your FTP software without creating a new Nielsen SoundScan file then it will transmit the old Nielsen SoundScan file that you created last week. Not a good idea.

[ESC] Exit.
   Quit this program.

FTP Commander software.
   FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software and an internet connection is required to actually transmit the file created by SoundScan Filer to the Nielsen SoundScan FTP site. You may use FTP software you already have to do this or you may obtain FTP software. Free FTP software (FTP Commander) may be downloaded from http://www.vista.ru/2inter.htm
Download the file ftpcommander.exe to the same folder in which you have the POS program. Double click on the ftpcommander.exe to run it and it will install in the POS folder. A new icon will appear "Ftpcomm.exe" which is the actual FTP program and is the icon you click on to run FTP Commander. The path and FTP program name that you will enter into the SoundScan Filer program will be ftpcomm.exe You will not need a PATH because it will be in the same folder as your other POS programs and do not forget to add the .exe extension to the file name.
It is a good idea to setup FTP Commander before you will be using it the first time to transmit a file. Run the program. Click on [New server]. Fill in the following information. 

Name = SoundScan
FTP Server = The FTP site address you received from Nielsen SoundScan.
FTP Port = 21 or whatever is filled in for you.
User ID = The User name or ID you received from Nielsen SoundScan.
Password = The password you received from Nielsen SoundScan. 
Note: the password is case sensitive, "Hi There" does not equal "hi there"
Response Type = Default

Now click on [Save] (To test your connection, you must be connected to the internet.)
   In the FTP Servers list find SoundScan and click on it ONCE. Now click on [Connect] The FTP Servers list should be replaced with a list of file names or a blank square. If this happens you have connected to the Nielsen FTP site, congratulations. If it does not happen make sure that you have correctly entered your information. Click on [Exit] to close FTP Commander.
   To actually transmit the file created by SoundScan Helper connect to the internet then run the FTP Commander program and connect to the SoundScan FTP site. Use the "Local computer" side of the screen to find the POS folder and click on it. Now find the file created by SoundScan Helper and click on it. At the middle of the screen there will be an arrow button pointing to the right, when you click on it the file will be transmitted and the file name will appear in the file list on the right of the screen. Click on [Exit] to close FTP Commander.

*** STOCK TABLE ***
   This is the heart of your cash register. By using a stock table you enable a host of other features in this program.
   A stock table is simply a list of all of the items that you sell in your store, the maximum is 13,000 different items. For each item it will keep track of a 14 digit stock number, 24 character description, regular price, sale price, tax rate, pieces sold, dollars sold, pieces in inventory, merchandise category, vendor, model stock, warehouse pack, cost and vendor stock number.  
   But it is more than just a simple list. When you use a stock table the person ringing up an item must enter a valid stock number for each item being rung up. In other words a stock number that is in the table. When the item is then looked up by the register up it will display that item's description, price, tax rate, and quantity in stock. Therefore the employee can verify that he is ringing up the correct item at the correct price, for the correct tax, and that the item is in stock.
   The stock table keeps track of the items that you have sold. By using the register's "Reports" feature you can find out how many of an item you have sold and how much money was paid for those items, either in the current sales period or a sales history. Find out what are your good sellers and the bad sellers. Sales reports can also be grouped by merchandise category or vendor.
   To set up a stock table for your register use the "Stock table" function in the POSCONFG.EXE program.

Setting up the stock table
   Since the stock table will link items in the table to your tax rate chart, category list, and vendor list it is important to fill those out before you begin entering items into your stock table. 
   To allow the use of a stock table, set  "Maximum number of different items 0 - 13000" to a number other than zero, zero means that this register will not be using a stock table. To change the number of items in the stock table press [TAB] and it will change in increments of 1000. You may change this number later if you want to. Smaller stock tables will allow the program to run faster and the stock table will be small enough to save to a floppy. Larger stock tables will hold more items.

Changing Descriptions
   If you are not using a stock table the description for every item you sell will be "MERCHANDISE". If you do use a stock table you may enter a different description for each item. Normally the POS program will not allow you to change the description for an item while you are ringing up a sale. However if you set "Should you be able to edit an item's description when ringing a sale?" to "YES" you will be able to change the description. NOTE: While the new description will show on the screen and be printed on the receipt, it will not be saved in the "sales record" file. This means that if you use the "Void" feature to view an old transaction the original descriptions will be displayed.

Changing Prices
   If you are using a stock table, then the register will look up the price for an item. Normally you may change or "over ride" this price. However when setting up your register you may set "Prevent price changes during a sale when using a stock table" to "YES". Now you must use the stock table price when ringing up an item, you may not change it if it is incorrect unless the stock table price is 0.00 or you exit the sale and change it in the stock table. You may still use "reductions" or "discounts" in the sale. 

Tracking Inventory
   If you want to track inventory in your stock table and track what is sold for each item then you must set "Do you wish to track your inventory in your stock table?" to "YES."
   Items are removed from the stock table inventory as they are rung into a sale, not at the end of the sale. If the sale is voided before completed the items are replaced into inventory. The reverse happens when a "return" is being rung up. This means that if you are running networked registers that if one register has the last of an item in a sale the other registers will be told that it is out of stock. While a sale is parked the merchandise is not returned to inventory.
   There are two stock table settings that will affect the accuracy of your inventory. 

"Allow negative inventory amounts in the stock table"
   If you have zero of something in your stock table inventory and a customer finds one and has you ring it up, does that mean that you now have -1 of them? If you set this parameter to "NO" then the program will leave the inventory at zero. But this could lead to problems. If the sale is not completed (because you really do not have it?) and the sale is voided the item will be put back into the stock table inventory and the new count will be "one" even though you still do not have any. Think about this for a while before you make this parameter setting.

"For lines 0 to ????? display warning (or refuse to sell) if the inventory is zero."
   If you try to sell something you are out of (or more than you have) then you can set up this parameter to either give a warning or refuse to sell the item. However some items that you sell will always have an inventory of zero, like services. If you do repairs of something then you never have any stock of "Repairs" but you are always able to sell them.  This program allows you to set aside 0 to ?????? lines of the stock table for items you want to warn about (or refuse to sell) if you are out of stock and the rest of the stock table lines will not be affected. 
  
Password
   You may edit the stock table from the register program without a password, if you wish to prevent this, set "Should a sales person be allowed to change the stock table without using a password." to "NO" and enter a password. 
   You may now press [F4] to begin entering your stock table. (Can't find CF2.EXE? See "Starting the cash register" under "MINIMUM MODE" at the beginning of this document.)
   Your stock table will consist of two files that will have the extension of .IDX (stock numbers) and .TBL (everything else.) If you named your register file MARTHA then the stock table files for your register will be MARTHA.IDX and MARTHA.TBL

Stock Numbers
   You may enter a 1 to 14 digit stock number for each item. Each stock number MUST be unique, no two items may have the same number. 

Barcodes.
   Almost any product you will sell in a retail environment will have a barcode on it. Underneath each barcode will be a printed number, which is the equivalent of the barcode. The simplest solution to what to use as a stock number for an item is to just use the barcode number as your stock number. After all of the barcode number is already on probably everything that you will be selling. 
   One big drawback to using the preprinted barcodes as your stock number is that they will be 12 to 14 digits long, which is swell if you have a barcode scanner, but a real pain if you do not and have to type in a 14 digit number for everything that you will be selling.

Alternatives to barcodes.
   You do not have to use barcode numbers as your stock numbers. You can make up any numbers you want to as long as they are 1 to 14 digits long, all numbers, and no two items have the same stock number. 
If you have very few items to sell you can either print out a list of your items and tape it to your cash register, or when ringing up a sale you can press [F1] to display the stock table on the screen at 20 items per screen page.
   If you have many items (hundreds?, thousands?) and do not want to use the barcode numbers you can purchase a pricing gun to label each item in your store with the correct made up stock number. This is a good idea because you may have to purchase a pricing gun anyway just to put your price on each item.
   You may also use a "Vendor stock number" which is the number that you use to order merchandise from your vendor to ring up items. Vendor stock numbers to not have to be all numbers and may be up to 30 characters long, they are usually printed somewhere on the box. However they will not replace regular stock numbers. If you use vendor stock numbers to ring up items then each item MUST also have a regular stock number. Only regular stock numbers will be used by other parts of the program to refer to each item. Think of vendor stock numbers as only an alternate method to look up a regular stock number.
   Since vendor stock numbers can be anything up to 30 characters you can also make up your own, such as a description like "COLA, LARGE", or "SOCKS, RED, SIZE 10." Vendor stock numbers are looked up during a sale using an "INKEY" search meaning the all you have to do is type in part of the vendor stock number and it will find every vendor stock number that contains that part. For example type in only "RED" and it will find the first item that has a vendor stock number that contains "RED", to find the next one press [2], continue until you find the one you want. However if you use made up vendor numbers to ring sales then you will not be able to use them to reorder merchandise from your vendor. See "Vendor list" to find out how to activate the use of vendor stock numbers to ring up items during a sale.

Miscellaneous
   If you are using a stock table you cannot ring up any item that does not have stock number in the table. It is up to you if you wish to add a "miscellaneous" number to the stock table so that items not in the table can be rung up. To do this, enter a made up stock number, type in a description of "Miscellaneous", leave the price equal to $0.00, and assign tax rate #1.

Order
   In what order should you enter items in the stock table? The stock table does not care. It does not care if there are gaps. You could fill in the stock table from the end and use only every 12th line if you want to. When it prints out reports it sorts the items by stock number or by category / vendor then stock number, so you do not even have to put items in the same category together.
   However when the stock table is searched or displayed it starts from the beginning of the table so I place my best sellers at the beginning of the list.
   Note, the stock table is always accessed by the program through the stock numbers, so if you move an item in the list there will be no problem as long as the stock number remains the same. Conversely, once you give a stock number to an item you must NEVER change it unless it is a duplicate, then you must change it. If you discontinue an item do not give a new item its number because the sales history will be credited to the new item. Do not remove a discontinued item from the list until one year after you have sold the last one. 
   (See "Editing & Exporting" below to see about moving items around in the stock table.)

Not a "Touch Screen"
   Some registers can use a "touch screen" feature where stock items are displayed on the screen and you ring them up by touching them on the screen. This of course requires a special touch sensitive monitor and special software to determine where the screen has been touched.
   This Cash Register program will not do this, but it will do something almost as good and will not require special equipment to do it.
   If your register uses a stock table, then when the program asks you for a stock number during a sale, you can ring up any of the first 20 items in your stock table just by pressing one of the letter keys, A to T. A = 1st item, B = 2nd item, and so on. If you don't remember the first 20 items then just press [F1] first to display the first page of the stock table and then press the letter. See below.

56516526 A BRASS ONE SIDED KEY     2.59
35424615 B BRASS TWO SIDED KEY     2.79
41114641 C COLOR ONE SIDED KEY     2.79
34154525 D COLOR TWO SIDED KEY     2.99
97135134 E FOREIGN CAR KEY         3.79
16846461 F ORIGINAL CAR KEY        3.29
87738216 G PERSONALI KEY           3.49
72671387 H RUBBER GRIP KEY         4.49
18710713 I COLOR FOREIGN KEY       3.59

   In the second column is listed the letter key that you need to ring up a particular item. If when the stock table is displayed you press [PAGE DOWN] you will display the second page of the stock table and may use the letter keys to ring up anything on the second page. When any stock table page is displayed the letter keys will ring up an item from
that page. If you do not display the stock table the letter keys will always ring up an item from the first page.
   So which of your items should be the first 20 items in your stock table? The most popular items in your store or the hardest ones to ring up should be there. In my key shop the first 20 items in the stock table are the common keys and the little keyrings because the little key rings are too small to put a price sticker / barcode on, and it is a lot easier to just press "M" rather that look up the stock number and then type in 254154 to ring up a 7/8" split ring.

Groups
   "Not a touch screen" can be enhanced further. When you press [F1] in a sale to display the stock table is it possible to first display a "menu" of similar items and then choose which section of the stock table you want to display next.
   By using the GROUPS feature you can have the program display a menu of up to 20 'groups' like.... 

A. BREAKFAST ENTREE 
B. LUNCH ENTREE 
C. DINNER ENTREE 
D. DRINKS 
E. DESSERTS 

If you then press 'D' a list of drinks will appear... 

A. LARGE COLA 
B. MEDIUM COLA 
C. SMALL COLA 
D. LARGE DIET COLA 
E. MEDIUM DIET COLA 

If you then press 'C' a SMALL COLA will be rung into the sale. If the item you want is not on the displayed page you can [PAGE DOWN] through DRINKS until you find the one you want. Up to 20 items per page. 
   You can even set it up so that this method is the default way of entering items into a sale rather than entering in stock numbers. This means that you can find and enter hundreds of different items into a sale by pressing only 2 keys on the keyboard, the first key to select the group and the second key to select the item.
   For the program to actually do this you MUST arrange your stock table with all of the items from the same group together. For example you would list all BREAKFAST ENTREES on lines 1 to 100, all LUNCH ENTREES on lines 101 to 200, etc. You can use any line to start a group that you want to. However during a sale the program will always begin displaying a group with a line that follows this formula "n X 20 + 1" in other words, lines 1, 21, 41, 61, 81, etc. would be at the top of the screen. If you have many items in your groups it is best to spread the start lines out like 1, 81, 161, 241 etc. Put the most popular items in a group at the beginning of the group, or use alphabetical order, or any order that makes sense to you.
   To set up GROUPS go to the "Stock table" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program. At the bottom of the screen it will say [F6] = Groups. Press [F6]. 


Description
   If you do not use a stock table the description for every item will be MISCELLANEOUS. In the "Stock table" function of the POSCONFG.EXE" program, if you set "Should you be able to edit an item's description when ringing a sale?" to "Yes" you may then edit the description of each item as you ring it up even if you do not use a stock table.
   Every item in the stock table may have a 24 letter description. When you ring an item up the description will be displayed on the screen and printed on the receipt. When you print reports the description will also be printed for each item.
   Your customers will really appreciate a detailed description. When I shop elsewhere and then look at my receipt I usually have a hard time remembering what a "2SD ORG KY" could possible be. But when I sell my customers a "2 SIDED ORIGNAL KEY" they know what it is and I know what it is if they bring it back.
   Your employees will appreciate a detailed description also. If they punch in an incorrect stock number during a sale, or when receiving or inventorying merchandise, they will be able to tell that it is wrong.

Prices
   The price is pretty obvious, for each item in the stock table enter the correct regular price for one piece. If your location uses "added" tax then the price will not include the tax. If your location uses "included" tax then the price will include the tax.
   Enter a sale price and it will over-ride the regular price. This is true even if the "sale price" is higher than the regular price. When the sale is over all you have to do is to delete the sale price and the regular price will be reinstated, you do not have to re-enter the regular price. 
   There is more. You can make price changes now and store them as files to be used later. To do this first backup your current prices (regular prices and sale prices are saved as separate files.) Now make any changes in the prices you want to use later and save them as files. Reload the current price list. Important note: if you are doing this on networked computers you must do it when the store is closed. If you change prices while other registers are active then the other registers will use whatever prices are in the stock table while you are making changes. 
   You can use the saved sale price lists to "build a sale." Assume that you have sales on different items that start and end on different days. For example.... 

PRODUCT LINE      SALE STARTS   SALE ENDS
CROSS PENS        5-16-2004     6-30-2004
MUSIC BOXES       5-2-2004      8-14-2004
DESK SETS         5-14-2004     5-21-2004
KEYS              5-9-2004      7-12-2004
KWIKSET LOCKS     5-21-2004     6-15-2004

   To "build a sale" for 5-14-2004 you would first backup the current sale prices, then erase sale prices from the stock table. The program will erase an entire price list from the stock table for you. Assuming that at a previous time that you had saved a sale price list for each of the sales listed above, all you have to do now is load the sale price lists for CROSS PENS, MUSIC BOXES, DESK SETS, and KEYS but not KWIKSET LOCKS because they will not be on sale until 5-21. Now save the file using the "date" filename 20040514. Don't forget to reload the price list that you backed up. 
   Note that loading a new price list will not erase the current prices, it will only change the prices that are in the new list. BTW, when you save a price list any item that has a price of 0.00 will not be saved, therefore you cannot change any price to 0.00 by loading a price list. 
   If an item is on sale in two different price lists, the price loaded last will be in effect. For example if a clock is listed as 23.85 in the "Bulova" sale price file and the same clock is listed as 25.78 in the "Clock" sale price file then the sale price that will be used on that clock will be 23.85 if the "Bulova" sale file was loaded last but 25.78 if the "Clock" sale was loaded last. 
   The reason that you want to save a price list using a "date" file name is that when you start the POS.EXE program it will look for a price change that begins on today's date. If it finds one it will automatically load the new price list. This will work for both regular and sale prices, however having the POS.EXE program load a regular price list will not erase all current regular prices first, loading a sale price list WILL erase all sale prices first. 
   A "date" file name must be in this format YYYYMMDD where YYYY is a four digit year (2004), MM is a two digit month (03 not just 3), and DD is a two digit day (08 not just 8). Therefore a "date" filename for January, 8th, 2004 would be 20040108. Make sure that "0" are zeros and not capital letter "O". 

Tax rate
   See the function "Tax Rate." After you have entered a tax rate chart you must assign a tax rate to each item in the stock table. When you are in the tax rate column of the stock table the tax rate table will appear at the bottom of the screen with each tax rate labeled 0 to 9. For each item enter the tax rate label 0 - 9. For example; if an item has a tax rate of 5.25% and the tax rates are 0 = 0.000, 1 = 3.875, 2 = 5.250, 3 = 2.000, with the rest equaling "0" then you would enter "2" as the tax rate for that item.
   The reason that you do not enter the actual tax rate of 5.250 is that if a tax rate changes you will not have to change 500 tax rates in your stock table, you would only have to change the one tax rate in the tax table.
   If you have two different types of things that have the same tax rate, you may want to enter the same rate twice into the tax table in case only one of them changes. For example if both alcohol and tobacco are taxed at 9.000%, and the tax on only tobacco is increased to 10.000%, if you had set tax rate 3 = 9.000 (for alcohol) and tax rate 4 = 9.000 (for tobacco), then you would only have to change rate #4 in the tax table. If you had both alcohol and tobacco set to tax rate 3 then when the tax on tobacco changed you would have had to create a new tax rate of 10.000% in the tax table and then change every tobacco item in your stock table to the new rate. 

Pieces sold, Dollars sold, Inventory	
   These columns are filled in by the cash register as sales are made. As each item is sold the "Pieces sold" and "Dollars sold" are increased, "Inventory" is decreased. Since these numbers reflect your sales and stock you would not want them to be changed by unauthorized people. Therefore even if the stock table is accessed using the stock table password, these three columns cannot be changed. Only if you access the stock table by using the master password may you change these numbers.
   Of course the inventory is also changed by using the "inventory" and "receiving" programs.
   (See "Category List") (See "Vendor List")

Cost, Model, Pack, Vendor stock number
   These columns are used by the PURCHASE.EXE program to create automatic purchase orders to restock your store. "Cost" is your cost (wholesale) for an item. "Model" is how many of an item is normally stocked in your store, if your inventory is LESS than this number they should be ordered. "Pack" is the amount that an item must be ordered by, for example if the item comes in boxes of a dozen then you must order in multiples of 12, you can order 12 or 24 or 36 of that item but you cannot order 30 of them, therefore the "pack" on that item would be 12. "Vendor stock number" is the number you use to order that item from the vendor. If an item in your shop has a stock number of 256951 but you must order it from the XYZ Corp. as MFDF118KA then MFDF118KA is the "vendor stock number". NOTE: When ringing up a sale you may use either your stock number or the vendor stock number to ring up an item.
(See Vendor to allow this function.)

Moving & Exporting & Importing stock table lines
   WARNING: DO NOT CHANGE THE ORDER OF THE STOCK TABLE WHILE OTHER COMPUTERS ARE USING THE STOCK TABLE OVER A NETWORK!

   To move lines in the stock table press [F5] for "Move / Export lines." You will now be offered the option to "Backup the stock table." This is a truly wonderful idea. When making wholesale changes in the order of your stock table it will be quite easy to screw up your stock table beyond all comprehension. Then the only way to have a stock table again will be either to restore it from the backup or type in the entire stock table again from nothing. 
   Trust me, restoring from a backup is the easier of the two options.

1. Select/Unselect lines 5. Copy to clipboard.     [CTRL]+[^] Move up
2. Add blank lines here  6. Paste from clipboard.  [CTRL]+[v] Move down
3. Delete selected lines 7. Export to printer/database/spread sheet.
4. Sort stock table      [SPACEBAR] Select/Unselect this line only.

                       "Move/Export" menu options

   When the menu above is at the bottom of the screen you can use the following options.
   If you hold down the [CTRL] key and then press either the up or down arrow keys the current line will move up or down in the stock table.
   Press the [SPACEBAR] to select the current line or unselect it if it is already selected.

   Press [1] to select lines just by using the up and down arrow keys. You can also enter "search" terms and all lines in the stock table that match will be selected. Note when searching for descriptions or vendor stock numbers any partial match will be selected. For example if you are searching for "RING" then "DIAMOND RING", PISTON RINGS", "LORD OF THE RINGS", "KEYRING", will all be selected.
Press [DELETE] and all selected lines will be unselected.
   Press [2] to add blank lines at your current location in the stock table. Lines after your current location will be moved back. Warning; if there are not enough blank lines at the end of the stock table (equal to or more than the numbers of lines you are adding) then the program will not add lines and this procedure will be canceled.
   Press [3] to delete selected items from your stock table. You may choose to just remove the lines leaving blank lines in their place or to move up the following lines to fill in.
   Press [4] to sort the stock table. You may choose to sort the entire stock table or you may enter a range of lines and only the lines between the "begin" line number and the "end" line number will be sorted. All other lines will remain in their current location. WARNING; when the program sorts lines, all lines in between "begin" and "end" with a stock number of zero will be erased. 
   You may sort by any field in the stock table like stock number, description, price, tax rate, inventory, anything. Sorting by either description or vendor stock number is not case sensitive, i.e. "a" = "A". You may sort in either increasing order (A --> Z, 1 --> 9) or decreasing order (Z --> A, 9 - -> 1). If items in your sort field are the same (for example you are sorting by price and many items have the same price) then like items will be further sorted by stock number.
   Press [5] to move all selected lines into the clipboard. You may either make a new clipboard or copy to the end of the current clipboard. After you copy to the clipboard you will be offered the option of deleting the selected lines from the stock table. This is a good idea. If you do not delete and then later copy the clipboard to the stock table then you will have multiple twins of lines in the stock table. The POS program will not allow you to leave the "Move / Export lines" function if you have multiple lines with the same stock number. You will have to search each twin one at a time and either delete it or change the stock number or restore your stock table from the backup. It will be much easier to delete the selected lines now. This is also a problem if you copy the same lines twice into the clipboard and then paste the clipboard into the stock table. Once again you will have twins in the stock table.
   Press [6] to paste the clipboard to your current location in the stock table. You may either overwrite the current lines with the clipboard or move back the current lines of the stock table to make room for the clipboard contents. Warning; if you choose to move lines back and there are not enough blank lines at the end of the stock table (equal to or more than the numbers of lines you are pasting) then the program will not paste lines and this procedure will be canceled.
   Press [7] to export lines from your stock table to either a printer, a text file that can be loaded into any word processing program, or a data file that can then be loaded into any spreadsheet or database program. 
   When exporting you may export all lines, all selected lines, or all lines with non-zero stock numbers. You may choose only those fields you wish to export and the order in which you wish to export them. You may choose to export information on your merchandise as LINES or SHELF TAGS. "Lines" will export the fields for each item on one line. 
   If you choose to export "shelf tags" you will have several options. "Custom" will print each field on a separate line in the order you have chosen. A label will proceed the data on each line except for the "stock number", "description", and "vendor stock number" lines. 
                        
                        3713541354121
                        IMPORT RUBBER GRIP KEY
                        PRICE: 4.29
                        INVENTORY: 236
                        COST: .89
                        XFG4154141HDSDH41

                        Sample custom tag.

   "Price" tags will print only the stock number, description and price on a tag no matter what fields you have chosen. 

                       IMPORT RUBBER GRIP KEY
                     3713541354121    REG. 4.29

                          Sample price tag.

   "Sale" tags will print only the stock number, description, regular price and sale price on a tag no matter what fields you have chosen. However if the item has a sale price of 0.00 then a "price" will be printed instead of a "sale" tag even though you have selected to print "sale" tags. 

                      IMPORT RUBBER GRIP KEY
                          3713541354121
                     REG. 4.29      Sale 3.99

                          Sample sale tag.

There are several format options for shelf tags... 

"## Lines from the top of one tag to the top of the next tag." You must set this correctly to start printing at the top of each tag on the sheet. You must make sure that you have set the number of lines to equal or greater than the number of lines on a tag. 

"# Tags per row. (How many across?)" If your sheets of tags are placed 2 across on the sheet then you will probably want to print 2 across tags. 

"## Tag width. (In characters.)" From the left edge of one tag to the left edge of the tag next to it how many characters must you print? 

"## Left margin. (In characters.)" This shifts tags to the right. 

"# Top margin. (In lines.)" This will shift tags down the page. 

"## Printed lines per page" (If zero, printing will be continuous,) No "page feed" if zero. 

"# Bottom margin. (In lines.) Blank lines at the bottom of the page. 

"Justification." You may choose to justify your tags to the LEFT, CENTER, or RIGHT. 

   Since shelf tags have many settings you will probably want to "[F7] See sample output" before you actually begin exporting tags. Be careful, this program assumes that you know what you want to do and if you select to print 78 tags wide with 81 characters to the next tag and 64 lines per tag then the program will actually try to do this. The results will not be pretty and will use up a whole forest of paper. Or the program will just die. 
   You may export as TEXT or DATA. TEXT may be sent to the printer or as a disk file that can be loaded into any word processing file. After loading a TEXT file into your word processing program make sure that you change the font to COURIER (in your word processing software) otherwise the columns will not line up. DATA files are saved as "comma delimited" files and may be loaded into any spreadsheet or database software. NOTE: in DATA files, quotes (") in "descriptions" and "vendor stock numbers" will be changed into double apostrophes (' ').

Importing
   It is possible, although difficult, to import a stock list into your stock table from either a word processing, spreadsheet, or database program.
   The data from one of these programs must be saved as a plain text, comma delimited document with the extension of .TXT, for example DOCUMENT.TXT.
   Here is a sample file as it would appear in a word processing program...

   22532,"ROCKS  ",  23.21,1,  23.00,  2563.21,  252,  1, 20
96585222,"STONES ",  52.21,2,   5.20,    12,00,   16, 18, 52
84,"BRICKS ",,,18.20,5,91.00

   There are a LOT of rules. 

   The data on each line must be in this order...
 1. Stock number (13 digit maximum, numbers only)
 2. Description (24 characters max.)
 3. Regular price (9999.99 max.)
 4. Sale price (9999.99 max.)
 5. Tax chart (0 - 9 only)
 6. Pieces sold (99999.99 max.)
 7. Dollars sold (9999999.99 max.)
 8. Inventory (99999.99 max.)
 9. Category (0 - 255 only)
10. Vendor (0 - 255 only)
11. Cost (9999.99 max.)
12. Model stock (99999 max.)
13. Pack (9999 max.)
14. Vendor stock number (30 characters max.)

   You do not have to have all 13 fields but they MUST be in the proper order and you may not skip any. For example if you want to enter only the first 7 fields you MUST enter all fields from 1 to 7, you CANNOT skip field 5 (or any other field from 1 to 7) and only enter fields 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, & 7.

   Fields MUST be separated by a comma (,).

   If the description contains a comma (,) it must start and end with a quote (") AND the right quote MUST be immediately followed by a comma (",). For example "PAIR OF SOCKS, RED     ",

EXCEL
   If you have MS Excel there is an Excel spreadsheet STOCKTABLE.XLS that comes with this program. It is a blank formatted stock table that you can use to create a text file that can be loaded into the stock table. It would be a good idea to make a copy of this spreadsheet before you make any changes in it. Fill in the data into the Excel file and then save it as a "CSV (comma delimited)" type file. 
   The descriptor on the second row of each column tells you about the data that goes in each column. If you have a descriptor of 000.00 then you may enter a number in that column from .00 to 999.99. Remember that the leftmost column has to be numbers only even though it is a text column. The rightmost column may have any characters.
   DO NOT ENTER COMMAS IN TEXT CELLS UNLESS YOU ENCLOSE THE CELL IN QUOTES!!!
   You do not have to fill in every column, columns not filled in will be either blank or zeros when this file is loaded into the stock table. 
Rows that do not have a valid stock number greater than zero in the leftmost column will not load into the stock table. Remember that this spreadsheet will NOT be your actual stock table, it is only a way to load data into your stock table. 
   You may also copy & paste data into this file from another spreadsheet that you may already have however you must copy only one column at a time if the columns in the other spread sheet are not in the correct order. If you copy the data you must make sure that data type has not changed. To check if it has select one of the column entries, on the tool bar near the top of the Excel screen click on [Format] then [Cells] then [Number]. All columns that do not have a decimal point in the descriptor on the second row must be of the "Text" data type. For columns that need a decimal point click on [Custom] and the data type must be "0.00". If the data type has changed select the entire column and the repeat the steps above to select either "text" or "0.00".

LOADING THE FILE
   You must close your word processing program before you can load the saved text file into the stock table.
   You enter your text file into the stock table by first loading it into the clipboard. From the stock table press [F5] (Manipulate / Export lines)  (at this point you may make a backup of your current stock table, a WONDERFUL idea!), then [1] (Continue), then [4] (Copy selected lines into the clipboard), then [4] (Erase current clipboard and copy from text file to make new clipboard.) Now enter the disk drive that the file is on and the name of the file and press [ENTER] to load the file. IMPORTANT! Make sure that all of the data from your text file has loaded correctly into the clipboard. Check every line and both pages. If the data was improperly loaded or corrupted in the clipboard then when you load the clipboard into the stock table it could corrupt the existing stock table making it totally unreadable by the POS software. Do you want to retype you entire stock table over again?
   After you have finished checking the contents of the clipboard press [ESC] twice and you may now move the cursor to where you wish to load the clipboard into your stock table and then press [5] (Paste lines here from clipboard.)
   It is a REALLY GOOD IDEA to make several dry runs of this feature into a new, empty stock table before attempting this on the stock table you are using. 
   The most common errors in importing a file is if the file has an extra or missing comma (,) then the data that is supposed to be in one field will show up in a different field or if the value is out of the allowable range the value will be zero, all of the following fields on that line will also be shifted to another field. The other common error is if the "description" field contains a comma (,) and is not contained in quotes (") or the right quote is not immediately followed by a comma, ie. there is a space between the right quote and the following comma.
    If you save your data file from your word processing software in a format other than plain text or "DOS text" or from your spreadsheet or database program in a format other than comma delimited, then a lot of formatting data will proceed the actual stock data and the import function of the POS program will not be able to find the actual stock data.

*** TAX RATES ***
   To set up a tax table for your register use the "Tax rates" function in the POSCONFG.EXE program. You may also edit the tax table from the register program without a password, if you wish to prevent this, set "Should a sales person be allowed to change the tax rates without using a password." to "NO" and enter a password. 
   You may enter the tax rates into two columns. If your location has only one tax for each separate item then only fill in the LEFT column. If your location has two tax rates for each separate item, for example a federal tax and a local tax, and the different taxes must be tracked separately, then you must fill in both columns. Fill in the LEFT column for the federal tax and the RIGHT column for the local tax.
   To change the text on the receipt from "TOTAL TAX" to something else like "TOTAL PST COMPONENT" you must enter the new text at the top of the proper column on the tax table.

TOTAL TAX        TOTAL PST COMPONENT <-- Print on receipt

1  8.750         1  5.000 <-- General merchandise tax rate
2  2.000         2  2.000
3  5.500         3  4.750
4  0.000         4  0.000
5  0.000         5  0.000
6  0.000         6  0.000
7  0.000         7  0.000
8  0.000         8  0.000
9  0.000         9  0.000

(Tax column 1)   (Tax column 2)


   The "tax total" section of a single tax receipt will look like this...

                 SUB TOTAL        19.55
      TAX1 at  8.750%        1.23
      TAX2 at  2.000%         .01
                  TOTAL TAX        1.24
                      TOTAL       20.79

   The "tax total" section of a double tax receipt will look like this...

                 SUB TOTAL        36.40
      TAX1A at  8.750%        1.22
      TAX2A at  2.000%        0.45
      TAX1B at  7.000%        0.98
      TAX2B at  1.000%        0.22
      TOTAL GST COMPONENT          1.67
      TOTAL PST COMPONENT          1.20
                      TOTAL       39.27


   In the tax rate table enter the general merchandise tax rate for your location as tax rate #1. (In one or both columns.) For example if food at your location is taxed at 2% and medicine is taxed at 1.5% and gasoline is taxed at 8% and everything else is taxed at 5% then you will enter 5.000% as tax rate #1. The other tax rates will be entered as rates #2 to #9.
   If you run this program without a stock table, tax rate #1 is the default rate that will be used when you ring up an item on the register, You would want the most common rate to be the default.
   (See "Stock Table")

*** TIME SALES *** 
   When you are in the main menu of the POS program, or in a sale, 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.
   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…

STOCK# DESCRIPTION            PRICE
123456 15 MINUTES ON INTERNET  1.00

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 a 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.

       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

   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.

*** VENDOR LIST ***
   (See "Stock Table") In the stock table you may enter a vendor's stock number for each item. When ringing up a sale you may alternately use the vendor stock number to ring up an item (the stock number is the primary method). However before you may use this feature you must turn it on here. When you choose Vendor List in the POSCONFG.EXE program you will first be asked how many (out of the total 13,000) of the vendor's stock numbers you wish to search for a match when ringing up an item using the vendor's stock number. Looking up an item takes a lot longer using the vendor's stock number than the stock number so you don't want to search all 13,000 lines in the stock table if only the first 800 lines are filled in. If you enter 500 then only lines 1 to 500 in the stock table will be searched. If you enter 0 then you will not be able to look up an item using the vendor's stock number when ringing up a sale.

   In the stock table you may assign each item to a category. You may group all of the different items sold to you by the XYZ company into the vendor of "XYZ Co." even if they are widely separated in the stock table and different categories of merchandise. When you print out reports you may sort the reports by vendor. Sales reports by vendor will give a percentage of total sales by each vendor.
   You may assign up to 256 vendors numbered from 0 to 255. It is a good idea to leave vendor 0 unassigned, that is the default vendor for any item entered into the stock table. That way if an item comes up with a vendor of "     " you know that you have not assigned it to a vendor.
   Before you assign an item to a vendor the vendor name must be in the vendor list so it will be a good idea to fill in your vendor list before you begin entering items into your stock table.
   The names in the vendor list may be in any order. However please remember that whatever order you choose, that the vendors will be sorted and printed in that order. If you move a vendor name from one place to another you will have to manually change the vendor assignment for EVERY item in your stock table that is linked to that vendor name. Choose your order wisely! Leave blanks in the list for future additions. Blanks are ignored unless an item in your stock table is assigned to it.
   Once you have entered your vendor list (and your tax and category list) you may begin entering items in your stock table. When you are entering your stock items and you reach the "Vendor" column the current vendor name will be replaced by the position of that name in the vendor list. For example: if the XYZ Co. is vendor #45 when you move the lightbar to "XYZ CO." the number 45 will replace it. You may now change the vendor assignment by changing the 45 to the number of another vendor. To keep you from having to remember all of the vendor numbers the vendor list will appear at the bottom of the screen. Hold down [CTRL] and press the [PAGE] keys to page through the list.
   Please remember that the items in the stock table are not linked to a particular vendor name but to the position of that name in the vendor list.

                      RINGING UP A SALE

   When the register starts you will see the main menu...

1. Purchase            - Ring up a sale
2. Return              - Ring up a refund
3. File Maintainance   - Access and change .POS file.
4. No Sale-Cash in/out - Opens drawer, accounts for cash pulls / drops.
5. Void                - Cancels a sale / view-reprint transactions.
6. Lock Register       - Locks program.
7. Close Register      - Display and reset daily sales totals.
8. Reports             - Information about your sales.
9. Associates          - Enter / delete salespersons.

1. Purchase
2. Return
   A return is exactly the same as a purchase except items and dollars are subtracted instead of added and you have to tell the program if a returned item is being returned to inventory or being disposed of.

   From the main menu, if you select option "1. Purchase" (or "2. Return"), and if you have enhanced "Employees" you will be required enter an employee number from the employee list (or PIN number). You may not choose an employee number that is blank so make sure that you have filled in at least one employee name in the list.
   If this is a "Return" you will be asked for both the person ringing up the return and the person who rang up the original sale. This way the return amounts will be subtracted from the sales totals of the person who sold the merchandise.
   After choosing an employee you will see the screen below.
   
|Lne|Qty| Stock Number |      Description      |Price |Amount| Tax% |
|  1|  5|  520351311134|COLOR KEY ONE SIDED    |  2.49| 12.45|8.750%|
|  2|  1|  354111671677|BRASS KEY ONE SIDED    |  2.19|  2.19|8.750%|
|  3|  1|        -88888|ALL ABOVE REDUCED 20%  |      | -2.93|0.000%| 
|  4|  1|  881371687178|PULL APART KEY CHAIN   |  2.50|  2.50|8.750%|
|  5|  1|        -77777|1 UP MINUS $0.50 / PC  |      | -0.50|0.000%|
|  6|  1|            -1|COUPON / UNIT REDUCTION|      | -5.00|8.750%|
|  7|   |              |                       |      |      |      |
|  8|   |              |                       |      |      |      |
|  9|   |              |                       |      |      |      |
| 10|   |              |                       |      |      |      |
+---+---+--------------+-----------------------+------+------+------+
|     DALE HARRIS       Description:           |   Item Total:   8.71
|                       ______________________ | 10% Discount:  -0.87 
|                                              |    Sub Total:   7.84  
|      Inventory Count: ____________           |          Tax:   0.69  
+---PURCHASE-#2759-----------------------------+        Total:   8.53  
|+------------+ +--------------+ +------------+|    Cash paid:  10.00  
||Enter Stock | |Enter         | |Enter       ||   Change Due:   1.47  
||Number:     | |Price: ____.__| |Quantity:___||              
||___________ | |Tax Rate 8.750| |            ||
|+------------+ +--------------+ +------------+|
+----------------------------------------------+  Press [+] to total 
[F1]Stock Table[F3]Disc.[F5]Void [F6]Park [F7]TAX[F9]REDUCT.[F11]BACK

                               SALE SCREEN

   You ring sales up by entering amounts in the three boxes at the bottom of the screen. 
   If your register uses a stock table you will be required to enter a valid stock number for the item you are selling. A valid stock number is one that is listed in the stock table. An item not listed in the stock table cannot be rung up.
   If you are using a scanner to enter the stock number then you will not need to enter the price or quantity for an item. The program will look up the price and tax rate for that item (just as if you had typed it) and make the quantity = "1", it will enter all this to the list and then be ready to scan the next stock number. In effect all you have to do to ring up a bunch of merchandise is to scan the barcodes, you don't have to touch the keyboard at all until you press [+] to total the sale.
   But what if you need to change the price, tax rate, quantity, or description for a scanned item? No probelem, after you scan an item just press [TAB] to make those changes.
   If you do not know the stock number for an item you may access the stock table by pressing [F1] and the screen below will appear.

  +---+------+-----------+------+----------------------+-----+
  |Qty|Stock#|Description|Stock#+     Description      |Price|
--+---+------+-----------+------+----------------------+-----+
 1|  5|    13|COLOR KEY  |    13|A|COLOR KEY 1 SIDED   | 2.49|
 2|  1|    55|BRASS KEY  |    26|B|U.S. CREDIT CARD KEY| 0.49|
 3|  1|-88888|REDUCE 20% |    39|C|BRASS KEY 2 SIDED   | 2.19|
 4|  1|  6936|KEY CHAIN  |    55|D|BRASS KEY 1 SIDED   | 2.19|
 5|  1|-77777|1 UP -$.50 |    68|E|COLOR KEY 2 SIDED   | 2.49|
 6|  1|    -1|COUPON     |   110|F|FOREIGN CAR KEY     | 3.49|
 7|   |      |           |   152|G|RUBBER HEAD KEY     | 3.99|
 8|   |      |           |   186|H|FRGN CREDIT CARD KEY| 0.49|
 9|   |      |           |   219|I|STEEL/PRECUT/BIT KEY| 3.49|
10|   |      |           |   246|J|MEDECO KEY          | 6.99|
11|   |      |           |   259|K|TUBULAR KEY         | 5.99|
12|   |      |           |221694|L|VATS/TRANSPONDER KEY|25.00|
--+---+------+-----------+226666|M|ORIGINAL CAR KEY    | 2.99|
+--STOCK TABLE-----------+  6936|N|KEY PAL KEY RING    | 2.50|
|Press [^] or [v} to scan| 69521|O|24" BEADED NECKCHAIN| 0.99|
| or type in stock# ___13| 96852|P|PLASTIC CLIP-IT RING| 0.99|
|  [ENTER] = Use this #  |182070|Q|MAGNETIC KEY BOX    | 2.00|
|  [F1] = Repeat search  |182963|R|ANGEL KEY RING      | 6.00|
|[HOME]First [TAB]Search |182996|S|7/8" SPLIT KEY RING | 0.25|
| [END]Last  [ESC]Cancel |215236|T|SPIRAL /W CLIP RING | 2.50|
+------------------------------------------------------------+
  Press [PAGE UP] or [PAGE DOWN] to view additional pages.

             SALE SCREEN SHOWING STOCK TABLE

   The top stock number will be highlighted. Use the arrow keys to scan up and down the page. When the correct stock number is highlighted press [ENTER] to return to your sale and the stock number will be entered for you. Or just press the letter key (A-T) listed in the second column. (You may also use the A - T keys to ring up items from the first stock table page even when the stock table is not displayed, i.e. when at the main sale screen you are supposed to enter a stock number press A-T instead.) When in the stock table you may use the [PAGE UP] and [PAGE DOWN] keys to turn pages and then scan to the one you want or press A-T.
   In the stock table press [TAB] to search the stock table. You may search by stock number, description, price, category, or vendor. If the item found is not correct press [F1] to continue the search for the next match. Note: a search by stock number will always find the first match, but then no two items may have the same stock number.
   If you search by description you may enter a partial description for the search. For example if you search for "BLUE" then the search will find all of the items that have "BLUE" in the description, ie. "BLUE NAME BADGE", "ZIPPO LIGHTER / BLUE", "SET OF 4 BLUE TUMBLERS", all would be found. This is another reason to use detailed descriptions in the stock table.
   If you entered a vendor's stock number for each of your items you may use the vendor number to ring up the item. When this program asks for the stock number press [*] (the asterisk key), you may now enter the vendor's stock number. This program will look for a match, or partial match, between the number you entered and the vendor's stock numbers in the stock table. This means that if you entered "APPLE" that the program will match "APPLE", "APPLES", "PINEAPPLES", "ROAD APPLES" or any vendor stock number that contains "APPLE" in it. If the program finds the wrong "APPLE" simply press [2] to continue looking. Press [1] or [ENTER] if the correct item is found, [ESC] to quit, or [F1] to display the stock table with the vendor's stock numbers shown. (See "Vendor" to see how to turn this feature on.)
   When you enter the stock number in the sale, the register will look up that item's price, description, and how many you have in stock and display it on the screen. You will now be in the "Enter Price:" box. If the description of the item does not match the one you are ringing up you may press [F11] or [ESC] to return to the "Enter stock number:" box.
   While in the "Enter Price:" box, if the price is wrong, you may enter a new price. A price of $0.00 is acceptable. Only while you are in the "Enter Price:" box may you press [F7] to modify the tax rate for this item. When you press [F7] you will flip through the tax rates in the tax table one at a time. Stop when you get to the one you want. This means that you can only charge tax rates that are in the tax table, make sure that it is complete.
   After entering the price you will be in the "Enter Quantity:" box. This box will use a quantity of "1" as the default. If you are selling more than one, enter the correct quantity. If you are selling something by length or weight you may press [.] to enter decimal pieces (###.###). For example, if you are selling 5 3/8 yards of something that is sold by the yard you may enter 5.375 pieces. 
   The register will now post this item at the top of the screen and return you to the "Enter stock number:" box for the next item.

Function keys.
   Listed at the bottom of the sales screen are various functions and the [F?] keys you need to press invoke those functions. If a function is not listed, you have not enhanced that feature or that function is not available during this part of a sale.

[F1] Stock table. This has already been explained above.

[F2] Calculator. This function is not listed at the bottom of the screen, and actually you can access this function from all parts of the program by pressing [F2]. When you press [F2] a 5 function calculator will pop up on the screen. It works just like any pocket calculator using the numeric keypad and some other keys including [BACKSPACE]. Press [F9] to see exactly what other keys when the calculator is "full screen". Press [F2] again to toggle between a full screen calculator and just a small display at the bottom of the screen. Press [ESC] to remove the calculator.

[F3] Discount. This is a whole sale discount, like an employee discount or a "30% off everything" sale. If you have enhanced this feature to "PRESET" then pressing [F3] will toggle you through the percentages that you have preset. If you have enhanced this feature to "EMPLOYEE SET" then when you press [F3] the associate will be allowed to type in the percentage of the discount. In both of the above cases pressing [F3] will also turn off the discount.

[F5] Void. This will allow you to erase the entire sale or any one line of the sale. You may erase any line even if it is not currently visible on the screen (you have more than 12 lines and it is on another page.) However if you cannot see it, do you know what line it is on? Use [PAGE UP] and [PAGE DOWN] to view the proper page. After pressing [F5] select to void "One line only" or "The entire sale." If you choose to void one line, enter in the line number, the item will be voided and you will be returned to the sale. If you void the entire sale you will be returned to the main menu, this sale never happened.

[F7] Modify tax. This function can be accessed only when you are entering the price of an item. Press [F7] to change the tax on an item by flipping through the tax rate chart until the correct rate comes up. A zero ( 0 ) rate is always available.

[F6] Park. If you enhanced this feature then you may park the current sale and then start a new sale or recall another parked sale. You may park up to 76
sales. If you try to park more sales than allowed you will receive the message, "The parking lot is full." and will not be allowed to park that sale.

[F7] Reduction. This function will allow you to reduce either all of the lines or just the last line entered. You may reduce by a dollar amount from each piece sold or by a percentage. You may also reduce the entire sale by entering coupons.
   Normally when you sell an item the price of the item times the quantity is added to the $ SOLD column of the stock table. However if a line has been reduced, the reduced price is added. This means that if you add up all of the items in the stock table the total price will equal your net sales in the sales report. This also applies to discounts because discounts are actually a type of reduction. This also means that if you have sold 48 pieces of something priced at $1.00 each you may only have listed sales in the stock table of $46.35 for that item. Some of them were sold at a reduced price.
   Coupons are not associated with any particular item if you ring them up as "Coupons". Therefore they will not reduce the price of any item. If you then add up the sales in the stock table you must subtract the "Coupon" from the sales report to equal the net sales.
   If you reduce by a dollar amount, and the amount is more than the price of the item (or if it has already been reduced and the dollar amount is more than the reduced price) then the price of the item will be reduced to $0.00 and only the former price will be reduced. For example if you sold one item for $1.00 and another for $25.00, and then did a item reduction on all items for $2.00, then you will take $2 off the $25 item but you can only take off $1 from the $1 item so your total reduction will be $3.00.

[F11] Back. Pressing [F11] (or [ESC]) may cancel what you are doing, erase the current number, or send you back to where you came from. Some times several of these things will happen if you press [F11] more than once. For example the first time you press [F11] it will clear the number (set to 0) the current number and if you press [F11] again you will go back to the previous number.

Maximum number of lines.
   The maximum number of lines in any one sale is 60. Each reduction or coupon is included in calculating the number of lines. Once you reach 60 lines the register will only allow you to total the sale, void the sale, or void a line. Any sale that exceeds 60 lines will have to be rung as two transactions.

Finishing a sale.
   When you have finished ringing everything up in your sale including coupons, reductions, and a discount, (if any) press [+] to complete the sale. On a laptop you may also press [=] to total a sale. Once the sale is completed you may return to the sale by pressing [F11] or [ESC] to "Go back".
   You will now be asked for customer information that you set up using POSCONFG.EXE. Depending on how you set it up this information will be saved into a customer database and/or printed on the receipt.
   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. You may search for any portion of any field. For example you could search the "Customer Name" field for "DAVE" (even though the field contains first and last names) and then continue the search until you find the "DAVE" that you want. 
   Once you have entered the customer information (or read the information from the database) press [TAB] to continue. If you entered the information or changed what was in the file, you will be asked to save the new information as either the old customer or as a new customer. 
   This version of the program only allows you to enter and search the customer database. Future versions will have additional features.

Payment.
   You must now choose between a cash, check, or credit payment. You may use POSCONFG.EXE to set which forms of payment are acceptable and if you wish to allow multiple forms of payment on the same sale.


Cash
   Enter the amount of money the customer gives you or just press [ENTER] for exact change, the change due to the customer will be displayed. If the customer gives you a different amount, say hands you an additional 12 cents then just re-enter the amount tendered for a new change due. If you press [ENTER] without entering a new amount you will return to the main menu.

Check
   You will be asked for the information that you requested to be asked, then you set up the "checks" function using the POSCONFG.EXE program. This information will be printed on the receipt, journal, and in the recorded sales record file. The salesperson will be told to write the transaction number on the back of the check. If the check is returned by the bank you can find the customer's information by looking on the journal or using the register's "Void" option to display the sale on the screen.

Credit
   You will be shown the total amount to be charged to the credit card. If you have enabled both CREDIT and DEBIT you will have to chose which one to use, you cannot use both a credit card and a debit card in one sale.

Multiple tenders
   If you have chosen to allow multiple forms of payment on a single sale, then if you enter less than the total amount of the sale for one form of payment, you will be requested to choose additional forms of payment until the total payment equals or exceeds the total amount of the sale.

Here is a sample receipt printer receipt....

           DALE'S KEY SHOP
         1234 IRVING PARK ROAD
           CHICAGO, IL 12345
            (123) 555-1234

          KEYS FOR ANYTHING

   RETAIN THIS RECEIPT FOR ANY RETURN
  OR EXCHANGE, OR FOR COMPARISON WITH
       YOUR MONTHLY STATEMENT
---------------------------------------
TRAN ASSOCIATE                    TIME
2154  1 DALE H                    10:57
---------------------------------------
STOCK# DESCRIPTION                PRICE
 52489 PEPPERMENT LIFESAVERS   TAX2
       1 at     .50 ea.....         .50  
    13 SINGLE SIDED COLOR KEY  TAX1
       2 at    2.49 ea.....        4.98
    55 SINGLE SIDED BRASS KEY  TAX1
       3 at    2.19 ea.....        6.57
958211 LOCKWORK                TAX0
       1 at    5.00 ea.....        5.00
  6936 KEY PAL KEY CHAIN       TAX1
       1 at    2.50 ea.....        2.50

                 SUB TOTAL        19.55
      TAX1 at  8.750%        1.23
      TAX2 at  2.000%         .01
                  TOTAL TAX        1.24
                      TOTAL       20.79
---------------------------------------
             CASH TENDERED         5.00
            CHECK TENDERED        10.00
           CREDIT TENDERED        10.00
            TOTAL TENDERED        25.00
                CHANGE DUE         4.21
            
   CUSTOMER SATISFACTION GUARENTEED!

              02-25-2001

***************************************
*               COUPON                *
*                                     *
*       BRING IN THIS COUPON FOR      *
*             10% OFF!!!              *
*      ON YOUR NEXT KEY PURCHASE      *
*                                     *
*           DALE'S KEY SHOP           *
*          EXPIRES 03-31-01           *
***************************************


File Maintenance
   File Maintenance will offer several options. 
1. Run POSCONFG.EXE. 
2. Stock table.
3. Tax rate list.
4. Category list.
5. Vendor list.
6. Set date / time.
7. Copy files.
8. Read receiving file.
9. Read inventory file.

1. Run POSCONFG.EXE.
   This option will run the POSCONFG.EXE program for only THIS register. You will have to enter the master password.

2. Stock table.
   This option will allow you to edit the stock table. If you required it you will have to enter the "stock table" password to enter. However only if you enter the "master password" will you be allowed to edit "pieces sold", "dollars sold", or the inventory counts.

3. Tax rate list.
   This option will allow you to edit the tax rates. If you required it you will have to enter the "tax" password or "master" password to enter.

4. Category list.
   This option will allow you to edit the category list.

5. Vendor list.
   This option will allow you to edit the vendor list.

6. Set date / time.
   This option sets the date / time not only in your cash register but also on your computer's system clock. It is important that the register knows the correct date and time. Many functions and reports are dependent on the day and time. 
   Note: If your store stays open after midnight your closing sales will be recorded on the day the register is closed. If you are open all day on the 16th but close up at 1:00am then your sales will be recorded on the 17th. When you open at 9:00am on the 17th the journal will think that it is the same sales day.

7. Copy files.
   This function will copy the stock table, RECEIVE.EXE, and INVENTOR.BAT to another disk drive. This will allow you to enter your inventory or receiving file on a different computer to be read by this computer later. NOTE, if your stock table is too large your will have to copy the program files to one disk and the stock table to another. If your stock table is set to 13,000 it will be too large to copy to a floppy.

8. Read receiving file.
   This will read the file created by the "Receiving" program from either the hard drive or a floppy drive. This will add counts to the existing inventory in the stock table. The "Receiving" file may only be read once because it will be erased after being read.

9. Read inventory file.
   This will read the file created by the "Inventory" program from either the hard drive or a floppy drive. Before this "Inventory" file is read the current inventory in the stock table will be ERASED. The stock table inventory will be replaced by the counts in the "Inventory" file. 

No sale
   There are three options to a "No sale"

1. No sale 
2. Cash pull 
3. Cash drop 
4. Cancel 

   "1. No sale" just pops open the cash drawer and prints a receipt.
   "2. Cash pull" pulls money from the cash room to your register. Use this feature when you need have insufficient cash in your drawer and need to take money from the cash room to put in the drawer.
   "3. Cash drop" drops money to the cash room from your register. Use this feature when you have too much cash in your drawer and you need to take cash from your drawer to deposit in the cash room.
   If you choose options 2 or 3 you will be asked for the amount. Two receipts will print, one for the register and one for the cash office, each of which will have the amount printed on them. 
   No sales, cash pulls, and cash drops will be counted as transactions and will be placed in the journal file and transaction record so they can be displayed using the "5. Void" feature. 
   On the closing screen and receipt there will be a listing for "Cash drops / pulls" which will be the total for both, with cash drops being subtracted of course. Cash drops / pulls will be calculated into the "Cash in reg." figure. 
   Since no sales, cash drops, and cash pulls all open the cash drawer they are all included in the "No sale" transaction count.

Voids
   This function will display any transaction in the sales record on the screen including non-sales like opening, closing, voided sales, returns, no sales. 
   Only sales in your sales record file (not refunds or anything else) may be voided and then only if they are from the same day. You may also require a password before a sale may be voided.
   If you are tracking sales by sales person the void amounts will be subtracted from the sales totals of the person who rang up the original sale that is being voided.
   A voided sale will be totally erased from the register. The sales will be removed from the sales totals, the pieces will be returned to the inventory, even the transaction count will be reduced by 1. The transaction type in the sales record will be changed from "SALE" to "VOIDED SALE". However the amount of all of the voids and the number of voids will be recorded in the daily sales report as a separate number, ie. not added into the daily sales.

Lock register.
   To lock the register you will have to enter the "lock register" password (or the master password.) When the register is locked the program is frozen on the "lock" screen. To unlock the register you must enter this password (or the master) again.
   The .POS file is also set to "lock" so even if you reboot the computer, if you try to run the POS program, when it loads the .POS file you will still be frozen on the "lock" screen.

Close register.
   This option will either print a closing sales report and clear the register before exiting the program, or just exit the program.
   If you choose to close the register it will print out a daily sales closing receipt and then erase the daily sales. Do this only if it is the end of the sales day. After erasing the daily sales it will ask you if you wish to erase the merchandise sales data, this is WHAT you have sold. DO NOT erase the merchandise sales data unless you have first used the "Reports" function to first print out the merchandise sales report. (See "Journal")
   Some stores want to know what they sell on a daily basis, some weekly, and some monthly. If you want to know what you sell monthly but printout and clear the merchandise totals daily then you have a lot of adding to do at the end of the month. Only when you are on the last day of your accounting period should you clear the merchandise sales data. (But make sure that you print out the data first!) Make sure that the person who closes out your register knows when, and when not, to clear the merchandise sales data.
   If you choose to exit the register without closing then nothing will be printed or erased. When you reopen the register later an opening receipt will be printed but otherwise it will be just as you left it. All your sales and everything else will be there as if you had never left the program. 
   This is a major feature! This means that your computer has to be a cash register only when you need to ring something up. If you are working in an office or school and only need to account for a sale 1 to 12 times a day, then when someone comes to you to pay a fee, pay a fine, or purchase a nic-nac, pause your word processing software (or whatever), load the register software, ring up the sale, exit the register software, and go back to word processing. If you are using Windows you can run your WP software and the register software in separate windows, just click over. At the end of the day run the register software a final time to print & close.

Sample closing receipt....

         DALE'S KEY SHOP
        1234 STATE STREET
        CHICAGO, IL 60600

         (312) 555-1234
------------------------------------
TRAN  ASSOCIATE                TIME
1234 0                         21:02
------------------------------------
CLOSE  CLOSE   CLOSE   CLOSE   CLOSE
------------------------------------
TX1  8.750%   70.31 0.000%      0.00
TX2  2.000%    3.08 0.000%      0.00
    TOTAL     73.39 TOTAL       0.00
                  TOTAL TAX    73.39
------------------------------------
      CASH SALES:   700.20       49
     CHECK SALES:    40.41        3
    CREDIT SALES:   293.02       18
     DEBIT SALES:     0.00        0
     CASH RETURN:   -52.29        4
    CHECK RETURN:   -13.47        1
   CREDIT RETURN:   -20.00        2
    DEBIT RETURN:     0.00        0
       NET SALES:   947.87
       TOTAL TAX:    73.39 
     GROSS SALES:  1021.26
            TIPS:     0.00
       CASH BACK:     0.00
CASH DROPS/PULLS:     0.00
     + CASH FUND:   125.00
     CASH IN REG:   820.05
   CHECKS IN REG:    29.30
   CREDIT IN REG:   273.02
    DEBIT IN REG:     0.00
   TOTAL PAYOUTS:     0.00        0
 TOTAL DISCOUNTS:   -67.34        4
TOTAL REDUCTIONS:   -72.85       11
   TOTAL COUPONS:     0.00        0
     TOTAL VOIDS:   -22.58        1
 PAYOUT TRANSACTIONS:             0
  SALES TRANSACTIONS:            70
 RETURN TRANSACTIONS:             7
NO SALE TRANSACTIONS:             7
  TOTAL TRANSACTIONS:            77
------------------------------------
        WE MAKE KEYS RIGHT
            07-02-2001

Balancing your register.
   To balance you register a closing report will have four important numbers. The "Cash in reg:", "Checks in reg.", "Credit in reg." and Debit in reg." 
   The "Cash in reg." figure includes the opening cash fund that you enter when you start this program, plus the sum of cash pulls minus cash drops, plus tips, minus cash backs, plus cash sales minus cash returns, minus payouts. In other words the "Cash in reg." Should exactly equal the cash that is actually in your cash drawer.
   If you add up all of the checks in the register, plus any that were put "in the safe" during the day, then the total should equal the "Checks in reg:" There are two important things about checks and refunds. You can give a check refund only if you return the customer's actual check to him or if you write out a store check (and then put the stub into the drawer to subtract from the check total), otherwise the checks that you add up at the end of the day will not equal "Checks in reg:"
   If a customer paid with a check but you give him a cash refund then at the end of the return transaction you must choose "cash" as the method of payment.
   Likewise the credit slips in your register should add up the "Credit in reg." Figure and the debit slips in your register should add up the "Debit in reg."

NOTES ON SALES REPORTS:
   If you allow multiple forms of payment on one sale then each form of payment used will count as one sale, for example, if a customer pays by check and cash for one sale then that will increase the number of cash sales by one and the number of check sales by one, however the total sales will increase by only one because there was actually only one sale. This means that at the end of the day you could have 45 cash sales, 23 check sales, 22 credit sales, but only 76 total sales. This also applies to returns.
   Also if you allow multiple forms of payment on one sale the dollar amount credited to each form of payment will be proportional to the amount tendered. If you have a 10% tax rate and the customer pays $10 in cash and $50 in credit for a $55 sale then the net sale is $49.50 (less tax) and .166667% will be credited to a cash sale, or $8.25 and .833333% will be credited to a credit sale, or $41.25.


Reports
   If from the register you select the "Reports" feature you will see the following "Reports" menu...
   (Can't find FILEINFO.EXE? See "Starting the cash register" under "MINIMUM MODE" at the beginning of this document.)

SALES REPORTS
  A. Total by Sales
  B. Employee Sales

MERCHANDISE REPORTS
  C. Total by Stock
  D. Total by Category
  E. Total by Vendor
  F. Employee by Stock
  G. Employee by Category
  H. Employee by Vendor
  I. History by Stock
  J. History by Category
  K. History by Vendor
  L. Inventory by Stock
  M. Inventory by Category
  N. Inventory by Vendor

   When you select a "Report" it will be calculated and displayed on the screen. While on the screen you may print it on your printer or save it as a text file that can be loaded into any word processing program. You may also save it as a data file that can be loaded into any spreadsheet program. Saved files can be saved either to the current drive or you may select a drive.
    
SALES REPORTS
   A "total" Sales report is exactly like the receipt that you get when you close out the register. An "Employee" sales report is the same thing except it is only one employee's sales.
When you use the "Reports" feature in the POS.EXE program to make a "Total sales" report you will have several options.
   But first a few words about closing receipts.
When you close out the register and print a closing receipt the information on the closing receipt is also saved to a file. This allows a "Total sales" report to not only report the sales in the current register session but for any closing report that has been recorded in the file. By specifying "Start date" and "End date" you may also total up all of the sales figures from those days.
   If you total figures from a range remember that if you specify a "Start date" from before you began using a version of the POS program that would record closing data then there is no data to read for those dates. For example if you enter a "start date" of 11-20-03 but did not install version 6.22 (or later) in your computer until 1-1-05 then no sales from before 1-1-05 will be added into your totals. 
   Also remember that the POS program saves closing data to the file depending on the date / time of when you closed the register. If your bar / restaurant opens at 9:00 am on 2-3-05 and then closes at 2:00 am the next morning then the sales for that day will be recorded under 2-4-05.
   If for some reason the date / time in your computer's system clock is inaccurate this will also save closing figures to the wrong date. If you are adding sales within a range and one or more of the sales records in the file that should be within the range has an inaccurate date outside of the range then those figures will not be included in the totals for the range. You are responsible for making sure that the date / time of the closing of the register is accurate.
   Since incorrect dating of the closing receipts is possible, or you may not have even closed the register properly on the correct day, you may not consider adding sales figures on a "Sales report" over a range of days to be a substitute for adding up the actual closing  receipts for those days. While this program will accurately total up the closing receipts that have been saved to the file it has no way of knowing that you have accurately saved all of the closing receipt data to the file. 
   When you create a "Total sales" report you will be asked for a "Start date" and "End date." At the bottom of the screen will be displayed the date of the "First receipt in the sales record." It is pointless and misleading to specify a "Start date" earlier than the "First receipt" date.
   From the "date" screen if you press [+] then a sales report will be created that contains only the sales held in the current session of the active cash register. If your register was closed out earlier in the same day those sales are not "current" and will not be included.
   From the "date" screen if you press [TAB] then a "Total sales" report will be created that will total up all of the closing reports in the date range. If the current date is in the range then the sales from the current register session will be included. 
   From the "date" screen if you press [F1] then you will receive the same report as pressing [TAB] plus a sales report for each closing receipt in the range. This is a way to make sure none of the closing receipts are missing and a way to use up a huge amount of paper if you actually decide to print them out.

Transaction numbers
   A print out of a closing receipt will have the original transaction number. The current sales will have a transaction number of "CRRNT."  The total for all receipts will have a transaction number of "TOTAL."  Associate sales reports will have a transaction number of "ASSOC."

Taxes
   Even though the current tax rates are displayed on all sales reports, the monetary amounts are the actual tax amounts collected when the register was closed.

Tips
   Tips are only reported if you are recording tips. (How else?) In addition tips are only reported on non-networked registers or from the GLOBAL folder of networked computers. Networked local registers will not report individual tips.
   IMPORTANT: Tips apply to each slot in the "tips" file, Employee #1, Employee #2, Employee #3, etc. If you print each closing receipt then they will have the names of the employees at the time the register was closed. However the "total" receipt will have the names of the current employees. If over the range of dates two or more employees used the same slot, then the program will have no way of knowing this. The names printed in the tips section of the "total" report are the current holders of those slots. For example, if "AMY" was employee #4 from 1-1-05 to 1-15-05 and "ANNA" was employee #4 from 1-16-05 to 2-25-05 and you create a sales report from 1-1-05 to 1-31-05, then the tips for slot #4 will include the tips earned for Amy and Anna. However if the current holder of slot #4 is "BOB" then "BOB" will be printed on the "total" report for slot #4. To find the actual tips for Amy and Anna you would have to print out each of the closing receipts in the range. There should be a long time before you assign a new employee to a slot used by a previous employee.

Sub reg cash
Cash fund
Cash in reg.
   For historical purposes these fields will be printed as they were saved for individual reports however for the total report the CASH IN REG will not include the cash fund and SUB REG CASH and CASH FUND will be set to zero. This is because the CASH FUND is not something earned on each day and does not reflect actual sales or taxes. 

Networks
   A sales report is the sales from that register only. If your register is on a network then only the sales from that register will be reported even if you specify a range of dates. To create a sales report for the entire network you must create the report from the GLOBAL folder.

MERCHANDISE REPORTS
   Merchandise reports are WHAT you sold. Find out what in your store is selling and what is not. Find out how many you have. You can print out total merchandise reports or reports by employee. Each report can be sorted by stock number, or by merchandise category, or by vendor. If you choose to print by either category or vendor you may choose to print every item or only the category or vendor totals. 

HISTORY
   History must be turned on using POSCONFG.EXE, you must be using a stock table and be keeping track of inventory.
   A sales history is the record of which merchandise you have sold by stock number, pieces and dollars. From "today" you may go back 1 to 12 months. 1 month is the current month so if it is the 5th of the month the history will only be for 5 days. History always starts the 1st of the beginning month. History is updated at the end of every transaction so it is always current.
  The sales history file is 1.6 megabytes long, consider this before turning "history" on. History rolls over after 12 months, ie. month 13 will overwrite month 1.

INVENTORY
   An inventory merchandise report prints quantities on hand.
   If you set it up using the "Inventory" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program an inventory report can also print the monetary value of your inventory. You can print either the "cost" value for your inventory (what you paid for your merchandise) or a "sell" value (what you will receive when you sell your merchandise.)
   If an item in the report has no value (either the "Price" or "Cost" respectively is zero) then the stock number for that item will be followed by a pound sign, i.e.12345#. This will warn you that the value of those items will not be included in the value of the inventory. 

 A sample merchandise report is below.

              DALE'S KEY SHOP
             1234 STATE STREET
             CHICAGO, IL 60600

               (312) 555-1234

-------------------------------------------------
      TRAN    ASSOCIATE                 TIME
      1317  0                           21:39
-------------------------------------------------
                 07-02-2001
                                 PIECES     SALES
     55 SINGLE SIDED BRASS KEY       53     91.98
    110 FOREIGN CAR KEY               1      3.49
    165 FREE BRASS KEY                2       .00
              BRASS KEYS   4.97%     56     95.47
-------------------------------------------------
     13 SINGLE SIDED COLOR KEY      334    819.58
     68 DOUBLE SIDED COLOR KEY        5     12.45
    181 FREE COLOR KEY                0       .50
              COLOR KEYS  43.31%    339    832.53
-------------------------------------------------
     26 IMPORT CREDIT CARD KEY        1       .49
             C CARD KEYS    .03%      1       .49
-------------------------------------------------
    246 MEDECO KEY                    1      6.99
             MEDECO KEYS    .36%      1      6.99
-------------------------------------------------
 460666 ORIGINAL CAR KEY            116    338.45
           ORIGINAL KEYS  17.61%    116    338.45
-------------------------------------------------
 221096 VATS / TRANSPONDER KEY        3     75.00
          ELECTONIC KEYS   3.90%      3     75.00
-------------------------------------------------
    152 RUBBER GRIP CAR KEY          68    204.48
          RUBBERGRIP KEY  10.64%     68    204.48
-------------------------------------------------
   6936 KEY PAL KEY CHAIN            10     25.00
 182070 MAGNETIC SECRET KEY BOX       2      4.00
 425818 3/4" SPLIT KEY RING           1       .25
 425834 1 INCH SPLIT KEY RING         3       .75
              KEY CHAINS   1.56%     16     30.00
-------------------------------------------------
 423030 FD-PUMPKINJAR                 2     70.00
                    FOOD   3.64%      2     70.00
-------------------------------------------------
    686 GF-EXECPCKTKN                 1     15.00
    767 FD-ORIGINALPW                 6     59.94
   1326 GF-BRTCHROMER                 1     17.00
   1339 GF-STNCHROMER                 1     17.00
 281104 KR-PEW ANGEL                  1      6.00
 281544 FD-16 OZ ASSO                11    154.00
                   GIFTS  13.99%     21    268.94
-------------------------------------------------
                   TOTAL 100.00%    623   1922.35

Printing / Saving reports.
After you create a report it will be displayed on the screen, you can scroll up and down to display the entire report. While viewing the report if you press [TAB] you be offered the options to print out the report on your printer or save the report as either a text file or data file. A text file will save the report exactly as it is on the screen it and can read into any word processing software. A data file will save the report in a comma delimited format that can be read into either spreadsheet or database software.

Automatic reports
   Afraid that your employees will forget to make a report before closing out the register for the night and then resetting the data? It is possible to set up "automatic reports" that will execute whenever the register is closed with option "2 Close register /print / erase / exit." You can even have the auto reports printed or saved to a file.
   To do this, from the main menu of the Cash Register program go to the "Reports" feature and press [F1] to read the instructions for this feature. If you have entered and activated a "master" password you will be required to enter it before you can see the instruction screen.  If you then press [F1] again the program will return you to the Reports menu and you can start creating your automatic reports. As you create one report after another, including printing and saving the reports into a computer file, the program will save each key press into a "keystroke" file. When the Cash Register program is closed out it will look for this keystroke file and if it is found, it will return to the "Reports" feature and execute the keystroke file recreating the reports you are programming now, and then finish closing out the register.
   While you are programming the automatic reports the program will not actually print or save the reports although it will allow you to set them up to do so. When you reach a point when you have told the program to print or save it will do nothing.
   Automatic employee reports will make a report for every employee that has data, not any specific employee. This allows you to only program one employee report (for each type of employee report) instead of having to do so for each employee. The program does this by putting the "employee report" keystrokes into a loop. The maximum number of keystrokes in a loop is 100.
   If you save automatic reports to a file they will use the following type of filename, example BT122306.TXT, where the first letter is the report type as selected in the "Reports" menu, the second letter tells you if the report is (T)ext or (D)ata, and the following 6 digits are the date in MMDDYY format. Automatic report files are appended to any existing report file with the same file name so if you close out the register several times in the same day the saved report will contain all of the reports from each close-out for that day.
   Automatic reports saved to a file will be saved to a sub-folder with the same name as your register file. For example if your POS files are in the folder C:\POS and your register file name is KEYSHOP then the automatic report files will be saved in the folder C:\POS\KEYSHOP. If you are saving the file to another drive, like A:, then the files will be saved to the folder A:\KEYSHOP
   When you have finished programming the creating/printing/saving of all the reports you want, and you are at the main "Reports" menu, press [F1] to save the keystroke file and return to the instruction screen. At this point you can press [ESC] to return to the main menu, [F4] to delete the keystroke file you just created, or [F3] to test your new reports.
   If you choose to test your reports the keystroke file will be opened and one keystroke at a time will be read and executed. Press any key to read the next keystroke or hold a key down to auto-read keystrokes. When testing the file the program will actually print out and save your reports. When the last keystroke in the file has been executed you will be returned to the instruction screen.
   When testing or actually using the automatic reports feature you will be warned to have plenty of paper in your printer and have the disk drives and other storage devices ready, i.e. stick a disk in them, plug in the RAM drive, etc. 
   On networked computers the only report than can made automatic on a LOCAL register is the "A. Total Sales" report. All other automatic reports must be programmed on the GLOBAL register. The keystroke file is LOCAL and must be programmed on each register.
   The automatic "A. Total Sales" report is limited to the current values only, which will make it identical to the closing receipt. However unlike the closing receipt an "A. Total Sales" report can be saved as a file.

ASSOCIATES
   This function allows you to enter the names of the employees that are working in your store. If you have selected to track sales by employee then when you begin a sale you must choose one of the employee names from this list. If there are no names in this list then you cannot ring up a sale.
   It is not a good idea to give your customers both the first and last name of your employees, there are a lot of nuts out there with phone books. Since the name entered here will be printed on each employee's receipts enter only a first name and possibly a last initial if you have two "Amy"s working in your store. 
   Please remember that this program does not really know who your employees are. The program only knows them as employee #1 or as employee #2 and then assigns a name to that employee from this list. The important thing about this is that employee data files are saved by the employee's number not the employee's name. This means that if Amy quits and then you assign her number to Donna, when you do a sales history for Donna, Amy's sales will be credited to Donna.
   If possible do not reassign an employee number to a new employee until after you reset the merchandise file.

***RECEIVING***
   If you are keeping track of inventory in your stock table you will have to update your inventory whenever merchandise shipments arrive. To do this run the RECEIVE.EXE program. This program allows you to create a file of the received merchandise that can then be added into your POS stock table. NOTE: If you are entering your initial shop's inventory use the INVENTOR.BAT program described below.
   RECEIVE.EXE does not have to be run on the same computer as the POS program. You may run the RECEIVE.EXE program from a "back room" computer and then only when you bring the received merchandise to the sales floor or stock room, load the receiving file into the cash register.
   This program assumes that the merchandise that is being received in your store is coming in packing cases that are accompanied by packing slips. In other words you have a piece of paper (or several) that has a list of what is being received into your store. This program allows you to enter the pieces of merchandise that is on that piece of paper.
   If the merchandise being received in your store does not have a packing slip, just make one up. A packing slip is just a list of items that are being received and how may of each one you are receiving.
   "Why not just punch it into the computer and skip the paper", you ask? Because at some point you may wonder if the numbers you have punched in are correct. If you have placed the items in stock, or just moved them around, and don't have that piece of paper you will not later be able to verify the counts. Plus a piece of paper is much easier to carry around when unpacking the boxes than a computer.
   When you enter a page into this program you will be asked for the vendor's name, invoice number, and page number, (page 4 of invoice 256854 from XYZ Corp.). These three things plus the date and time will make up the "Page name" of the page you are entering. If later you need to correct the counts for a page you will be able to find the correct page by this name. You may skip entering a "Page name" for a page by just pressing [TAB] when asked for this information but why would you want to? How are you going to find that page again? You cannot use the date / time because if you correct a page the date / time will be changed to the time of the correction.
   The maximum number of lines on one packing slip page is 60.
   The first thing you must do with the packing slip is make sure that the merchandise listed on it is actually in the packing cases. Are you receiving what you are supposed to, is all that stuff REALLY in those boxes?
   Once you have confirmed the counts you must write your store's stock number for each item on the packing slip. It does not help to have the vendor's stock number of DFG9800KA42 on the packing slip if the stock number for that item in your register is 425892. You may use the "Search stock table" option in this program to help you find the correct stock number for an item.
   Now that you have a packing list with the correct stock numbers for each item, with the correct pieces of each item, with a document name for each page, you may enter the data into this program.
   To enter items into this program the stock table from your cash register must be accessible to this program. If you are running this program on the same computer as your cash register then there will be no problem. If you are running it on a different computer then you may use the cash register's "File maintenance" / "Copy files" feature to copy the stock table to a floppy disk. This program will then read / write data to the floppy. Or copy the stock table to that computer's hard drive. NOTE: if you are using different computers then whenever new items are added or deleted from the stock table you MUST copy the stock table to the computer running this program.
   From the main menu press [3] to enter your packing slip page into the file. First enter the document name. Now begin entering the items on the page by entering the stock number for the first item. If the program can find the stock number listed in the stock table, it will print a description of the item on the screen. If the description matches the actual item, enter the pieces, if the description does not match, press [left arrow] to return to enter the correct stock number. When you have finished entering a page press [F2] to save the information into the file. You may now enter another page. 
   If a correct stock number cannot be found for an item, or the correct stock number is not in the stock table, then you cannot enter the item into this file. To enter an item into the cash register program that cannot be entered into this program (because there is no valid stock number for that item) you must run the cash register program, (or POSCONFG.EXE) and use the "Stock table" function to create a new item, and then manually enter the inventory pieces. Circle any item without a valid stock number on the packing list so that you will know that it has to be entered manually.
   If you have the same merchandise on different pages, or even the same page, do not add it together, enter each line separately. For example, if you entered 24 of item 123456 and then later have 16 more of 123456, DO NOT enter 40, just enter the 16 more. The cash register program will add them when the file is read. Remember, you want the computer file to match the paper document as closely as possible.
   If you believe that you have entered the counts from a page incorrectly or have found additional merchandise, you may press [3] from the main menu to call up an existing page to correct it. 
   Once you have entered all of the pages from all of the invoices into this program you must load the file created by this program into the cash register program to update the cash register's inventory. Just entering the items into this program WILL NOT update your store's inventory.
   If you are running this program from the same computer as the cash register program just run the cash register program and from "File maintenance" choose "Read receiving file." If you set a stock table password you must enter it before reading the receiving file.
   If you are running this program from a different computer than the cash register program is running on, then you must copy the file to a floppy disk, if it is not already there, and then insert the floppy into the computer running the cash register program and then from "File maintenance" / "Read receiving file" choose the floppy drive.
   AFTER READING THE FILE INTO THE CASH REGISTER PROGRAM YOU MUST ERASE IT FROM THE FLOPPY DRIVE AND THE COMPUTER RUNNING THIS PROGRAM SO THAT THE DATA ON IT CANNOT BE ENTERED INTO THE CASH REGISTER PROGRAM AGAIN! 

ORGANIZING YOUR INVENTORY
   What could be simpler than taking an inventory? Count it up, write it down, your done. If you believe this, you are very wrong. There are graduate level college courses in inventory science. The problem with inventory is not with counting everything, but being able to verify that everything has been counted. Here are some horror stories.
   After inventory is done an employee finds some merchandise in a little used stock room. Has it been counted? If you add it to your inventory will you have counted it twice?
   After inventory one employee says that he counted rack X, another says that he counted rack X too. Did they both count rack X? Did anyone count rack X?
   You counted everything yourself and it took you 2 days to do it. As you leave for home you spy the display next to the cash register and say to yourself, "As I was going to count that I had a phone call, did I count that or not?"
   As you can see, the secret to inventory is verification. If there is any question, you must be able to pick up a particular piece of paper that will tell you if you inventoried that particular location and if the counts are correct. The secret to verification is preparation.
   You will need to make up two forms, count slips and count slip logs. Both of these forms come with this program. They are in two text files, COUNTSLP.TXT and COUNTLOG.TXT. These files can be loaded into any word processing program and printed out. Please do so now. If these files are missing you may download them from my website at http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/pos.htm
   When doing an inventory you do not count by merchandise. In other words you do not take the first item on your stock list and then try to find every piece in your store and then repeat the process for the next item, and so on. Instead you count locations. Once you are sure that every item in every location in your store has been counted you may be sure that everything has been counted. So, you end up with the same item from different locations on different count slips, how do you add them up? Simple, you punch each count slip into this program and it will add them up for you.

Step #1. Label every location in your store. I write on masking tape and stick to the area to do this. Don't just label each counter or rack. Label every drawer, every shelf, every bin, every box. For example; "cabinet #4, drawer #2".

Step #2. Place a count slip in every labeled area. A count slip has 60 lines, if your area has more that 60 different items in it, the area is too big. Break it down into smaller parts and assign more slips. All count slips must have a unique number (1 to 910). On each slip write the assigned location (from the label in step #1) of the slip in case it gets moved.

Step#3. As you place each count slip write its number and location on the count slip log. At the end of the inventory if you have 125 count slips, but the log has 126 slips assigned, you can easily find out where the missing slip was from. Assign a new slip with the old number, and recount the location. If you have two count slips #89, you know to only enter one of them.

Step#4. Count each area and write it on the assigned count slip. You do not have to group things. If you have some of your 2565's on one slip and some more 2565's on another slip that's fine. You may even have two lines on the same slip with the same stock number. Just make sure that you didn't count the same pieces twice.

Step#5. Using the count slip log, retrieve each slip in the order they are on the log. Check them off on the log as you collect them. Keep the slips in numerical order so that you can easily tell if one is missing or you have two with the same number.

Step#6. Check the log and your store to make sure that you have collected every slip and that no area was uncounted.

Step#7. Add up the page total for each count slip.

Step#8. You are now ready to enter your inventory into this program. Read 'Entering your inventory.'

*** ENTERING YOUR INVENTORY ***
   If you are keeping track of inventory in your stock you will have to enter your initial inventory into the stock table. Also at least every  year you will have to do another inventory and enter that into the stock table. To do this run the INVENTOR.BAT program. This program allows you to create a file of the merchandise in your store that can then be entered into your POS stock table.
   INVENTOR.BAT does not have to be run on the same computer as the POS program. You may run the INVENTOR.BAT program from a "back room" computer and then later load the inventory file into the cash register.
   NOTE: INVENTOR.BAT works in conjunction with the RECEIVE.EXE program and requires that the RECEIVE.EXE file be available on the drive.
   If you have not read "Organizing your inventory" do so now.

   You now have a pile of count slips that you need to enter into this program. If you are running this program from the same computer as your register you are already. To run this program from a different computer you must have a current copy of the stock table and the inventory software on the other computer. From the POS program use the 'File maintenance' option to copy the files to a floppy. Then copy the files to the other computer's hard drive or run the program from the floppy.
   To run the inventory software you run the file INVENTOR.BAT (Note: RECEIVE.EXE must also be on the disk.)
   If there is already an inventory file on the computer you must erase it before entering this inventory.
   When you run the inventory program select the option 'Enter pieces into file.' You will now see a large, light blue square. This is a map of all 910 possible count slips that you can enter. When you enter data from a count slip the small area that represents that count slip will turn purple. This way you can see at a glance if you have not entered a count slip. Use the arrow keys to scan through the large square and the count slip page number will change under the square. When you see the slip number you want press [ENTER]
   You may now enter the stock numbers and pieces for each line on your count slip. Any stock number that is not in the stock table CANNOT be entered into the inventory file. You must circle any item that cannot be entered so that it can later be manually entered into the stock table from the POS program after inventory.
   Press [F4] to get a page total of the pieces. If the page total does not match the one on the count slip you have either entered something wrong or the count slip is added wrong, find out which. Press [F2] to write the information to the file. You may now select and enter another slip.
   You may return to view or correct any count slip at any time.
   If a count slip has no pieces on it, it will not be counted as having been entered and it's location on the big square will remain blue.
   When you have entered all of the count slips you are not done. Until you load the inventory file into the POS program you actual inventory will not change.
   If you are using a different computer to enter your inventory you may use the inventory program to copy the inventory file to a floppy to carry it to your POS computer.
   IMPORTANT! When loading the inventory file the first thing the POS program will do is to TOTALLY ERASE the current inventory. You may want to back up your .TBL file first. This also means that you cannot do a partial inventory because not only are the new items that you counted erased but the count on EVERY item is erased.
   To load the inventory file into the POS program load the POS program and from "File maintenance" select "Read inventory file." If you set a stock table password you must enter it before reading the receiving file. Now select the drive that the inventory file is on and load the file. 
   Since the current counts are erased every time an inventory file is loaded by the POS program you may load it multiple times.

*** PURCHASE ORDERS ***

The program PURCHASE.EXE will print out, or save to a text or data file, the stock items in your stock table with inventories so low that they should be reordered. It does this by comparing the value in the INVENTORY column of the stock table to the value in the MODEL column. Stock items with a lower INVENTORY than MODEL will be printed out.

   If you choose to save the information as a text file you can then load it into any word processing program. If you choose to save the information as a data file it will be saved as a comma delimited file that can be loaded into any spreadsheet or database program. 

   Information printed or saved as a text file will be formatted to the same width as you print receipts, either 40 or 80 characters wide.

   For each item that should be ordered the STOCK NUMBER, DESCRIPTION, INVENTORY, COST, MODEL, PACK, and VENDOR STOCK NUMBER will be printed. You must fill in all of these columns in your stock table. In addition the program will print the number of items to be ordered for each item and the total cost for those items.

   The items will be sorted by vendor no matter in what order they are in the the stock table. This will make it easy to make up a purchase order for each of your vendors.

   The quantity ordered will be in the units that you sell them. If you sell wire by the meter then you will be told how many meters you should order, NOT coils of wire. For example if wire comes in 250 meter coils (PACK = 250), and you normally should stock 3 coils (MODEL = 750) then if you have 350 meters of wire in stock you need 400 more meters of wire. However the PACK is 250 so you cannot order 400 meters of wire. The program will round up to the next PACK over 400 which is 500 meters or 2 coils of wire. If your vendor sells wire by the coil (even though you sell it by the meter) then you must make sure that you do not tell him that you want 500 or he will send you 500 coils (or 125,000 meters), way too much. This also applies to things sold to you by weight, case, box, etc. If you order 12 of something will your vendor think that you are ordering 12 pieces or 12 cases?

   Remember that INVENTORY, MODEL, PACK, and ORDER are in the units that you sell them. COST is the price for one unit in the units that you sell them, for example 12.95 is the cost for one piece, not one case, even if they are sold to you by the case (this assumes that you sell them by the piece.)

INVENTORY = How many you have in stock now.

MODEL = The minimum number of this item that you want in your store. 

PACK = The minimum number that can be ordered, ie. must a case of 12 be ordered in multiples of 12?

COST = How much it costs you to purchase this item from your vendor.

   Future version of PURCHASE.EXE will be much more extensive and print out actual purchase orders by vendor.

*** PRICE CHECK ***
   If you are running networked cash registers you can place additional computers out on your sales floor that customers may use to check prices and quantities in stock on items you stock 
   To do this, connect additional computers to your network and run the program file LOOKUP.EXE. You must enter into the program the network PATH to the global folder on your server that holds your shared data files. It will be the exact same PATH that you entered into the "Network" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program to set up each register to run over the network. 
   When you created your register you had to give your register a filename. You must also enter this filename into the LOOKUP.EXE program.
   If you enter a password then the customers will not be able to exit this program or access its settings. When the program is actually looking up items press [ESC] to go to the program's menu. If you have entered a password then you will have to enter it before you can leave the "Price check" screen.
   You may enter up to 3 pages of instructions for your customers to follow to use this program to look up items. I do not know what computer equipment you will be providing so it is up to you to write the instructions. Will you be running this on a laptop or desktop computer? Will you be providing a scanner? Make sure you tell them to press [ENTER] after typing in a stock number. Tell them how to find the stock number on your items. Are you using price stickers with the stock numbers on them or are you using the barcode numbers as you stock numbers? 
   You may use the 3 pages of instructions to write really long detailed instructions or you can use each page to write instructions in different languages. For example use page #1 for instructions in English, page #2 for instructions in Spanish, and page #3 for instructions in Polish. Make sure that you tell the customers to press either [PAGE UP] or [PAGE DOWN] to access other pages. Of course if the other pages have instructions in different languages you would want to post that information on the current page in the language of the other pages like from the English page you would print…

[PAGE UP] = Instrucciones en Español   [PAGE DOWN] = Instrukcja po Polsku

   When entering instructions you can enter accented characters by first pressing [F3] to display the "Alternate character set." Each character will have a 3 digit number to its left. To actually type in an alternate character hold down [ALT], use the numeric keypad on the right of your keyboard to type in the 3 digit code, and then when you release the [ALT] key the alternate character will appear in your text.
   Once you have entered the required information you may select to "1. Go to the lookup screen." Now customers can type in stock numbers to check on prices and quantities in stock.
   You may set up the program to lookup either regular stock numbers, vendor stock numbers, or both. If the program can check for both, it will lookup regular stock numbers first. If it finds a match it will then ask if you want to also look in the vendor stock numbers.
   When checking vendor stock numbers you do not have to enter the entire stock number. If you enter just part of a vendor number the program will find the first vendor stock number that contains that part and then ask you if you want to continue to search.

