Program Options - P.O.S.

These options are found through Maintenance / Program Options / P.O.S. (assuming you're authorized for the P.O.S. option).  All of these settings affect the way that the P.O.S. sales entry dialog operates.  You can set it up the way that best suits your operation, depending on whether you want to keep it simple, minimizing clicks needed to complete a sale, or whether you want all possible features available and the ability to decide exactly in what order you do things.

Note that these settings are global, so they affect all workstations in a networked environment.  Also note that some of these options are further affected by the Access Levels, so even though an option is enabled here, it may not be available to certain operators.

Hide transactions for taxes on P.O.S. entry dialog -- When this is checked, the running total for taxes will show at the bottom, but the list will not show taxes.  If this is not checked, then one or more tax lines will also appear in the list and will be updated after each item added.  This might cause confusion, so it's best to leave this checked.

Allow a sale to be entered as non-taxable -- When this is set, a "non-tax" checkbox will be added at the top of the POS Sales Entry, so you can skip sales taxes on items even if they are normally set as taxable in Inventory Setup.  An Access Level is also available, so it can be limited to certain users.  

Auto-add item scanned or searched if it's the only partial match, even if it's not an exact match -- Normally if the scanned code or search term is not an exact match for the item's code or description, it will show the matching item(s) in a list to be selected.  If you set this option, then if only one partial match is found, it will be added automatically rather than showing a list with just one item to select.

Warn if sale exceeds known inventory for an item -- This won't prevent the sale of an item, but pops up a warning message which must be acknowledged.  While this can be annoying, it's unlikely to happen without a good reason.  It's especially useful if you sell items that aren't brought up to the counter first, like ice or firewood.  For instance if someone says they need 5 bags of ice, this will tell you if there aren't that many out in the freezer (assuming inventory is correct).

Warn if sale results in low inventory for an item -- This will show a pop-up warning if the item just entered is getting low.  This is not recommended for a high-traffic location, since it can be annoying and time-consuming.  However for lower traffic situations, especially if the manager is likely to be the one handling sales, this can be a handy reminder that something needs to be re-ordered soon.

Enable Discount Item function -- This does not affect auto-discounts (set up through the Inventory setup), but enables a special button on the P.O.S. dialog allowing one-time special discounts to be entered.  This is usually only desired in a small shop where the manager has the authority to offer discounts to preferred customers, for instance.

Enable Other Credits function -- This adds a button on the dialog to allow entering special "Credit" transactions.  This is typically used for coupons or gift certificates, where you need the full price of the items to be recorded for reporting (so you can't use Discount), but you want to enter a Credit so the amount actually paid by the customer is reduced.

Enable Other Charges function -- This adds a "Charge" button so that you can enter sales outside of your inventory.  This is usually needed for miscellaneous charges that can't be easily inventoried.  It will open the standard Enter Charge dialog where you select a category, enter a quantity and amount each, and select the taxes to apply.  This can also be used to operate the P.O.S. like a simple cash register instead of entering any inventory at all, just entering amounts one after another (with the "continuous" box checked on the P.O.S. dialog).

Default transaction category for Other Charges -- This is important if you use the Other Charges for rapid sales entry.  It will select this category each time the Other Charges function is used, allowing you to simply type the price and press Enter to enter a sale.  Typically this would be a general category like "Misc Sales".  If you want the operator to select a category each time, select the blank entry at the top of the drop-down list.

Automatically save transactions when a payment is entered -- This helps prevent "missing" transactions by accidentally clicking the Cancel button, especially if a receipt is not needed.

Automatically print the receipt as soon as the payment is entered -- This simply saves a mouse click to speed up operations, presuming that you always want a receipt printed.  As soon as a payment is entered, even if it's not paid in full, a receipt will be printed.

...only if it's a credit card payment -- Select this along with the option above if you only need a receipt printed for credit card sales.

Automatically save transactions when a receipt is printed -- This option is designed to help prevent fraud (or mistakes).  Once a receipt is printed for a customer, it will record the transactions immediately so that they can't be cleared out by simply canceling the dialog.  The dialog will remain open, but will show the transactions as "old" -- items can still be returned and a refund issued if necessary, but that will all be recorded too.  (This option does not need to be checked if the next one is checked.)

Automatically close the P.O.S. dialog when a receipt is printed -- This is commonly enabled just to save a step, since printing the receipt generally signals that you're done.  However you might not want to do this, for instance if it's common for the customers to have a question about it after you print the receipt, and want the transactions to remain displayed until they leave.  (Tip: Ctrl-T will bring up the last transactions entered, so the last sale is still only a keystroke away if you remember this shortcut.)

Automatically re-open the P.O.S. dialog after a sale is completed -- Enable this in a high-traffic situation where you just want it to keep the P.O.S. dialog up and ready for sales.  If you need to close the P.O.S. dialog for other functions (assuming it's currently empty and waiting), just press the Esc key (or click Cancel or Done).

Allow closing the dialog (Done) without printing a receipt when a Payment or Refund is entered -- If it's common that your customer doesn't need a receipt (or you're doing some testing and don't want to waste paper), enable this option so that a sale can be saved without printing a receipt.

Enable sounds when scanning or entering items -- Some people find beeps and bonks helpful, others find them annoying.  This is mostly useful if you're using a bar-code scanner, and don't want to have to look at the screen each time you scan an item.  With this enabled, a sound will indicate whether the scanned item was found (uniquely) and the charge added automatically, or whether no match was found, or whether multiple matches were found and you need to select one of them.  (The sounds used are the same sounds used throughout the program and Windows in general for "Attention", "Error", and "Warning" messages.)

Show entire inventory list if Enter pressed with no scan/search text -- This should only be used when your inventory list is small, so it doesn't cause unexpected delays.  If you only sell a couple dozen items and don't use a bar code scanner, then it may be just as easy to press Enter and then select an item from the list as it would be to type in an item code or text to search for.  Of course it could be enabled even for large inventory lists, but in that case it might be better to require that at least some text be entered (e.g. they could enter  "App" if they're looking for a particular kind of apple), so if they press Enter by mistake it doesn't cause a delay while the whole list is being loaded and sorted for them.