Cash Register help :-)

[jrbodysculpt]

Hi everyone

I’m just looking for some help. I need one for a small clothing shop and have been looking around at them-just wondered if anyone got any top tips/advice for choosing one, and what you features you find beneficial to have?

I’m also a little bit confused about how you process the sale as a card payment-all the videos I’ve watched only show how to process a cash sale?

Many Thanks!

 

[Scalloway]

How you process card sales depends on how sophisicated your till is. From an operational point of view I've only used tills where the card machine is a standalone item, not connected to the till.

Where that is the case you process card sale the same as cash sales, but you must have a record of what method was used to pay for the goods. This till allows 3 methods of payment, cash, cheque and credit card. You must select the correct option when accepting payment.

http://www.sharp.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/gb/hs.xsl/-/html/product-details.htm?product=XEA102

At the end of the day you need to take totals from the machine and add up the credit card receipts and the cash to see that they match the till totals.

 

[fairdealworld]

Like Scalloway I - quite deliberately for a variety of reasons - use a till which is a standalone item and a card machine which is also a standalone item. There is no difficulty over card sales as even the most basic till has separate buttons for finalising a sale according to whether it is a cash, card or cheque transaction and even the simplest till will also have a method for accepting a split sale i.e. where a customer asks to pay part by cash and part by card (or part by cheque if you choose to accept cheques).

Basically you put the sale through the till to the subtotal stage, then, if the customer opts to pay by card, you put the card into the card machine - or, depending on your set up, get the customer to put the card into the machine - then you type in the subtotal amount, the customer enters their pin and presses 'enter', on my machine the merchant (i.e. you) then has to press 'enter' again. If the pin matches the card the transaction goes through, at that point you finalise the sale on the till by pressing the button for a card transaction and give the customer the till receipt, the card receipt and, of course, the Debit or Credit Card. It sounds complicated but really it is very simple and gets to be second nature after a couple of days.

Unlike Scalloway I don't like Sharp tills. I had a fairly basic one in my shop at the beginning of this year, a hasty purchase after another went wrong, We found it very noisy in operation and if you are trying to create a pleasant atmosphere in your shop this can become an issue. I'm a Casio fan - they are much quieter!

Small things can make a difference to your choice of Cash Register. For example, some will allow you to programme them so that your shop name and address (and VAT number if you are registered) print out at the top of the receipt. Others have a set message such as 'Thank You' which you can't over-ride. Small things such as this can be important in some businesses and not very relevant to others.

 

[bovine]

For basic cash register requirements, standalone chip and pin units are far and away the best option.

I've sold and worked on sharp and casio cash registers for a looooong time. The xea model linked above I would never recommend to a retail business, the drawer is plastic and not robust.

Most cash registers come with thermal printers now, this is great for putting for own graphic logo on (never underestimate how professional this looks - I have seem some truly awful receipts). I tend more toward casio nowadays, the new SES range are very nice, easy to setup and program and very capable machines that should last you a long time.

Consider where you buy it from. I would never suggest buying a machine in a box from a stationers, as they really dont know much about them. You could buy online, but some of the main sellers then have premium lines for tech support. Consider buying from a local dealer, it will be more expensive, but they can show you how to work it, set it up and fix it when if it goes wrong. Buy online and you have to send it away to get fixed, leaving you without a till. And if you need help on it, they can tell you what to do. More expensive short term, potentially a lot cheaper in the long run.