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Can You Access Your Own Cash Register Data?
jeronimo989 writes "A customer of mine has a small shop and asked me to look for an electronic cash register. One of the requirements is to retrieve the sales data from the cash register in some accessible format so he can import it in the software of his choice (which happens to be OpenOffice), either by downloading the data on a Flash card, connecting a laptop via USB, or even via a direct modem connection. As far as the cash register itself is concerned, he doesn't need anything too fancy; any 'entry level' machine for small businesses is probably OK (as long as it keeps an electronic journal, of course). Which options do we have? Are there cash register manufacturers out there that allow accessing the sales data directly in an open format? Does anyone here have experience with setting up a link between a cash register and PC, preferably using free/open source solutions?"
Did you even look at the page you're hawking? The features tab has only a place holder, the forum tab is utterly blank, and the manual is V 0.1.0, last updated 2004.
... modern cash registers simply output on a serial or USB port all the transaction data entered, and receive informations on goods for PLUs (Price Look-Ups): when a barcode on a product is scanned, the cash register "asks" to a server the corresponding price and description to be printed on your receipt, etc. Most cash registers are actually (at least here in Italy, and in a reasonably sized shop) just a specialized keyboard/screen/cash drawer connected to a PC, which in turn sits on a network: it's all part of a turn-key system, maintenance included. It's not like you go and read the data *from* the cash register: while you can query it for some daily report, you usually just store the data on a server and use some custom app or a DB frontend to read it.
Please tell him to make it accessible via the Internet and to not encrypt his credit card data. It would make life so much easier for my Russian friends.
Ever heard of PCI-DSS?
This IS slashdot. It doesn't hurt to RTFA either (when they're there) but there's still a large number of readers here that don't want to risk it .
But yes - a simple google search did turn up a number of solutions. My guess is that the submitter wants to short circuit the process of working his/her way through them, and tap into the collective knowledge of /.ers.
The Mothership
Hell, he coulda have searched Slashdot alone:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/24/2012230
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/13/0116212
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/04/12/166251
For a couple of hundred bucks he can get a Quickbooks terminal running on embeded Xp. Then all he has to do is export the quickbooks data or just access the pc for the info. The terminals are fully functional PC's, Registers, and loaded with Quickbooks.
http://shop2.outpost.com/%7Byf7-gwJCCQm5GvlczRQ4zQ**.node3%7D/product/5380498;jsessionid=yf7-gwJCCQm5GvlczRQ4zQ**.node3?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
QUICKBOOKS 2008 POS BASIC W/HARDWARE
INTUIT:
For Windows
FRYS.com #: 5380498
QuickBooks Point of Sale Basic is a complete retail management solution that tracks inventory, sales and customer information to help you save time and serve your customers better. Includes easy-to-use software and retail hardware including a bar code scanner, cash drawer, receipt printer and credit card swipe* guaranteed to work together.**
I worked in a rollout project with Circuit City whenthey replaced some of their POS systems. The new boxes were some IBM POS solutions with linux on them - I dont know from the top of my head but they seemd out of the box solutions - They pulled OS and all from BOOTP server, but I suppose you could get them preinstalled and all. Maybe IBM has more suggestions.
>London IT Support - Prominent Solutions
http://www.checkoutapp.com/
Well, the software you found is a real POS alright. Seems Google still does an intelligent search match :)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Just so everyone knows:
POS = Point of Sale
POS = Piece of Shit
For the most part, the POS's in this thread are the first choice.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Everytime someone posts some question on slashdot there is inevitably some idiot who will answer to "goolge it" or "source forge it" or whatever similar.
I am sure the original poster did know about goolge and maybe he even did look in there before posting here but the idea of asking in slashdot is to see what the opinions of other people with *knowledge* (supposedly) are. For me as a slashdot reader is quite interesting, because the discussion usually brings several alternatives and answers which are up to date (instead of web pages that someties are outdated) and even some comments which are worthy.
Plenty of times I have recurred to an ask slashdot that I had seen before to look at what people *in the know* are using, instead of just looking at the advertisements thrown by each of the avaialble products (either Free or non Free).
So if the only advise you are going to give is to "google it", just shut up and go to troll to the next slashdot story. You are only polluting an otherwise interesting conversation.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I haven't tried it, since I'm not in the retail business, but Stoq is an open source Point of Sale system supported by a brazilian company called Async.
It is GTK based and uses PostgreSQL for database storage (so extracting data should be a breeze). It also comes with a LiveCD so you can try it out yourself.
And I (native to England) would half expect to see a lot of Microsoft-funded pages when Googling for "linux pos".
Nobody else has this sig.
I see a lot of comments already jumping on fancy POS systems, but if a basic cash register is really all that is needed, get to your local office store and take a look at what's there. A basic Sharp cash register (and probably registers from other makers as well) will store this data on a SD card or allow a USB connection to a computer. The software they (Sharp, don't know about others) provide is crap, but the data you get back is CSV which can be imported into any spreadsheet program. It's basic, but if that's all you need it does the trick.
Remember RFC 873!
Since nobody else seems to understand the difference between an electronic cash register and a PC based point of sale system - I'll throw in what little I know of ECRs.
DataSym makes a software product called Comm2000 that communicates with their ECRs. It can poll nightly to retrieve sales information, or you can have the register output the data on each sale. You can also maintain SKU lists, etc.
We have a few DataSym and older Sharp registers on the network (with a serial-TCP/IP device server), and the sales are captured in real time without going through Comm2000. Formats are a little obtuse, but reverse engineerable without documentation if you needed to.
Nightly, there's a fairly old version of Comm2000 that sends out SKU lists, register layouts, etc. The processing is held together with shell scripts and some custom C code, but I think Comm2000 is the standard EXE. This is all on a UNIX box, designed circa 1993, so YMMV.
Fortunately for me, but unfortunate for you, I have very little to do with the ECR side of things. But, I'd imagine most ECRs these days offer something similar, and I see DataSym still has Comm2000. Since ECRs don't really seem to be in the /. sweet spot, I'd suggest giving your local distributor a call.
If you use any x86 based registers with a custom (or shelf) application which "mimics" a real cash-register, you will immediately be caught in vendor lock-in.
My suggestion is to look at what is available from real cash-register manufacturers. Most if not all of these vendors will have a serial (or other) interface which will upload/download data using standard ASCII, comma-delimited files.
This should reduce your task to a simple import/export routine with perhaps a little data massaging to get it into/out-of whatever back end system you want to use/develop.
I successfully used Sharp cash registers for this over 15 years ago. All of the PLU (Price-Look-Up) codes and pricing (stock levels, re-order etc) was stored on a DEC-VAX, basic reporting data was stored on a PC based SQL and generated using Crystal, Access or whatever. A single PC application spoke to the VAX every night, then contacted every register, downloaded sales data and uploaded new/changed PLU data, then massaged the data from the registers and sent it back to the VAX and also dumped what stuff into the SQL database.
With ASCII PLU/pricing/sales data coming from the registers it was a snack and allowed the company to move from a mini-computer architecture to a PC/LAN/SQL environment seamlessly. I'd be surprised if the current offerings from register manufacturers was much different today than it was back then as there really is no reason for it to be any different.
I had the same problem a few months ago. I really wanted an open POS system for the children's shoe shop my wife opened last year. We wanted a better system of managing inventory than the manual spreadsheet we were using.
I wasn't really that happy with any of the open source solutions I looked at (mainly LanePos and BananaPOS), mainly because I don't really have time to maintain these systems myself, and I wasn't convinced the support operations would work for us. We eventually did find a commercial provider based upon a recommendation from a friend with a small shop nearby. One of the things I really liked about this system was the fact that the vendor was completely happy for me to be able to access the database used by the POS software without any restrictions. I wasn't that happy with a number aspects of the system, but being able to access my own data was critical for me.
My business: Farstrider Studios.
Security requires more than just choosing the more secure operating system, you have to protect your system - for example by not letting strangers plug in devices.
he could get a cheap mac off ebay, or a mac mini, and use Checkout
> fairly trivial to make secure. ... do not allow anything to moved from the plug to the register
All I can say is, I hope you don't work in the computer security field.
How is the driver going to access the USB drive without transferring data from the plug? You do realize that the driver is going to need to read a lot of data about the state of the filesystem, right? System drivers, especially third-party ones, are well known to be weak points in the security of a lot of systems.
E.g., A Linux kernel vulnerability somewhat connected to this discussion.
LOL. I was just going for a +5 Funny mod.
I did not mean to start a flame war with an AC over Linux/Microsoft. "Securing the system" would preclude any activities like this. I can see a targeted attack by individuals to first infect a cash register, and then later on grab lists of credit card numbers, pin codes, etc. and transfer them to USB sticks covertly. It would not even matter if these covert files were placed on innocent customers sticks. All it would take is for one of the attackers to grab it at some point.
That is the thing about a targeted attack. It does not matter if the target is Linux or Microsoft. That is just the details. Your right that anyone would be naive to think that an operating system choice ALONE provides you security.
Why does it need to be super secure? Credit card transactions are done using a separate "turnkey" machine. A small-store register receipt is nothing but a list of items with no name attached. If someone p0wned your machine the worst they could do that takes hacking knowledge (breaking the machine can be done with a hammer) is change some item to ring up at the wrong value -- or learn that people who by baby wipes also buy baby diapers. Whoopty do. So a basic firewall on an updated OS should be plenty.
Now that I think about it, maybe that link isn't as connected as I thought... :(
:)
I was looking more for something like this.
Too bad I can't make that post disappear by moderating the thread.
It is when the "b" is a typo.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Give this one a try.
http://www.openbravo.com/product/pos/
Its simple and has export options.
I've used it since it was tinaPOS and it has worked good for me.
This is an awful article title. "Can You Access Your Own Cash Register Data?" First I read that as some silly desire to be able to access your own data in all the stores you visit, out of some sense of entitlement. Then I read the summary, and see that's not the case. In that context, it could be read as asking store owners if they can access their cash register data, a yes/no question. But no, that's not what's about either; it's someone seeking a recommendation for a freaking cash register, as if this is Yahoo Answers or something...
TLA's are just a PITA!
These electronic cash registers are designed to have their collected data extracted from them in some fashion, so the logical place to start is the cash register vendors themselves to find out how it can be retrieved and the software systems that can use it. Something integrated with the accounting system/bank reconciliation would be nice. If it's a hard process, then that's likely the machine to avoid.
The second question, in fact should probably be the first, is to decide exactly what kind of data is to be collected: bar-code data, department codes, and the number of different sales taxes applicable to the site. These kind of questions will dictate the complexity of the machine to be purchased. All cash registers will do the normal daily control functions, running and daily totals. What you're looking for a machine that will deliver higher-level data to support the management of the business, so you need to start with those management objectives, then see how the extraction process fits into the accounting system, and only then decide on a machine to support those systems.
Ibid.
Like a lot of vertical markets, this one seems to be infested with companies producing poorly engineered products with no mind for security, usability, interoperability, or ease of IT management. They're usually highly proprietary and overpriced, to boot.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Disclaimer - I do not work for this company, but I have used this software package(s) extensively.
Softline Pastel.
It is an accounting software, so he will be able to do accounting of everything that has gone through the books, includes a payroll package, tax package and among even more other things: support for P.O.S (Point Of Sale)
What Pastel allows you to do wit P.O.S is:
Every Transaction gets recorded real time.
Operates P.O.S drawer.
Your Accountant can access what sales are in your P.O.S remotely (via lan, or with an add on via web - IIRC on that last one)
Supports "cash up" end of day to a removable drive.
It runs on Windows unfortunately - if you are inclined to run other OS's. Has a server module and can run the server/client on the same machine - ideal for small business.
www.pastel.co.za
Apologies for the spammy post everybody - like I said I am not employed by them, but it is a good piece of software with support for international currencies/tax etc.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
For the past decade the /. community has kept me more informed about technology than any other source. /. is not always first with some topics, but eventually almost all intelligent technology content leads to /..
/. all trying to become more informed or attempting to suppress the truth with plausibly_logical_spin-reasoning (they always fail). The truth always gains from their adamant refrain being discovered as far less than accurate.
/.
/. community comments, was that M$-Vista would not even be on any company computers in 2007/08.
..., next time I will pick a more enigmatic job title for my BizCard ... maybe Technology Implicit Adviser ...; anyway it is important to keep it consistent with TIA for the signature block (my insanity %~P).
I have noticed government/military/CoOpGhost and politicians/corporatist/religious trolls on
The important side for me (I have an odd job), each year, I balance and document my pay to what I directly save this company by supporting or rejecting technology application and acquisition. If I cannot after my annual review clearly show I have saved the company $1M, I feel guilty about my pay (less than $100K). My best year yet was almost $4M, my worst was about $500K (last year), this year 2008 will be worse, but for our next FY2009 it is already at $5M. About a quarter of all that money is due to some discussion on
I had no direct input to one acquisition decision, but it is a well known example of clueless CIO staff/management. In 2006/05, I was told by a senior CIO staffer that by 2006/08 M$-Vista would be installed on all desktop computers. My immediate reply to him, thanks to the
So %~P, I promoted myself this past August from the Technology Information Adviser (TIA) to the illustrious sounding position of the Technology Innovation Adviser
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Serial connection to connect the register to your PC or bar code scanner. Software includes a filter that downloads your end of day report totals directly to your QuickBooks Pro or Peachtree accounting programs.