Introduction
The UltraCart Point of Sale offering makes it possible for merchants to take in person orders at their retail location or at trade shows. The Point of Sale system is an adaptation of our manual order entry (back-end order entry) system that removes a substantial amount of the data entry requirements, removes the need for shipping, and adjusts the sales tax of the order to the retail location.
Requirements
In order to use the Point of Sale system there are two requirements:
The Stripe based solution providers an internet connected card reader capable of tap, chip and swipe payments at your retail location. This particular reader is an internet connected reader that supports WIFI (or ethernet using the optional sled attachment) and directly communicates with the Stripe platform without requiring any connection to your point of sale web interface.
If you currently do not have Stripe on your account, please contact UltraCart Support for assistance in migrating to a rotating transaction gateway scenario and adding Stripe as a secondary gateway to process the point of sale transactions.
Configuration
The first is to configure the physical locations where you are going to operate point of sale. Navigate to:
Configuration → Order Management → Point of Sale
Next click on new location. Fill out the location with the address. This address will be used for tax calculation purposes of the point of sale system. Also select a distribution center where the inventory that is purchase should be deducted from.
After creating the location, create point of sale registers at that location by clicking on the registers button.
Click on the “new register” button and then give the register a name and select the associated Stripe card reader from the drop down.
We do not recommend deleting the locations or registers after they are created even if they are for temporary locations (trade shows). These records are used for reporting and calculations. You should just edit the registers and dis-associate the reader if you want to move the reader to new locations.
Usage
Once you have locations and registers configured for the Point of Sale system, you will see a new menu option under Operations → Order Management as shown below.
Click on the point of sale menu entry then select the location & register that you are using.
As mentioned above, the point of sale interface is similar to the manually order entry system with some important reductions. First there is no shipping address on the Point of Sale.
Secondly there is a new payment method option for Credit Card Reader which will be selected by default.
The only required information to place a point of sale order are the item details. You can enter customer details in the billing section if they provide them so that the order associated with their account, loyalty points, etc.
When you click on the process order button, the point of sale system will display a dialog like the one shown below and send the details to the card reader.
Once the customer completes the interaction with the card reader, the order will be created and the receipt display:
The receipt has been optimized for printing. If you entered an email in the billing section the system will also email a copy of the receipt to the customer.
Using a Barcode Scanner
The point of sale system has also been optimized to support a bar code scanner in keyboard wedge mode. If you are using a barcode scanner, click on the “Add/Scan Multiple Items” button as shown below.
The cursor will automatically focus on the first item id input. As you scan barcodes the system will look up the item. If you scan the same item multiple times the quantity will increase. When you’re through scanning click on the apply button.
If your barcode scanner is typing the barcode into the field, but not sending the ENTER key as well then the lookup will not happen. Most barcode scanners can be programmed to send an ENTER (CR/LF) after they scan a barcode. For assistance with programming your scanner, please contact UltraCart Support.
FAQ
Q) Do you support XYZ payment processor?
A) At this time the only payment processor supported for Point of Sale transaction is Stripe. The card reader hardware and APIs makes for a clean implementation without adding PCI exposure. Since the card reader connects directly to the internet, you can use any device you want to run the point of sale web interface.
Q) Do you support other Stripe card readers than the BBPOS WisePOS E card reader?
A) At this time the BBPOS WisePOS E card reader is the only supported reader. As additional readers are supported by the Stripe Internet/JavaScript interfaces, we will be able to support them.
Q) Are you going to support other payment processors in the future?
A) Potentially if they have card readers similar to the BBOS WisePOS E that directly communicate with the payment processor and have Internet/JavaScript interfaces to interact with them. We are avoiding building Android/iOS specific applications which require embedded SDKs to interact with direct connect devices due to the expanded PCI exposure those solutions create.
Q) Will this support Apple Pay / Google Pay as well?
A) Yes, those are just tap payments in the physical world.