COMPULINK 3300 Overland Avenue, Suite 201 § Los Angeles, California 90034 § 310 × 204 × 5121 

 

Point-of-Sale Equipment for the Jewelry Shopkeeper

 

  • Note that Compulink doesn’t sell any point-of-sale (POS) hardware but can make the following suggestions.

    Indiana Cash Drawer (ICD) is a manufacturer of cash drawers. These drawers are simple boxes that pop open when sales are rung up in the Jewelry Shopkeeper. Cash drawers come in many sizes, colors and materials. Some are made of wood, some are made of steel, some are made for under-counter mounting and some for desktop use. Also, different sizes of cash trays are available. Please contact Indiana Cash drawer for details on different drawer configurations. ICD will not sell their cash drawers directly to your store. You will have to ask ICD for names of dealers in your area from whom to purchase the draw.

    Whatever drawer shape and size you decide on, be sure to order the parallel (also called IPSTI) interface.

    While it is technically possible to use a cash drawer with a serial computer interfaces, note that Compulink does NOT recommend trying to use a serial cash draw because they have often proven difficult to configure and unreliable.

    Another type of cash draw is neither parallel or serial, but instead plugs into a special cash draw connector on the back of special POS printers. These generally cost less than a parallel cash draw and are generally reliable and easy to configure, however they are less flexible since they can only work with special printers. The parallel drawers will work with any parallel printer whether it’s a regular dot-matrix or laser printer or a POS printer.

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    Indiana Cash Drawer Company

    (317) 398-6643

    (317) 392-0958 (Fax)

    http://WWW.ICDPOS.COM (Web Site)

    Webmaster@ICDPOS.COM (e-Mail)

    1315 South Miller Street

    Shelbyville, IN 46176

     

    A dealer for Indiana Cash Drawer:

    Kassoy

    (516) 942-8517

    (516) 942-5514 (Fax)

    16 Midland Ave

    Hicksville, NY 11801

     

    Receipt Printers and Pole Displays

     

    For receipt printing most jewelers prefer printing receipts on a medium size receipt that is pre-printed with the store name, address & logo. These receipts have sprocket feed holes and with perforations and are often made of two- or three-part paper. These forms require a regular 80 column dot-matrix printer such as those made by Epson, Panasonic or Citizen (specifically not Okidata printers). Hessler Enterprises makes a 6" wide by 8" tall receipt which works well. NEBS makes one which is 4² wide by 7² tall (style number 12209.)

    If order a pre-printed receipt, make sure the store name, address, phone number and logo don’t take up much more than the top inch or inch and a half; this it to leave adequate room for the receipt. Also note that except for the store information, the receipt is completely blank; i.e. it must NOT have boxes or lines pre-printed for the date or customer name or prices, etc. This is because the Jewelry Shopkeeper can dynamically change the printed positions of this information depending on exactly what information is on the receipts. You could however, have a thin border printed all around the edge which would not interfere with the receipt that the Jewelry Shopkeeper prints. Also having a design or pattern in the body of the receipt would be ok provided it is light enough that it will allow you to read the parts of receipt that will print right over this design.

     

    Indiana Cash Drawer sells 40 column receipt printers such as Ithaca Series 50 and 50+, Citizen DP3530, Star 300 Series and Epson 300 Series. Each of these printers prints on a 4 inch wide roll of receipt paper like an adding machine. These printers can only print on rolls of paper, not the larger Hessler or NEBS forms.

     

    Jewelry Shopkeeper supports both the pre-printed form receipts and the 40-column receipt printers. Decide on the type of receipt you want before buying a Point-of-Sale receipt printer.

     

    ICD also sells special keyboards that support barcode readers and a credit card swipe. Pole displays are those small displays on top of a pole which shows the customer the items that are being rung up. The Jewelry Shopkeeper specifically supports the Ultimate Technologies pole display.

     

    If you are going to place a cash drawer on top of the counter, you might want to get a cash drawer shoe. A shoe is a plastic molding that has a space for a keyboard, a 40-column receipt printer, a pole and a platform for a monitor. These shoes keep the point of sale station tidy and professional looking, but you have to have a keyboard, printer, shoe and cash drawer that were designed to fit together.

     

    If visit a Barnes & Noble bookstore, look at the POS setup. They often have Indiana Cash Drawer products. (cash drawer, pole and printer.)

     

    Cash Drawer Installation

     

  • 1) Attach the parallel cable from the computer to the cash drawer and then from the cash drawer to the receipt printer. Note the which port you’ve attached the cable to. Parallel ports are LPT1, LPT2 or LPT3. Serial Ports are COM1, COM2, COM3 or COM4. Parallel cables have a 25 pin female connection on the computer; serial cables have either a 9 or 25 pin male connector on the computer.

    2) Start the Jewelry Shopkeeper. Go to the Store Information Defaults [choice 8-8]. Page down several times until you get to the page titled Customize Receipts (about page 14.) In the middle of the screen the question: "Enter the ASCII code sequence that opens the cash drawer:............". There is a long entry field for this sequence. Try typing: 007,007,007.

    (Some versions of the program have a short field for you to type in the ASCII code where you can type in 07. Below that is a prompt for how many times the code should be repeated, enter 3)

    3) Most cash drawers pop open when the BELL character (ASCII character 7) is sent to the cash drawer. Some drawers can be configured to open on any character. The BELL character is best because as its sent to the cash drawer its also sent to the printer; since the BELL character is a non-printable character it won’t ruin your receipt. If you have a configurable cash-drawer, there will be several tiny switches called DIP switches. The cash drawer manual shows you which switch settings correspond with which ASCII characters.

    4) From the Main Menu, select Printer Redirection [choice 8-B]. Select a printer that most closely matches your receipt printer (1 for Epson and compatibles, 4 for IBM Graphics printers, 6 for Ithaca Peripheral 40 column printers). Make sure the third column titled "PRINT_PORT" is filled in with the appropriate printer port name (LPT1, LPT2, LPT3.) Remember the printer number to the left of the printer name that best describes your printer. Press <Esc> to proceed to the next page, titled Customize Printer Destinations. On the receipt printer line and the Cash drawer line, type the printer number you just remembered from the previous page.

    5) To test the printer, exit to the Main Menu and press the letter N for No-sale. This should pop the cash drawer. If you’re using the Shop-Pro version, select No-Sale from the Miscellaneous Options menu [choice 9-M-N].

    The program will send the cash draw ASCII code at the same time a receipt is printed after a payment is recorded.

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