Kind of a lot of input here…
Are you wanting to just debit the inventory for what's sold in your brick/mortar store?
Or are you wanting to create an order and print the inovice at the counter? It would not be too difficult to send a list of product codes to the cart and have it go to checkout for a pre-defined “cash customer” where you could simply place the order and then print a pdf of the invoice (or the variety of other methods). Inventory would follow the rules you have setup in the cart.
If you're just wanting to list a bunch of products and have small text boxes next to them to enter the quantities you've sold and just have it debit the inventory, that would be fairly easy and straight-forward.
Not sure I have a clear understanding of the problem you want to solve… Maybe a list of requirements posted here?
Hmm, yeah I'm doing my first fair soon where we will also sell. I was thinking about making a “guest” account so I can place orders fast and create invoices for them in the cart.
I -probably mistakingly- thought this would not work since so many people are asking for a POS. I guess I'll try it first to see if I can get it to work for me like this.
Done. I made a group called Guest on Location.
I made an account and assigned it to the group I made
I made a specific payment method called Cash on Location and configured it to show only for customers belonging to the group i made. (so it only shows for the new account)
I made a promotion for free shipping and assigned it to the group
I can now log into my shop as this customer, order, and print receipts pretty fast and my inventory will stay change according to what I've sold (on a trade show, or on the rare occasion of a customer ringing out doorbell and wanting to buy something on the spot).
You could also pretty easily extend the free remote_checkout controller I did that takes a product code and puts it in the cart and goes to checkout. It could be extended to handle multiple product codes and to go through checkout with a specific user so all that would be needed is to select/take payment info and then click Complete Checkout. Could even make the user have a cash_payment method if you put them in a particular group.
The original controller can be found here: http://www.ez-ms.com/private/controllers-customer-checkout.pre.txt
Install it in my_changes as contorllers/customer/checkout.pre.php
Invoke it as dispatch=?my_changes.remote_checkout.product_code to add a single product_code to a cart. You can extend it to login a specific user but you'd need to develop a small protocol for security purposes.
[quote name='tbirnseth' timestamp='1333649828' post='134400']
The original controller can be found here: http://www.ez-ms.com…heckout.pre.txt
Install it in my_changes as contorllers/customer/checkout.pre.php[/quote]
FYI: Your link is broken it looks like.
Thanks sole… had put it on my test server and not production. It should be there now.
im interested pos interface in admin.php
there is a [add new order] link
could have [pos] link as well, and work as basic pos system
[quote name='tbirnseth' timestamp='1333649828' post='134400']
You could also pretty easily extend the free remote_checkout controller I did that takes a product code and puts it in the cart and goes to checkout. It could be extended to handle multiple product codes and to go through checkout with a specific user so all that would be needed is to select/take payment info and then click Complete Checkout. Could even make the user have a cash_payment method if you put them in a particular group.
The original controller can be found here: http://www.ez-ms.com…heckout.pre.txt
Install it in my_changes as contorllers/customer/checkout.pre.php
Invoke it as dispatch=?my_changes.remote_checkout.product_code to add a single product_code to a cart. You can extend it to login a specific user but you'd need to develop a small protocol for security purposes.
[/quote]
Nice! That would speed up the checkout a lot, which was the only thing i was still worried about. It has no priority for me yet but i'll def. look into this in some months.
Would it be possible to use a barcode scanner with CSC to make checkout faster and easier?
BTW, I'm thinking of using CSC to replace a very outdated POS in a college book store.
[size=“3”][quote]Would it be possible to use a barcode scanner with CSC to make checkout faster and easier?[/size][/quote]
Unfortunately the current “Barcode” feature was only partially implemented and not useful for order entry.
[quote name='JGift' timestamp='1334415453' post='134826']
@xelion - any progress on this?
[/quote]
Hey!
sorry for the delay… for some reason I don't get an email when this post has been updated! First time i've looked here in a while! Well a POS, with barcode (for each product), scanner, discounts, loyalty card, gift cards, automatic decremental of the inventory (including for tracking with options) has been completed. But I had to build a completely separate interface to CS-CART which links to the CS CART database as I just couldn't figure a way of doing what I wanted to do using the current admin interface.
The main problem is that I cannot connect any form of payment point, ie, chip and pin machine to the system as a result of its online nature, I have been working with Elavon and 2 other companies to try and get around this issue - but in the mean time - as the shop I built it for was using a stand-alone chip and pin machine anyway - they just press the “paid with credit/debit card” and click the confirmation button once the auth code appears on the machine. Not ideal - not fully integrated yet - but getting there! I am hoping to have a finalised version by the end of July - but this may still have to be a separate chip and pin machine.
best.
Xe
Even without the chip and pin machine it is ok.
Just enter the transaction ID and click approved once it goes through is fine 
I think the POS option is definitely a “must have”. The framework is there as the ADD AN ORDER is “close” to providing the basic functionality. We are working on this with the extra requirements being;
Employees
Printing
Returns
Reporting
Our clients have both website and bricks and mortar stores so the concept of having ONE system without any inventory sync issues is, in my opinion, A MUST HAVE!
Hello!
I have seen a few bugs on the software I built which I want to iron out before I let people loose with the software. It may take a bit longer as I also have a lot of other work on at the moment. I have a problem with some of the inventory tracking and CS cart 3… But It can only get better now!
[quote][color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]We are working on this with the extra requirements being[/font][/color][/quote] - sindwell - were you able to customise the actual admin of cs cart?? thats impressive - I spent a week trying to get all the variables to appear in there and be able to use the barcode scanner to search the product tables and kept getting errors!! or the variables werent fully populated causing a lot of issues. That’s why I built a completely separate interface yet directly connected to the CS CART database making sure that everything was updated accordingly and immediately as its live. This gave me the freedom to separate completely the ticketing (ie barcodes), employees, printing, and interface. But its still a bit buggy. I’ve been told that it still needs a few tweaks - so I shall put more hours in when I get the chance!
@luster - would you want to be able to add the transaction ID to the order? I haven’t been asked to do that - but I am sure its not too difficult to add it at the same time!
Best.
Xe
Has anyone implemented a POS system successfully as of yet? If so, which system did you use and what were the results like?
Looking for one here too. I can't imaging this is that hard. Using the existing CS cart database and just 2 or 3 custom pages, one to enter the products (with bar code scanner and carriage return in the wedge), one for a receipt printer and one for the payment, preferably integrated with a USB bar code scanner.
I am eager to see any results on this…
john
From a developer perspective, the difficult part is getting the browser to be able to read the input from the bar-code scanner… The other is printing through a web-browser to a thermal or other printer at a speed that is acceptable to a POS situation.
Browsers attempt to be pretty secure, hence they generally are not very good at reading local resources (usb devices for instance).
If your bar-code reader manufacturer provides a web based interface to the device, then it might be reasonable to read that info to do the transaction with cs-cart. The transaction is the easy part.
Our plan is using a bar code scanner that acts as a HID / keyboard wedge. This seems to work ok in preliminary testing. The receipt printing will be a popup window that auto prints (must still hit enter in the dialog box) then auto-closes (need to allow in browser). We will see in a few weeks. We decided to stick with doing it in 3.x as the jump to 4.x is too problematic right now.