Need POS Hardware Recommendations

[grantwood]

Hello,

I need to prepare a quote for a basic POS solution in FileMaker. The following hardware will be connected to a PC:

1) Cash drawer

2) Receipt printer

3) Credit Card reader

4) Check scanner

Here are some questions regarding the implementation of the solution:

1) Does anyone have specific recommendations for the above hardware?

2) I've read in other topics where you can connect the cash drawer to the printer, but wouldn't it make more sense to connect the cash drawer directly to the PC, so that you can open the drawer *without* having to print something?

3) If I connect the cash draw directly to the PC, do I need to use the serial port to control the drawer (and the Troi Serial plugin), or can I control it via USB?

4) There are plugins to handle credit card processing, but I haven't seen plugins that handle check scanning/processing. Does anyone know of such a plugin?

Regards,

Sean Mills

[jasonwood]

Cash Drawer

Easiest is to get one that connects to receipt printer. Printer driver should have option to open or not open, so you can have two print script steps with different settings that you can use depending on whether you want to open the drawer. You can usually print a blank page to open the drawer without printing a receipt.

Yes, if you want a cash drawer that connects directly to computer, I'd suggest using serial, as I don't know any way to control a USB cash drawer from FileMaker... but there may be a way.

Credit Card/Mag Stripe Reader

I'd go with serial because then you can use the Troi serial plug-in to watch for scans, and perform steps before and after the scan. With a USB/keyboard wedge/HID card reader, it'll just enter the string in the active field.

Check Scanning

I don't know of a plug-in that would handle cheque scanning, but I'd imagine it's pretty simple - no plug-in needed. If you're using a MICR reader, you just need to parse the string. If you're actually scanning the whole check, then you need to get in to OCR plus all the hassles of storing the image, etc.