Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Help me find a cash register answer #5

This should be an easy question to tackle today. When selecting a cash register you will have a choice of keyboards. There are only two types of standard keyboards available for Sharp Cash Registers and SAM4s Cash Registers and they are the raised keyboard or the flat keyboard.

The raised keyboard is made of individual buttons also known as tactile keys much like a computer keyboard or most desk top calculators or desk phone. Where this keyboard is crucial is in an environment where you will be entering lots of characters whether prices, PLU numbers, UPC numbers etc. Raised keyboards are hands down FASTER when keying in numbers such as a price or 12 digit UPC number. If you are hand entering prices and you do any volume at all never buy a machine with a flat keyboard even if you are a food service outlet or retail. So simple rule, entering prices and/or UPC/PLU numbers raised keyboard EVERY TIME!

The flat keyboard also know as the restaurant style keyboard is a great keyboard for any scenario where you are using preset prices. A preset price is a button or location on a cash register keyboard that is pre-programmed to sell a specific item. This is the most popular method for restaurants with cash registers. For example maybe you have a row of buttons that you program for your hamburgers. Button one being Hamburger, button two is Cheese Burger, button three is Bacon Cheese Burger, etc etc. When the clerk wants to sell a cheese burger you press that button and it registers that item, instead of you entering $3.49 than the food button. No two ways about it this is far faster and you will have fewer errors. Want to tighten it up even further than add a kitchen printer but that is a topic for another post.

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