networkable cash drawer ?

[jace57]

Hello,
I have a customer chain that is switching to a PC based pos system and wants to be able to "pop" 1 cash drawer from multiple machines. Is this possible ? They currently use a unix system that the main server "pops" the serial cash drawer.
I have experimented with serial "Y" cables and demo com port network sharing software, both with no consistant reliability. Is there anything out there that would work

 

[TLowder]

I have cash drawers connected through the printers in my POS Software, so could easily accomplish this by sharing the same printer/cash drawer as the local printer on multiple computers. Asside from that a little custom programming could easily meet your needs and still have each computer with its own printer. But this all depends on what new POS system you're refering to, are you looking for one that meets your needs or do you have one already? Also I'm curious why are you having multiple computers share one drawer?

Tom

 

[alohaakamai3]

Jace, I am with Tom on this one, this sounds like an request where the "inmates" are running the asylum that we see very often in this business.

Sometimes the client is just used to doing something that doesn't make great sense and there is usually another way of achieving their goal, but they just want to keeping doing what they're used to (they hate change).

Off the top of my head, I don't know of a POS software that I've worked with in the last 10 years that's able to be open "remotely" from another terminal. In fact,I can see many more reasons why you wouldn't want this to be able to be done, and can't think of a single reasons some one would want to do this.

Ask them why they believe they need this ability, and that will shed a lot more light on an alternative solution, IMO. Because I don't think you're going to be able to make this happen easily, and probably not at all.

 

[jace57]

Thanks guy's for the replies. The environment is an auto parts chain, so there is a main counter with an example of 4 machines. Employee's use whichever machine is open and are not "assigned" to 1 machine. I can sympathize with the request, having 1 drawer is much easier then having 4 drawers each with cash in and not having an employee assigned to 1 machine to be accountable for the cash in that drawer. Receipts are printed out on laser printer, no receipt printers are used.
To bring the thread up to date I have been experimenting with the digi serial to ethernet adapter and their real port com port software, with alot of success. Looks like I'll probably go this route. Costly, but they can't have there cake and eat it too.

http://www.digi.com/products/serialservers/digiconnectsp.jsp