SambaPOS Testing

[evail]

From old forum.

Hello Evail. First of all thank you for you feedbacks. All very valuable.

1. The trace.log error happens because of a user role without a default department. I'll validate that on next release.

2. I couldn't find a reason for that allignment issue. Can you paste exact footer template into a txt file and send us?

3. You can use last line of the header template for line headers.

4. You'll create receipts to match Products with inventory items. SambaPOS calculates consumption from receipts.

2. The footer template you can find below.

<F>=
<EB>
<J10>{SERVICE DETAILS}
<J10>
<J10>Total:|{TICKET TOTAL}
{IF PAID}
<DB>
<F>=
<C10>T H A N K    Y O U

3. Line Headers works fine like that. Can you tell me what are the first few letters used in the templates. (<EB>,<J10>, <DB>, etc)

4. I did not quite understand what you mean by that. Please explain how to match Products with Inventory Items.


Q1. What does the "Tax" in the new Product do?

Q2. How to make custom table views?

Q3. How to make adjustments for ingredients consumption? Which is not matched


Sorry for the late feedback. Took a little holiday


EDIT: I think you meant recipes in number 4. It works, but what if we want to "adjust" ingredients items rather than making recipes. Some items can be matched and others without matching.
And the items not matched can be adjusted when consumed.
This is because some restaurants does not have exact recipes with up to milligrams of items added. Like how can salt be added as? "pinch of salt"?
So some items should be able to manage by adjusting without matching them to products.


EDIT2: When i sold a tax inclusive product. The following was generated. Totals do not match. How is the item price calculated in the receipt print?




When i sold a product without tax inclusive.  The following was generated correctly.

[emre]

Hello evail. I hope your holiday went fine.

1. For the alignment error you can try removing <J10> from {SERVICE DETALIS} line. {SERVICE DETAILS} creates multiline output so it already adds <Jxx> commands before lines. While converting HTML additional <Jxx> command causes of this problem. At first I didn't realized you used HTML formatting

Visit http://doc.sambapos.org/doku.php/en/guide/printformattingcommands for more information about formatting commands.

2. Latest release (5.25) should solve tax included calculation issue. SambaPOS supports both item based tax and ticket based tax. Use item based tax if tax amount differs by product types. For example %8 for food, %10 for alcholic drinks. In this case instead of using service templates you'll create tax templates and choose tax rates from product cards individually.

Service templates contains different calculation methods like "rate from ticket amount" and "rate from tax included ticket amount". This tax is not the tax you created from service templates. This tax is item based tax. If your prices are tax included and you used item based tax calculation you might want to calculate service amounts from tax included ticket amount.

3. To create a custom table view in table view settings set View Mode as Custom and enter a background image. When you restart SambaPOS you should see your background image in table view and all table boxes stacked on screen corner. Right click on screen and select Design Mode. When design mode activated you'll be able to click boxes, change their size and drag them on screen. Right click again and disable desgin mode to save your changes.

4. Umm my language limitation is a problem. I hope I'll be able to tell you how.

When you create inventory items, recipes and transaction documents SambaPOS will create a special document named "End of Day Record" at the end of each Work Period. This document will contain all periodic consumption and cost values. You can't create these manually. SambaPOS should create them automatically. After ending a work period, open latest "End Of Day Record". You'll see two columns at the end of main table. One of them titled as "Inventory Prediction" and the other one is "Current Inventory". Inventory prediction column will display final inventory numbers based on recipes. You can adjust these numbers by typing real inventory to the Current Inventory column. For example at the end of day "Coke" inventory prediction is 10 and you adjusted it to 5 for a reason. For this work period SambaPOS will calculate cost and other values from adjusted inventory. All product costs which uses Coke inventory will change accordingly.

So you can enter an avarege consumption amount for "pinch of salt" and adjust real inventory periodically from "Current Inventory" column. Alternatively instead of entering Salt on every product recipes you can create a single dummy recipe and enter similar inventories inside.

I hope I could answer your questions.

[evail]

Emre,

1. The template is working great, only problem is i cant seem to center any text. Even the "THANK YOU" in the footer which was there in default is not in center. How do I enter text which are bold and is in center.

2. Tax inclusive is calculated the same as before. i have installed the latest update which is 2.56. And I am not able to remove "Tax" from product edit, from a product which I had selected "Tax" before.

3. Table view can be designed perfectly.

4. Basically, I do not need to match products with inventory, I can adjust them in the "End of Day Record" by entering in the "Current Inventory". Ingredient Items can be adjusted like this while items like drinks can be matched.

Great I dont need any "pinch of salt" now.


You answered them clearly Emre.

My only query is that its hard to enter transactions. An easier format will be preferable.

Regards

[emre]

Emre,

1. The template is working great, only problem is i cant seem to center any text. Even the "THANK YOU" in the footer which was there in default is not in center. How do I enter text which are bold and is in center.

Centering will work fine on ESC/POS compatible printers because printer does centering itself. We translate these commands to HTML to display them  properly on previews. There might be a small issue while converting to HTML. I'll check that.

If you need to use HTML format you can try positioning them properly by adding spaces in front of lines.

2. Tax inclusive is calculated the same as before. i have installed the latest update which is 2.56. And I am not able to remove "Tax" from product edit, from a product which I had selected "Tax" before.

I tried with both tax inclueded and excluded templates but I couldn't find the reason of that false ticket calculation issue.  I'll be happy if you can reproduce the issue and send us a copy of your database. So I can understand which configuration is the cause of it.

Well .. I'll fix that tax removing issue

You answered them clearly Emre.

My only query is that its hard to enter transactions. An easier format will be preferable.

Regards

We'll try to improve it and if you have, I'll be happy to hear your suggestions about creating an easier usage.

Thank you very much for your feedbacks friend.

[evail]

Morning Emre,

Tax1:
"Always excluded TAX" is enabled in the "Print Jobs>Print Bills".
"Tax included to Price" is enabled in the "Tax Template".
"Rate from ticket amount" selected in "Calculation Method" in "Service Templates"
Product is Tax included.

Calculation method differs from POS and Print.
In POS Service Charge is calculated from tax inclusive. And in Print it is calculated as tax exclusive.
Therefore tha calculation is wrong in POS




Tax2:
"Always excluded TAX" is enabled in the "Print Jobs>Print Bills".
"Tax included to Price" is enabled in the "Tax Template".
"Rate from TAX included ticket amount" selected in "Calculation Method" in "Service Templates"
Product is Tax included.

POS and Print is both showing correctly as Service Charge is calculated from tax inclusive.




-----------------------------------------------

Transactions:

First of all "Transaction" is located in a difficult place. "Transaction" and "End of day Records" will be used very frequently therefore they can be located in a different place which is more easily located.

The box for entering the items is very small, and for each new item we have to "Add Line".
Instead you can have a spreadsheet like format with a longer box.

You can have the lookup field separately above the box. So when you enter the item in the lookup field that item will go to the spreadsheet below.

The transaction should not be editable. It should be so that it is reversible.
When editing a transactions quantity the"inventory report" does not change, but the "inventory purchase report" changes.

Both "Transaction" and "End of day Records" column widths' changes are not saved.

How is the "Average Cost" in "Cost Report" calculated?


You are most welcome Emre, to me SambaPOS has all the necessary features required for me. It is my pleasure to keep testing and give you feedback in order for SambaPOS to be better.

[emre]

Hello evail
On next release I'll try to improve features as you suggested.
Adding most used items shorcuts to main management screen might be a nice feature.

[emre]

How is the "Average Cost" in "Cost Report" calculated?

Hi again I missed this question evail sorry

On each end of day documents we calculate average cost from previous workperiod average cost, in period consuptions and transactions. If you change "Current Inventory" value for an inventory we distrubute weighted cost to all products that uses this inventory in its recipe.

[evail]

Hi there,

There is one more important feature than you can add. Probably should, that is end of day sales. Where you count the amount in cash drawer and check whether it matches that of the cash showed in sambapos. it will take in to account the cash at the beginning, sales (excluding cash card sales) and payouts. When counting cash individual Cash Notes count can be entered, for example cash notes of 100 count and cash notes of 50 count.

Clearing the selected items when entering sales is kind of difficult since we have to select individual item and press "cancel".

Cannot remove discount % once added to the bill.

Report of Average Serve times.

Ability to maintain Accounts like Rent, electricity bill,etc. These are external to the cash drawer. I am confused about the "Internal Accounts" in "Report".

Keep up the good work



edit: What is "Property Group"?

[emre]

Hello evail.

- While starting a work period you can enter beginning cash values. These values are visible on cash reports.
- Tracking notes sounds is a little bit micro management to me. We do not argue micro management requirements and we know there are lots of requirements like these. But these features might not be useful for everyone and they should not displayed to user if they do not use them. For this reason as 3.x release we'll focus more on plugin and extension development. I think if we can make SambaPOS development easier for other developers they can create useful features like these and we can focus on core features.
- We are planning awesome features for tracking and reporting workflow. Meal preparation workflow or delivery workflow (or any similar workflow) should be configured as restaurants needs and we'll create tools for analysis and optimization.  This is in our plans and I believe it will be useful for tracking average serve times too.
- Add %0 discount to remove discount (or click discount button once without typing a value )
- I can't think of an easier function for clearing items other than selecting them and pressing cancel. Did I misunderstood your need?
- Internal accounts useful to separate customer accounts with accounts for personnel or owner accounts (in our country restaurant owners and their friends do not pay ). Current accounting features are only for tracking customer accounts but we'll improve accounting function on 3.x release. For example we'll permit creating multiple cash drawers and attaching them to individual cash accounts. So you'll be able to create external accounts.
- Property group is group of product properties or modifiers like "meal properties (no mushroom, no pepper)", "servicing properties (hot serve, double spoon)" . When you create a property group you'll attach them to a product and when you click on a product in a ticket you'll be able to change its properties. There are some options on screen menu item properties to automatically display properties on addition or choosing default properties. With properties you can also create menus (hamburger + coke + potato) and change menu items (coke > fanta) while adding it to a ticket. We also use it for choosing ice cream toppings (2 x Vanilla, 1 x Chocolate) or similar priced multiple items under a product menu like menu sausages (2 x ketchup or 2 x salad dressing)

Wow it seems there are lots of things to do. Maybe SambaPOS users can help us on spreading the word so we can grab more attention to our project.

Evail, keep sending your great ideas so we can arrange our plans better. Thanks.

[evail]

Morning Emre,

-I think I have misstated what I was trying to say regarding the end of day sales. What I was trying to say is since shops, restaurants do count their cash at the end of day, just so to make it easier for them, have a entry like below. This is taken from QuickBooks POS. Well its not a must to use it but having this function is useful.


- so there was an easier way to remove discount.

- If the user entered many items and wanted to cancel it without saving, the user will have to cancel each and every item selected one by one. Maybe just having a button to clear all maybe useful.

-So group properties can be pre-created modifiers or can be combo meals.

Since you have talked a lot about sambapos 3.x release. When is it going to be released? I am already excited 
Somehow its sad that sambapos is free, i cant become sole distributor
Its fair to let you know that I am a re seller of POS softwares and Accounting softwares varying from different ranges.
I am making a little proposal document in order to do a little bit marketing for sambapos, I will be happy to share that document with you.

Testing software and giving feedback is something i love to do.
I did test a restaurant pos before but their corporation was so low that i quit.
You guys are great. Good luck.


edit: Is it possible to included vendors when entering purchases?
edit1: How does the "rounding" work?

[emre]

Hi Evail.

For security reasons some restaurant owners prefers adding some cash in the morning instead of leaving cash at night. For this reason instead of recording left money in the drawer we ask for it while starting the work period. This covers both situations. From cash transactions report cashier can see starting amount, income and current cash status. I think real requirement is calculating the summary of total income and the beginning amount. We can do that now but of course it will be better if improved as you suggested.

If the user entered many items and wanted to cancel it without saving, the user will have to cancel each and every item selected one by one. Maybe just having a button to clear all maybe useful.

I see. You want to cancel whole ticket with a single command. We should implement these features wisely to prevent accidental clicks.

-So group properties can be pre-created modifiers or can be combo meals.

Exactly. I think we should improve naming of these features.

Since you have talked a lot about sambapos 3.x release. When is it going to be released? I am already excited
Somehow its sad that sambapos is free, i cant become sole distributor

We will keep core SambaPOS free and open source forever. We want to create best tools for SambaPOS users. After some point we'll have to use some commercial software pieces and obviously we can't deliver these software for free. For this reason as 3.x release we'll introduce some paid services too. For example we are preparing club membership service. For club members we'll deliver some advanced reporting tools, analysis tools and many complementary software. I can't give much details for now but we're also progressing on creating some hosted online services that will work integrated with SambaPOS application. Besides support services and hardware sales, these services will create annual income opportunities to our partners.

Of course bringing everything to life will take some time. To speed things up we're seeking some investment or sponsorship options but it is somewhat hard to make these connections. I don't know if we can success on that or not but either way we love creating software and we'll try to do our best. I believe as we gain more users we'll be able to grab more attention.

Evail, I hope we'll have better cooperation in the near future. Have a nice day...

[evail]

Emre,

You can always enter "zero" in the leave amount. Therefore it will show the total amount in cash to be taken out. And when the next work period starts you can enter the cash amount.
And in SambaPos case you do not need to add the "leave" part. Since the beginning cash is already entered, the only feature you need to add is "cash count" and check if it tally with SambaPos.

I missed one thing, that is multiple items can be selected when entering the order. And all items can be canceled. I think that is good enough. This would also avoid accidental clicks.

You can rename "group properties" as "modifiers".

You have missed two questions

I understand that it will take a considerable amount of time to implement new features and make enhancements and fix bugs. I hope for the best for the 3.x release. good luck.

[emre]

Hello Evail,

edit: Is it possible to included vendors when entering purchases?
edit1: How does the "rounding" work?

Oh Sorry

- Since we do not track vendor accounts yet, we do not include vendor information. Currently function of the transaction document is only increasing inventory.

- We use Rounding for fixed amount discounts. Let me describe the general usage with an example. For example in our country physically there is no coin for #0,01 amount so there is no way to get payment for #8.92 if customer does not pay with credit card. Generally we round these values to #8.95 or #8.90. If you type 0.02 and click "round" it wil decrease ticket amount by 0.02 or if you type 8.95 and click "auto round" it will add or remove required amount. In program settings there is a setting named "auto rounding". If you type 0.05 there Ticket amounts will round automatically by 0.05.

- OK finally I got your point about cash count. We'll discuss that.

You can rename "group properties" as "modifiers".

- Since these are group of modifers can we name it as "modifier groups" ?  How it sounds?

I understand that it will take a considerable amount of time to implement new features and make enhancements and fix bugs. I hope for the best for the 3.x release. good luck.

We'll do our best. Thank you for your best wishes

[evail]

Hi Emre,

- Since we do not track vendor accounts yet, we do not include vendor information. Currently function of the transaction document is only increasing inventory.

For the current system you do not need to track vendor accounts, you just need to add a field to add Vendor name, so that it will be shown in the transaction list.

- Since these are group of modifers can we name it as "modifier groups" ?  How it sounds?

How about "modifiers and groups" or "modifiers and combos"

I will get back to you after further testing.

[evail]

How do i make it work on iPad?