Using Ablev7 as POS

[bptoll123]

We're considering ways to use Able 7.0 as a POS for our low volume showroom to avoid investing in a standalone system. I'm running through some scenarios and wondered if experts could weigh in. For a customer who is a registered customer or one who is willing to get registered on the spot, it seems straight forward to find them in the database and simply create an order that is shipped for free to our store address (we're in a Maryland suburb of DC so have to be careful that the shipping address is Maryland so taxes calculate correctly).

1. Customer walks in and makes an anonymous purchase with cash.

2. Customer walks in and makes an anonymous purchase with a credit card.

Does anyone have advice on how to handle an anonymous customer? Maybe a generic email address and using the store addresses for billing and shipping?

For this customer will the system even allow us to take a credit card (without address verification i'm guessing not)? Any workarounds? Or must I secure a separate physical credit card machine for these transactions, and then manually enter the payment into the order?

I appreciate any advice you have to help me check out the customers more quickly.
Thanks,
Brian

[jmestep]

You could set up a customer like that- just "Store Customer" or something. You will have trouble with getting the charge cards authorized as you said. If you get a separate card machine, that also gives you better charge back protection since you are swiping the card and getting a signature.
Otherwise, on the store customer, if you put in the numbers of the street address and zip code change each time and the security code, the card should be verified thru the online processing OK. I guess it would be a matter of balancing the cost of the terminal against the convenience and charge back protection.

[AbleMods]

Somewhere along the lines of my career I had heard that charge card processing fees are less if you use a manual swipe/card reader as opposed to online card authorization/capture. Something to do with less risk on the card issuer if you use a physical card reader since it proves a physical card was present at the time of purchase.

With Authorize.Net, you can authorize and capture charges without doing any address verification - it's an optional security feature that can be disabled in your Authorize.Net Administration account. I don't know about other payment gateways.

I like Judy's idea - a general "Store Customer" or "Retail" customer record would be easy to find and create new orders. My only concern would be performance after a certain period of time - I'm unclear if the data classes for the ac_Users table could handle hundreds or thousands of orders for the same customer. It probably can, but I haven't seen that design in action with my own eyes.

The key to POS is speed - customers don't want to wait, so anything you can do to simply the process and speed up the checkout time will do well. AC7 should do fine for you.

I would think that if there is a processing fee discount using a physical card reader, the cost savings long-term would cover any initial equipment expense from your banking or card processor.