Resale/Consignment Cash Drawers

Cash drawers are considerably different from cash registers.

A cash drawer (or "till") is part of a cash register. It's the 'drawer' that pops open when a sale is rung up and it's the place where currency is stored, usually just during business hours.

A cash register is a cash drawer plus a receipt printer plus sales processing and end-of-day reconciliation of sales with the total of money in the drawer.

A register typically prints a receipt on 3-inch-wide receipt paper. The receipt includes the date, name of store (and address), invoice or transaction number, items purchased and quantity of each, sales tax, discounts, notes about the purchase and slogans like "Thank you for shopping with us". The paper is common paper sold in most office-supply stores.

Registers can be connected to barcode scanners, scales, check stands and credit-card/debit-card terminals. They can calculate sales tax and discounts, record details of transactions and record payment methods.

The BCSS software combined with a receipt printer, barcode scanner and cash drawer supplant a cash register and perform the same functions including printing sales receipts with detailed information, removing sold items from inventory and scanning barcodes at POS to populate the new-sale (invoice) screen. (It should be noted that stores selling used merchandise and having a 'no-return policy' may not need to print receipts and can forego the cost of such a printer. See discussion.)

A register has an "NS key" (No Sale) which allows the drawer to be opened without entering a sale or printing a receipt. BCSS has been configured to open the cash drawer by pressing a key on the keyboard for the same purpose. This was done so that stores could eliminate the receipt printer and still have the ability to open the drawer.

Registers can be used in conjunction with BCSS but that does require some additional double entry (unless the register in only being used as a cash drawer).

The POS-X cash drawer and other hardware used with Best Consignment Shop Software can be viewed on the hardware page.

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