Cashless payment

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Sigur allows cashless payments for goods and services. You will not need any additional software or payment cards for this functionality since the same cards that your employees use to access your premises can be used.

Usage scenarios

This functionality is most useful for corporate and school canteens and for other providers of paid services such as fitness centers, parking lots, etc.

How it works

To handle payment transactions, you will need to create virtual payment accounts in Sigur interface, which will be linked to the access IDs, i.e. you can create accounts for people and vehicles alike. A virtual account can store cash or prepaid number of visits. Cardholders will be able to top up their accounts via Sigur software either in advance or during a payment transaction if there is not enough money in the account.

The list of goods and services is created in the system menu and the number of items that can be added is unlimited. Each item in the menu provides a variety of settings, which will help you flexibly configure your automated point of sale.

In addition to such basic settings as units of measurement, price, etc., sales restrictions can apply to each menu item such as restrictions depending on the time, date, day of the week or quantity. For example, a lunch set can be sold only once to one employee with an 8-hour work shift and twice to an employee with a 12-hour work shift.

Next, you can configure an operating mode of your point of sale. Sigur allows you to handle sales with an operator’s involvement or automatically. Using a corporate canteen example, we will go through some possible options in greater detail below.

Possible point of sale arrangements

Maximum

This point of sale has a workstation with Sigur software installed. All payments are handled by an operator. An employee must be identified before a transaction using a number of options:

  • By tapping their card on the desktop card reader
  • Using biometrics such as fingerprints (if a biometric system is integrated with Sigur)
  • The checkout operator selects the employee from the list
Then, information on the buyer will appear on the operator’s screen. You can choose to display their photo and / or any other text data such as name, position and other details, including the account balance. After successful identification, the operator will choose the requested items from the available menu.

The following input devices can be used with Sigur:

  • Keyboard and mouse
  • Barcode reader
  • Touch screen
After the order has been confirmed by the operator, the customer’s account is charged for the respective amount. If there is not enough cash or allowed overdraft amount on the account, the operator can choose to top up the account directly on this tab.

Automated cash register

Similar to as previously described, this point of sale must be also equipped with a workstation with Sigur software installed. However, all payments will be handled without the operator’s involvement. In this case, the operator’s duty is to monitor the situation. When a customer taps their card on the desktop reader, the card will be charged for the cost of all the items available at the moment or any one of them as selected in the settings.

The system will determine the availability of the items at the moment depending on the restrictions chosen in the menu settings. You can choose which of the restrictions will invalidate the sale and which will result in removal of the unavailable item.

The system notifies the operator on whether the amount has been successfully charged or not by color indication in the software interface and by sound if speakers are connected.

Automated cash register (handling group transactions)

The point of sale is organized in a similar way as described above. When the operator’s card is tapped on the desktop reader, the amount is charged off of all the employees from the list.
Each operator is assigned a group of employees served by this operator. When the operator’s card is tapped on the desktop reader, the operator can choose any employees from the group and charge each of their accounts for the cost of the meal. Similar to what has been described above, all items can be charged for at once or only one item selected from the list of currently available items can be charged for.

This scheme is useful for catering, e.g. in school canteens, and allows a teacher to monitor students’ meals.

Fully automated point of sale

A point of sale is equipped with Sigur controller, and reader and does not require the presence of an operator. The transaction is completed when a cardholder walks through the checkpoint. There is a number of access options available:

  • A turnstile is installed at the entry to the canteen and if the cardholder is eligible for a lunch, the access will be granted, if not, the access will be denied
  • To make it more user-friendly, you can set relevant indications on the reader such as when a card is tapped, the green lamp lights up if the lunch can be sold or red if the lunch cannot be sold

This scheme is effective not only for charging off the price of a lunch but also for writing off the number of passes (if the price of every lunch is the same).

Printing receipts

Transaction receipts, e.g. when the account is topped up or goods are bought, can be printed in Sigur by means of:

  • Regular printers
  • Receipt printers
  • Fiscal printers Retail-01K and Retail-01F manufactured by Shtrikh-M

Fiscal printers are cash registers with fiscal non-volatile memory. They store data about all completed transactions, which are then submitted to the tax authorities.

Transaction notifications

Sigur can automatically notify the users about all their transactions and the account balance by sending notifications via:

  • SMS
  • Telegram
  • E-mail

For instance, if a lunch set has been purchased and the account has been charged off, the user will receive a corresponding notification. If a notification template is created, you can use system variables to automatically pipe the relevant data into the text of the notification.

Reporting

Sigur allows the user to generate account statements and cash register reports for further analysis of the completed sales.

Account statements provide such information on accounts as the account holder and details of all transactions, including on each item purchased.

Cash register reports provide information on purchases made during a specified period and include information on each item purchased, the quantity and price as well as the total cost of each item and the total amount for the specified period.