Tutorial
Printing simplified tax documents or receipts is also among the activities that the NET Genium system enables. The process of printing simplified tax documents can be imagined as paying in store or restaurant. Here, individual customers order individual items of goods, which the merchant marks using the cashdesk. After marking all the items, the merchant prints a receipt for his customers with the price of the individual items and the final price.
The exact same principle also works in NET Genium. The only difference is that purchased items are not marked using a physical cashdesk, but directly using the NET Genium system. In addition to NET Genium, only a special POS printer is needed to print a receipt (simplified tax document).
The advantage of using the Cashdesk application in NET Genium is the subsequent connection to other parts of the system, such as the stock, invoices and receipts.
The Cashdesk application is located in the Finance application group. You can select any cashdesk and use it in the Cashdesk view table. In order to print a simplified tax document using the Cashdesk application, the following settings must be made:
- Connect the POS printer to the computer
- Install POS printer drivers
- Enable the ActiveX framework in the browser running NET Genium
- Connect the installed printer with NET Genium
- Correctly set the form Cashdesk in which the simplified tax document will be printed
The above steps will be demonstrated on the Star Micronics TSP100 POS printer in this help.
Connecting the POS printer to the computer
First of all, the POS printer must be connected to the computer. Users should follow the instructions provided with the POS printer. The package with the POS printer also includes paper instructions on how to connect the POS printer to the computer.
Installing the POS printer driver
For the correct functionality of the POS printer, which prints a simplified tax document, it is necessary to have a driver installed on the computer that enables the correct control of the POS printer. If the driver is not installed on the computer, it will not be possible to work with the POS printer. For installation, you can use the CD disk, which is usually supplied by the manufacturer together with the POS printer. The second option for installing the POS printer driver is to install it from the manufacturer's website. In both cases, it is necessary to follow the guide, which will install the corresponding driver on the computer. There are quite a lot of POS printer manufacturers, so the individual driver installation procedures and required drivers may differ from each other.
Since the supplied CD did not contain a driver intended for Windows 8.1, it was necessary to download the driver from the manufacturer's official website Micronics Star. On this page, the user can choose whether to download the manuals together with the driver (Full CD option) or to be satisfied only with the current driver (Lite option).
After downloading the selected file, you need to unzip the file because it was downloaded in zip format. In the extracted directory, selecting the file Setup_for_WinXP_Vista_7 (for a 32-bit computer) or Setup_for_WinXP_Vista_7_x64 (for a 64-bit computer) in the Windows/Installer directories starts the driver installation.
Installation Procedure
1. Press the Next button on the home page
2. Enter the Username of the POS printer
3. Select Typical as the installation type
4. Press the Install button
After installing the driver, it is still necessary to configure the POS printer.
How to configure the POS printer
1. Open control panels Control Panel/Devices and Printers
2. Right-click on the POS printer and select Printer properties
3. Select the tab Configuration TSP100 and press the button Run the configuration tool
4. Select the Star Line Mode option and press the OK button
5. From the left menu, select the option OPOS and press the Add new buttons successively for the sections OPOS device names POS printer and OPOS cash drawer
6. Set the name OPOS device' and press the button OK
7. Set device name OPOS cash drawer
Enable ActiveX framework and browser settings
In order to be able to print simplified tax documents, it is necessary to have the ActiveX framework enabled in the browser. This framework allows information to be shared between multiple applications and only works on Windows computers. How to enable the ActiveX framework and correctly set the browser used can be found in the Manual for Web browser settings.
All but one of the ActiveX framework related options can be enabled for trusted servers. The Enable ActiveX Filtering option must be disabled. If this option is enabled, it may happen that the simplified cash receipt will not be printed on the cash printer, because the print command sent by NET Genium to the cash printer will be blocked by the currently enabled ActiveX Filtering service.
If, despite the previous recommendation, ActiveX Filtering is enabled, the printing of the simplified tax document will be blocked, but this setting can be unblocked relatively easily in the command line. Just click on the icon shown in the image below and then press the button Disable ActiveX Filtering. NET Genium logs the user out, but the next time the user tries to print a simplified tax receipt, the user will be successful.
A relatively important aspect of working with a POS printer is the browser itself, in which the simplified tax document will be printed. Internet Explorer is therefore another absolute necessity for using the Cashdesk application.
Interfacing with NET Genium
If a new POS printer has been installed on the computer, it is also necessary to specify some parameters related to the new POS printer in NET Genium. The mentioned data can be defined in the edit form POS printers (Finance/Settings/POS printers). Here you can edit the parameters of already installed POS printers or define the parameters of a newly installed POS printer. For each POS printer, it is necessary to specify:
- Username
- System Name
Username will be displayed in the menu of POS printers in the form Cashdesk, from where simplified tax documents will be printed. System name means the name of the POS printer, as the POS printer was named during configuration and is defined in the Windows system.
Other items that can be filled in are:
- Header
- Second header
- footer
For all the mentioned optional fields, it is possible to enter texts, which will then always be printed on the simplified tax document, regardless of the other content of the document.
Checkdesk view page
The list of all cashdesks that are registered in NET Genium can be found on the view page Cashdesks (Finance/Cashdesk/Cashdesks). If the cashdesk has been used in the past, it can now be used again. All you have to do is open the edit form of the cashdesk. If it is necessary to use a cashdesk that has not yet been in the NET Genium system, it is necessary to press the button New cashdesk, which will open a new edit form Cashdesk.
Settings Tab
In both of the two mentioned cases, it is necessary to go through the Settings tab, where all the important settings of the cashhdesk are stored. The following items must be filled in the Settings tab:
- Cachdesk
- POS printer
- Currency
- Business unit
- Stock
The item Cashdeck is used to distinguish individual cashdecks that are defined in NET Genium. In the drop-down list POS printer, the user can choose from POS printers that are registered in NET Genium. To set up a new POS printer, see the paragraph Connection with NET Genium. The Currency item indicates the currency in which the charged items will be calculated. The Business unit field specifies to which business unit within the company the cashdesk is assigned. The item Stock is related to the selection of items for settlement on the tab General. According to the selected stock, the items that are allocated to the selected stock are displayed.
The edit form also contains the following items, which do not need to be filled in:
- Petty cash fund
- Exchange rate
- Centre
- Account coding
In the Petty cash fund item, you can define to which in the already existing petty cash fund the used cashdesk will be assigned. The Exchange rate field is automatically filled in according to the currency selected in the Currency item. The item Centre' indicates the center in which this cashdesk was used. In the Account coding field, you can define the prepayment for the cashdesk. The items Petty cash fund, Centre and Account coding affect the subsequent generation of tax documents, because individual items and the tax documents associated with them will be assigned to individual petty cash funds, centers and account coding.
General tab
On the General tab, you can add all items to the cashdesk that are to be billed. In the Inventory item field, it is possible to select items that are available at the selected stock using the picker control element (Settings tab). For each selected item, the price, currency, unit of measurement and the stated price including VAT are automatically added using the script. In the image below, this insertion is shown under the number 1.
The Cashdesk application also allows you to insert non-stock items. If the user wants to add non-stock items to the list of billed items, just select the items Unit, VAT rate and write the corresponding price in the item Price. After pressing the ENTER key, the filled-in data will be inserted into the list of items to be billed. Said insertion is shown below the number 2.
All selected items for billing can be seen in the Items table. There is a Delete button for each record, which deletes the record from the list of items to be billed. Below the Items table is the Delete items button. This button will completely clear all charged items. All mentioned buttons are displayed only when some items are charged.
In the lower part of the edit form Cashdesk there is a section called Print reports, within which the following buttons are available:
- Receipt
- Invoice
If the user presses the button Receipt, the application Cashdesk will print a simplified tax receipt on the POS printer and at the same time generate a Cash receipt as a tax document with the possibility of its subsequent opening.
If the user presses the Invoice button, the Cashdesk application
- generates Outcoming invoice as a tax document and offers it to the user for download,
- or offers to download an already generated tax document – Cash receipt or Outgoing invoice.
There may also be a situation where both Outgoing invoice and Cash receipt will be generated. This happens when there is no tax document attached to the cashdesk and the Invoice button is first pressed (generates an invoice). Then, when the user presses the button Receipt, the simplified tax receipt is printed on the POS printer and at the same time a Cash receipt is generated as a non-tax document, which eliminates the already generated Outgoing invoice.
If both documents were generated in this way, after pressing the Invoice button again, the Cash receipt will be offered for download.
The last button that can be pressed in the edit form Cashdesk is the button New purchase. After pressing this button, all the items intended for billing and the values in the Cash receipt and Outgoing invoice fields will be deleted. After that, it will be possible to create and print new simplified tax documents and tax documents with other items at the same cashdesk.