Windows 7 is still a great choice if not the best choice for business applications such as 2Touch!

Microsoft has learned from the Windows XP retirement fiasco to reach out long before the situation becomes critical.  People are hearing about the end of Windows 7 sooner, but it still has plenty of life left.  This is different than the XP experience.  By the time people became aware of the end of XP, it was out of extended support.

It’s important to distinguish a valid business application platform from a consumer platform. 

Win 7 and 2TouchPOS go great together

Businesses don’t change operating systems as often as consumers do.  Reliability and maintainability are generally more important aspects than the latest feature.  Windows 7 is still available for sale for OEM and embedded systems.

There’s a significant difference between end of mainstream support and end of extended support.  Microsoft will end free mainstream support for Windows 7 on January 13, 2015.  Windows 7 Extended support runs through January 14, 2020.  Extended support still includes security update support.

With Windows 7 gaining in market share (sitting over 51% right now), it's clear that most organizations have opted to skip Windows 8.   Windows 8 didn’t become a compliant platform until Windows 8.1.  By which time, talk of windows 10 was right around the corner.  It wasn’t worth the time or expense to be pa-dss validated on Windows 8.  Windows 10 is not yet stable enough for pa-dss validation.

2TouchPOS’ DataKey provides customers with real time access to their data on any device from anywhere.

Great news for the DataKey API, we have released a new version that

• Includes real time data
• Includes open food and custom modifiers
• Is 2Touch version agnostic
• Is Faster
• Adds REST support

Snap Shot

Real Time Data
Summary data about sales and staffing is available every 5 minutes.  We have used this API to create a basic dashboard on our website but you can do more such as trending, analysis, and rollup displays.

Open Food and Custom Modifiers
This API returns non-inventory items; open beer, open food, open liquor, open wine, and custom modifiers.  The identifiers, LRI, LRN, and ERN, will be null as these are not inventory identifiable.  This data is historically available for every customer starting July 1, 2015.

2Touch Version Agnostic
The endpoints have V4 in the path but don't let that fool you; you can use this API regardless of the customer's version!  The API simply returns null when the data hasn't been provided.

Faster
All of our methods return results faster with the greatest improvement seen on methods returning large, complex data such as ticket details.

REST
All services now support a REST API that returns JSON formatted data.

Implementation Impact
We strive to keep the API stable.  In this release, we felt the benefits from improving the consistency of the API outweighed the changes required.  We separated the API into three services, tickets, time clock, and real time and improved the naming of several items. It took me less than an hour to update the Data Browser tool we provide.  Naturally, your experience will vary based on your toolset and testing regimen.

Download the documentation.

Bartender Theft and The Cash Register

According to Wikipedia, a cash register is a mechanical device used for registering and calculating sales transactions. Its has a drawer for storing cash and other valuables. There is also a printer to print receipts for record keeping purposes.

This is the crazy part. 

Did you know the cash register was invented by James Ritty and John Birch after the civil war? James was the owner of a saloon in Dayton, Ohio and wanted to stop his employees from "appropriating" his profits. He called it Ritty's incorruptible cashier and it was invented in the 1880s to stop cashiers from stealing. Yep! That's right, the cash register was invented because of bartender theft.

At that time, the big break through was a bell that rang when a transaction was completed so the owner or manager was alerted a sale was taking place.

In the 130 years since the invention of the register bartender theft has continued to be a problem with deep reaching impacts. Everyone has heard about failure rates of bars. There is no doubt one root cause of failure is theft. If you think for one minute you don't have to worry about theft, your misguided and headed for pain if you're not already feeling it.

Once the strong point of anti theft the cash register is now the weak point. It is outdated technology that is over 100 years old. Do you still use a type writer instead of a word processor an ax instead of a chain saw, a horse instead of a car? Of course not!

If your serious about being in control of your destiny and your business, the only reason to continue to use a cash register is fear of change, of learning something new. Well, if you are still on a cash register and dupe tickets its almost guaranteed your getting schooled.

If you still don't believe me look up the definition of "dupe" - its a noun and it means a person who is easily deceived or fooled; gull.

2TouchPOS is the perfect replacement for your cash register. Click here to learn more.

Let Me know..

What is it that you are really looking for? What do you want? Let me know.

You are wrong! Not all point of sale systems are the same. Its just plain lazy to only compare on price.

What a huge mistake you are making if you think all point of sale systems are the same and choose to only compare on price. A POS is probably the one thing you can invest in that will create the single greatest return for you. Flat out we have helped customers turn 40K into 100K in a year. Perhaps only the Oracle of Omaha can do that in the stock market. Our raving fan customers get at least a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio and in many cases in as little of six months.

NO! not all point fo sale systems are the same. We only focus on Bar, Restaurant and Nightclub. You can imagine the needs of these types of business are different than a grocery store, pizza delivery shop or food truck. Our single minded focus helps us make the fine tune distinctions, the small nuances that have big financial impacts.

Our experts are busy, time is short, call now and learn more! 888-756-7994

Four Key Threats to Your Survival and Bottom Line

There is some good news and bad news. The good news is the Bar, Restaurant and Nightclub industry is part of an economic juggernaut racking in billions and billions of dollars annually. Those that know what they are doing can become extremely wealthy and... well for those who don't failure can be quite painful.

There are things you must do as an owner to at least survive. You must mitigate risks and maximize your contribution margin.

What risks?

• Data breaches and credit card fraud will eat into your profits
• Sales Tax Audits - you must be accurate and keep the proper records or this could ruin you
• Discounting - Believe it or not you probably discount every drink around 10% and don't even know it. When you include sales tax and your credit card fees you probably only earn 90 cents on the dollar

How do you maximize revenue? You need a hyper focus on growing your guest check average.

• Manage your guest counts
• Manage your sales process
• Engineer your menu for profits

To manage these topics you have to know where you are (use your POS to find out) and where you are going.

Check out the videos here for more info

“Average Check” neglect dramatically disrupts Operator cash flow

The influence a few dollars of “average check” has on overall sales in a bar or restaurant is profound.

Many restaurant operators do not follow their average check closely enough to determine when they are losing valuable income from existing guests. 

In the planning stages of a bar, restaurant or club from menu design to lease or purchase values, average check is the single most important calculation an operator can focus on. Many operators do focus on the average check early on but its importance and influence diminishes with other operational issues commanding attention as time goes by.