Access and Cash Register Operations

[Earl Anderson]

My brother is in the process of purchasing a neighborhood dry cleaners
store. Having seen some of the process applications I've written in MS
Access, he asked me if I could develop an application to use in his new dry
cleaning store since the existing one is of 1988 vintage. I told him that
although I thought the 'process' involved in a dry cleaners couldn't be too
complex and probably could be developed in Access, I had absolutely no
knowledge how to tie such an application into a 'cash register' operation.
As a result, I advised him to 'spring' for an industry-specific application
that must be available rather than a customized one he wanted me to make for
him.

My question here is to ask if anyone reading this has ever "tied" an Access
application to the operation of a cash register? Is so, how involved is it?
Does it involve assistance from the manufacturer of the cash register or is
it so complex and involved that it must be done or is only furnished by the
cash register manufacturer? It would seem that the usual 'employee',
'customer', 'order', 'order details', 'suppliers' and 'payment' elements
would be the same as any other business application. However, I would also
think that it must be most difficult to write VBA to have Access 'open' the
cash register and must really get "hairy" when trying to 'tie' into one of
the major credit card authorization centers.

Just wondering...
Earl Anderson

[Tom van Stiphout]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 20:38:01 -0500, "Earl Anderson" <is*****@rcn.co m>
wrote:

I once worked on such a problem for an amusement park. Opening the
cash register was as simple as sending a single character out of a
serial port.
CR manufacturers have every reason to cuddle developers. Put yours'
feet to the fire. They should at least have a sample app showing you
how to do it.

-Tom.

My brother is in the process of purchasing a neighborhood dry cleaners
store. Having seen some of the process applications I've written in MS
Access, he asked me if I could develop an application to use in his new dry
cleaning store since the existing one is of 1988 vintage. I told him that
although I thought the 'process' involved in a dry cleaners couldn't be too
complex and probably could be developed in Access, I had absolutely no
knowledge how to tie such an application into a 'cash register' operation.
As a result, I advised him to 'spring' for an industry-specific application
that must be available rather than a customized one he wanted me to make for
him.

My question here is to ask if anyone reading this has ever "tied" an Access
application to the operation of a cash register? Is so, how involved is it?
Does it involve assistance from the manufacturer of the cash register or is
it so complex and involved that it must be done or is only furnished by the
cash register manufacturer? It would seem that the usual 'employee',
'customer', 'order', 'order details', 'suppliers' and 'payment' elements
would be the same as any other business application. However, I would also
think that it must be most difficult to write VBA to have Access 'open' the
cash register and must really get "hairy" when trying to 'tie' into one of
the major credit card authorization centers.

Just wondering...
Earl Anderson