Products, menu

Using PLU coding of goods allows you to organize convenient work eliminating errors in the storage and sale of goods.

In SmartTouch POS, it is possible to record weighted goods in accordance with their PLU code.

The list of products with PLU can be loaded into the Electronic Scale. Electronic scales weigh the goods and form a self-adhesive label indicating the Product Name, Product Weight and Product Cost. In addition, the barcode is printed on the label, which contains information about the product code and its weight. This Barcode is used by POS-terminal scanners to quickly get information about the sold weight product.

The PLU product code is the serial number of the product under which it is listed in the institution’s database and weights. The main requirement is that the PLU code must be unique in the institution’s coding system.

Group filling of the PLU code is done in the Admin Panel \ Product \ Products and dishes \ Gear \ Group filling

The value of the PLU product code can be viewed in the PLU field on the “Basic” tab in the product card

You can clear the PLU code by clicking on the Admin panel \ Product \ Products and dishes \ Gear \ Clear all PLU button

Coding PLU

Weight barcode – EAN13, includes: prefix VSh sign, PLU – product code and its weight.
Composition of VS in EAN13 (standard):

Mask: FFPPPPPPPWWWWC

2 first digits FF is a prefix sign of VS, In the Sparttouch POS coding system this value is 22.

6 digits PPPPPP – PLU – product code

4 digits WWWW– product weight in grams

C – Check Digit

To work with a weighted barcode, you must:

1. Set the flag “Weighted goods” in the Administration Panel \ Products \ Product card
2. Enter the PLU field in the table of the directory of goods and dishes
3. Weigh the goods, print and stick on it a label with a weight barcode
4. When scanning in the POS terminal, the product name, weight and cost will be added

Accounting for containers when weighing goods allows you to automatically calculate the net weight of the sold product (dish).

For example, when selling:

• Beer poured into a liter bottle is put on the scales.
• The POS terminal sets the value of the product “draft beer”
• The modifier “Bottle 1 liter” is added to the product “Draft beer”.
• After weighing the goods, the standard tare – “Bottle 1 liter” is deducted from the total weight of the goods.
• Removing the modifier from the product causes the addition of tare to the weight of the product.
• If automatic weighing fails for some reason, the seller can manually enter the Gross weight (product + container).

The modifier Container “Bottle 1 liter” is created in the section Admin panel \ Products and dishes

Tare weight is defined in the modifier description card. Tab. Main field Weight

The binding of the modifier (Container) to the goods is done in the Administration Panel \ Products \ Price elements \ Modifiers

The software allows splitting the menu screen of the POS-terminal into two parts:

• Product Groups
• Product in the selected group

Clicking Products Groups menu button refreshes the products list according to the selected group.

To activate the mode and to set up the number of the displayed lines in the Products Groups, go to Settings\Interface\

and use:

• either the switch Display price list root separately which enables and disables the display mode
• or the digital field Number of lines which determines the number of lines

If Products Groups and Products contain too many lines to fit on the screen, you can scroll lists to find all invisible items.

If the number of rows of Product Groups and Goods does not fit on the screen, you can use the scroll list to search for invisible elements.

Working with Charges on goods is made on the Administration Panel \ Products \ Charges
A Charges on a product is used to automatically calculate an additional charge for a product or service, such as tips, a service charge, etc.

To create a new Charge, click the “Create” button:

Fill in the following fields:

Name – name of Charges

Price list – a price list or menu for which goods a surcharge will be applied. If the field is empty, the surcharge will affect all menus.

Products groups – are a commodity group for which goods a surcharge will be applied. If the field is empty, the surcharge will apply to all product groups.

or Outlet – an institution to which goods the extra charge will be applied. If the field is not filled, the surcharge will apply to all establishments.

By percent or By Fixed sum — select the method for calculating the markup: as a percentage (of the price of the goods) or as a fixed amount.

Markup – value of markup depending on the set switch – percentage or amount

Priority – the priority of applying the markup, in case of using several markups.

Any merchant should work with the Price or the menu Menu (for the public catering).

Menu items are created based on the list of products and can have details different from the corresponding elements of other menus or products.

The program allows you to keep a simultaneous account of several menus with a different set of products, different prices and other characteristics. In this case, only one menu can be used in the institution. The operative switching of the menu in the outlet takes place in the Administration panel \ Settings \ Outlets \ Basic \ Price

Goods \ Elements of the price list – filling the Menu (price list with elements)

List of elements The menu (price list) is a hierarchical structure of the folders in which the elements are located.

The hierarchical structure of the menu (prices) created by you will be reflected accordingly in the sales window of the mobile POS terminal.

Creating a new Menu (Price) manually:

in the Administration panel create a new price:
• Goods \ Price click the Create button
• Fill in the created by Price products:
Goods \ Price elements – select a new Price next button Create Group, Create Item

Fill in the card the details of the price element

Fill the Price list (Menu) in based on the products list

• Set a new price for the institution: Settings \ Outlets … Name of the institution … \ button Change \ Price field

Export price elements to Excel – click the button Export to Excel

The table of the downloaded file should have the following form:

Document Disassembly is used to formalize the separation of products into components, for the purpose of further sale or production in parts. For example, you can arrange the cutting of the carcass or assortment of bouquets.

Working with the document takes place on the administration panel in the section Stock \ Advanced \ Dish Disassembly

To create a new document, click the Create button.

In the table of contents of the document in the Dish field, indicate the dish, the semi-finished product or the products, which should be decommissioned.

The Quantity field indicates the number of dishes to be divided.

To enter information about the component, you must click the Add row button and fill in the values for Goods, Quantity. The price of the goods is automatically substituted from the receipts, if necessary, you can change it.

After filling out the list of components, click the Save button.

The results of the reconciliation can be seen in the report Remains and movements of goods.

You can find a product card in the Administration panel\Products\Products and dishes.

We use the Products term as a general name for Goods, Ingredients, Dishes, Convenience food and Services.

Name is a product’s name. Several names in different languages can be input at the same time.  To change the current input language, click the button

Products can be assigned to previously created Groups for ease of reference. For example, Hot dishes, Beverages and so on

Product card fields are intended to specify:

• Type:
  • Products means a common product that you can buy or sell. The product doesn’t have a recipe. It can be an ingredient of a dish or of convenience food. After the product is sold, its quantity is automatically written-off by the “Products writing-off” document.
  • Ingredients are components of dishes or convenience food. Ingredients are not displayed on the tablet because they are supposed to be not for sale. If you need to sell ingredients, set the Type=Product in the Products card.
  • Dish are made of Products and Ingredients (Chicken Kiev and Blueberry Martini cocktail) and they are for sale. Dish components are defined on the Recipe tab. All Dish’s components are written-off immediately after sale by the “Food services production” document. If the Dish is a part of another Dish or Convenience food, its components will be also written-off. To add some additional information about the dish preparation, you can use the text field in the Product card \ Cooking technique tab.
  • Convenience food is the same thing as the Dish. This category is created to make distinction between dishes and convenience food more easily.
  • Services are intangible products which can be bought and sold. But buying or selling a service doesn’t generate any warehouse movements.

Fields values of the product card

Tab “Main”:

• Group is the name of the group that the product belongs to.
• Barcode is the code to be scanned. Using the barcode scanner, you can significantly simplify the process of choosing a product during selling operations and warehouse management. A code indicated on the product package can be used as a product code. If there is no code, for example on dishes or beverages, you can generate it. To generate a new unique code, you should click the arrow button situated to the right from the Barcode On the picture above, both the field and the button are marked by a blue frame.
• Description gives detailed information about products. You can keep description records in multiple languages. To change the input language, use the button
• Selling price variable allows modifying the price depending on different conditions.
• Products sold by weight determines whether you need to input the weight of goods being sold or not. This weight field can be used both for food and beverages. Work with weighted goods is described in the section Weighted goods. Work with PLU
• Production storehouse is the storehouse where the dish is prepared.
• Taxes defines whether a dish’s products are liable to tax.
• of shrinkage shows the product’s weight loss during storage or cooking.
• Last receipt price displays the last price of the product according to the receipt documents

Tab “Sell price”:

• Price-list displays the menus’ names for which the price is valid.
• Price is the price of products being sold according to the Price-list (Menu). This is the price for an item of the basic measurement unit. Different menus can have different prices.
• Enabled adds products to the corresponding Price-list (Menu) of the tablet.

Calculation of the product’s price according to the extra charge rate

Click on the Calculate sell price button and input your extra charge rate in the displayed dialogue box.

The program will automatically calculate the selling price and display it in the Sell price field.

Tab “Meas.units” (Measurement units)

• Basic meas.unit defines the measurement unit which will be referenced to every time you need to recalculate the alternative units using the conversion rate.
• Meas.units used to record products arriving represents the list of options to recalculate in basic measurement unit with due allowance for the conversion rate. It is generally used to recalculate the number of recorded goods in different packages.
• Min.qty for auto request defines the number of products to be ordered automatically after the stock limit is reached. This functionality works only if the auto-creation of limits requests mode is enabled. To enable the auto-creation mode, use the switches Create automatically a product request for items having reached the minimum acceptable stock and Create automatically a product request for items which stock is less than the recommended one in the section Settings\Accounting policy

Tab «Categories»

• Print cat. determines the location where a preparation ticket will be printed, for example, the kitchen where the dish will be prepared.
• Extra print cat. determines an additional location to print a preparation ticket, for example, the kitchen where the dish will be prepared.
• Fiscal Group defines a fiscal group for tax accounting.
• Product category defines a dish’s category, for example, a dish for breakfast
• Classifier
• Organization allows linking products to enterprises of different forms of ownership.
• General modifier means that the product is the modifier available for all dishes.
• Vendor code / Article (previously Vendor code or External code) is the code used to link products with the third-party systems.

Tab “Recipe”

The Recipe tab provides the list of ingredients and their amount in dishes.

Recipe is used as a base to calculate the cost price of a dish.

Data about each product – ingredient are entered in the table line by line:

• Product — ingredient
• is the required amount of a product (ingredient) to prepare a dish
• net is the required amount of a product (ingredient) to prepare a dish
• Price is the net amount of a product (ingredient) without its packaging which is required to prepare a dish
• Cost price is an automatically calculated value based on the information about product (ingredient) purchase

If you click the Calculate cost price button, the program will automatically refresh the next values:

• Cost price
• Sell price
• Extra charge.

Tab “Prepar.instruc.”

This tab provides a text field with preparation instructions.

Tab «Nutritional value»

This tab provides nutritional values which you can use as guidance on food intake and balanced nutrition for your clients. Using the program, it is possible to keep records about carbs, fat, proteins and calories in dishes.

The Nutritional value tab displays information about content of fat, protein, carbohydrate and calories.

Nutritional values are calculated automatically by the program for mixed or multi-ingredient dishes.

Dishes’ nutritional values are recorded on the basis of the dish’s recipe. All products and ingredients contained in the dish are listed in the recipe.

Nutritional values of products and ingredients are to be entered in advance in their cards.

If the dish’s components are modified, its nutritional values will be recalculated after clicking on the Calculate cost price button of the Recipe tab.

Preliminary in the cards of the product of products and ingredients of the ingredients of the dish, it is necessary to take into account the nutritional values characteristic of them.

The recalculation of nutritional values after updating the ingredients of the dish, occurs when you click Calc. cost price on the Recipe tab.

Tab «Photo»

This tab allows uploading, modifying or deleting a product’s photo. Products photos are displayed in the mobile application, in the Sales and Storehouse sections. If you need to keep several photos of a product, for example to make a slideshow for the electronic menu, use the function Add images to products selection menu in the section Administration panel \ Products \ Price list items

The Products list is located in the Administration panel\Products\Products and dishes. Please notice that the “Products” term is a generic one for Products, Ingredients, Dishes, Semi-finished products and Services.
For purpose of designation commonness, all Products are commonly referred to as Items in the software.

Items are located in the Products groups. To make products search easy-to-use, the structure of Products groups was made hierarchical, it means that some other groups may be found inside the main Group. You can create your own group structure and fill it with Items depending on your business activity needs.

The Create a Group button is designed to create a new group of Items.

The Parent field defines a (Parent) group one step higher in the hierarchy which contains the current Group.

To navigate between groups, double-click on the group.  

The Create Item button is designed to create a new item (Product card). When creating an item, its group’s value will be defined in the Parent field. You can change the value of the Parent field any time you need it.

To create similar Items, you can use the Copy menu option. The Copy menu option is available once you click on the button with a gear-wheel icon located in the right part of the items list.

Watch Video lesson 1 showing how to work with products list.

The Import goods button allows you to load a list of products from the database into the database.

• Import from csv-file from external file, CSV format, information in which is divided into columns using commas.
• Import data from a table – by copying cells of a spreadsheet (for example, excel), in which the columns follow a certain way.

Importing data from a table:

1. Prepare a list of products for the table with the following columns: Name, Group name, Sale price, Purchase price, Bar goods, Barcode

2. Click the Import goods button \ Import from table

3. In the table, select the cells with the goods that you want to import. Copy the table cells to the clipboard (For Excel, press CTRL + C or the context menu option “Copy”)

4. In the “Import data from a table” dialog box,

Set the pointer to a cell marked as Ctrl-V (in the upper left corner)

5. Simultaneously press the Ctrl + V keys or the “Paste” context menu option. Copied text appears in the window.
Click the “Save” button

The Import from csv-file button calls the dialogue window allowing to upload Items from an external file.

Button Export to Excel – to store in external files tables: Productions, Calculation cards, Technology cards.

The Products search field filters the list of items according to the field’s value.

Products categories offer you an additional possibility to group products as you like to:
* produce reports broken down by Categories (Sales by products report)
* set up discounts for certain Products categories.

It is not mandatory to keep Categories.

To create a list of products categories, go to the Administration panel: Products\Products categories. A categorie value is set in the Administration panel: Products\Products and Dishes\Categories\Product categories field.

Unlike products group, the reference book of products categories doesn’t have a hierarchical structure so all categories are of equal value.

Example of using Products categories:
1) Category Products and Dishes set for breakfast:
* Eggs
* Milk
* Bread
* Tea

2) Category  Light First course:
* Borscht
* Meatball Soup
* Chicken broth

The use of group processing of elements allows you to set simultaneously the values of the fields Print Category, Product Category, Fiscal Group to the goods included in the group selected by the user.

The group operation window is called when the  button is pressed and the Group processing  of elements option is selected.

The Parent field specifies the group of products for the elements of which the processing will be performed.

To specify which field should be changed, select the appropriate checkbox. If the checkbox is not set, the field value will not be modified.

Select in the drop-down list the value of the field that should be set to the Item groups

If you need to clear the field values, do not specify the field value when the check-box is installed.

To apply processing, click the Execute button.

You can add products images to the buttons of the products selection menu by using the Photos upload button in the Administration panel: Products\Price list items. The Photos upload button is located in the right part of the hierarchical list of the price list items.

The window for adding new images:

Product images are displayed in mobile applications: POS terminal (in the sales and warehouse sections), eMenu and BonusMe.

To view changes on the tablet, you need to re-login to the mobile application

1. Production and retail storehouses
2. Product card – setting up product properties
3. Executing a “Production” document
4. “Products stock movements” report – control of products receipt
5. Move products to the retail storehouse
6. “Products stock movements” report – control of products movements
7. Sales of products
8. “Products stock movements” report – control of products write-off action at the retail storehouse

If necessary, you can set a convenient order (sorting) the display of folders and buttons with items on the tablet. For example, set the list of items at the beginning of the list of items that are most often sold.

The order of elements of the price list for the Product Group is determined using the “Sorting order” field in the Administration panel: Products \ Price elements \ Group card (folder)

The order of elements of the price list for the Goods is determined using the “Sorting order” field in the Administration panel: Products \ Price elements \ Product card \ Main

To set the order, you must fill in the “Sort Order” field for all price items (menus). It should be taken into account that the greater the value of the field the lower the list it will be displayed in the menu on the tablet

in the Administration panel:

• Check the availability of the goods in the Menu in Products \ Elements of the price. Set the necessary price (left top), see the missing items.
• Check whether the Price and the Point of Sale match in the Settings \ Places \ Price field.
• Check compliance Access \ Users Web panel \ User \ Login and Administrator of the Place under which you logged in to the Tablet.
• Check the conformity of the Facilities to the User: Access \ Users Web panels \ Institution \
• After editing the data in the Administration Panel, to update the information on the tablet, restart the Mobile Application

The program allows you to upload the file in HTML format with images of price tags.
The file can be opened in any browser and printed on the printer.
Working with price tags is done in the Administration panel\Products\Price elements:

1. To do this, select the necessary menu from the drop-down list (top left) in the Administration panel \ Products \ Price elements.
2. Click the Export button in Excel \ Price tags.
3. In the window that appears Export Specify the desired set of products whose price lists you want to print. To select products, you need to specify the Menu in the Price field and product groups or individual items in the Commodity groups field
4. Click the Save button in the html file. The program will generate and upload a file to your computer (or tablet).
5. Open (double-click or open with) the uploaded file by the browser
6. To print, click the Print button in the browser.