Computers
Standalone Checkouts
This section is for retailers that run multiple checkouts within a store. If you are a single store retailer with a single checkout please refer to the "Back Office/Store Masters" section below.
Minimum
A minimum of 2Gb memory, 100Gb free disk and a CPU capable of SSE2 and SSE4.1 instructions. Windows 7 or higher. Lower spec'd devices will still work but you may have performance issues or additional manual steps when upgrades are applied.Single store retailers with one checkout should
Recommendations
- SSD drives can improve performance, however they might have shorter lifespan in some cases. Purchase an SSD if performance is important
- Most retailers select the small form factor PCs with solid state parts, no large boxes or fans
- All-in-1 style PCs are also very popular and can work well.
- Make sure the computer has sufficent free USB ports. Keyboard, external mouse, barcode scanner, printer often all need a USB port
- Heat can be a big concern with checkout systems depending on where it will be installed.
- If you are going to run other services on the computer, such as streaming music or general web browsing, please add at least 2Gb additional memory as these services love memory.
Back Office/Store Masters
A backoffice or store master is a PC that is often considered to be controlling your store. Generally this is the managers PC or some other backoffice computer. It can be used for other purposes, such as email, but the more you try and run the bigger the computer you will need
Minimum
Minimum 4Gb memory, 100Gb free disk and a CPU capable of SSE2, 4.1 and preferably AVX instructions.Recommendations
- SSD drives can help with performance for large retailer (high volume sales or large numbers of records)
Head Office Servers
A Head Office server is a computer that receives and records all information for all your stores
Minimum
Minimum of 8Gb memory, 500Gb free disk and a CPU capable of SSE2 and SSE4.1 instructions. Windows 7 or higher.Recommendations
- It is hard to generalise recommendations as it depends on how big your retail operation is. In general the transaction loading components of Head Office are CPU light, but large spikes in load are common
- If you process less than say 20,000 sales per day and do not have large reporting requirements, the above specifications should be adequate.
- You can seperate the backend database from the application if you wish to use a seperate database server
- Performance is impacted by IO speed on the underlying database. If possible use an SSD to store this data
- Head office software is heavily multi threaded so can use multiple cores. This is especially true if using reporting heavily.
Excel Power Users
Minimum
Any supported Windows PCRecommendations
Performance of Excel can be influenced by the size of the computer being used. For optimum performance of Excel we suggest 4 or more CPUs and an SSD drive to hold temporary data. The Excel addin will automatically adapt to suit the computer and network speed.Technical Note: The Excel addin generally communicates to a central server over the the network, however it can also download parts of the database and perform some calculations locally. This reduces network latency and can improve calculation speed, but is only effective where the local PC has sufficient fast resources.
Specialised Options
Minimum
For "stick" computers. Minimum of 5Gb free disk space and 1GHz processor (x86 or x64 chipsets). Stick computers are generally used for specialised functionsBarcode Scanners
- Symbol LS2208.
- Metrologic MS951 and MS7120
- Symbol P460 (Must use Warp emulation software on scanner)
- Symbol CS3070
- PSC, Quick Scan Series
- Fuzzy scan series
- Any scanner which can be configured to meet the requirements of the Scanner Test Page
Receipt Printers
Receipt printers are the retail specific printers, not normal document printers.
- Epson TM88, TM210. Other models should be ok too.
- Star SP300. Any model should be ok.
- Bixolon SRP-350II. Warning, SRP-350PlusIII models have driver issues causing formatting issues (as at 2014).
You may used any printer supported by Windows as a receipt printer. You must be able to print a Windows test page correctly for us to support it.
Label Printers
- Zebra LP2824
- Zebra LP2642
- Zebra GC420d
Printers that support ZPL or EPL should work correctly but should be validated
Scales
- Ishida Vega
- Mettler Toledo 8217
- TEC SL47
- Mettler Viva 8217
- DS866
- Towa OZ Series
Fuel Controllers
- Postec PCC.