FrontGate Module - Overview

The SwiftTec Club Membership system includes the FrontGate module which is intended to be used in a reception or sales area. It acts like a POS (Point of Sale) system allowing goods and services to be sold to the customer.

Acts like a POS system
Can work with or without customer card
Will assign loyalty points to customer
Allows a customer to redeem loyalty points for discount
Can be used to scan and charge for barcoded goods
Custom transactions can be created for services
Optionally interfaces to a receipt printer
Operation can be protected by using the operators feature

The FrontGate module operates in different modes according what modules and features are enabled and licenced.

Logging In (Only When Licensed/Enabled)

If the operators feature has been enabled the first screen you encounter will be the operator login screen as shown below.

When you encounter this screen you should enter your operator username and password which will be assigned by your system administrator. When you successfully login you will move onto the main input screen.

Main Screen

Once the FrontGate module is running and you are logged in (if required) you will be presented with the following screen:

Here you can perform one of the following actions:

Scan the customer card
Manually enter a member ID
Enter NEW to indicate there is new customer to be associated with this transaction (may be assigned to a function key). You will be prompted to enter the customer details (see below).
Enter NONE to indicate there is no customer to be associated with this transaction (may be assigned to a function key)
Logoff (only when operators are enabled)

If the input is not recognised an error screen will be displayed as shown below:

If successful you will see one of the following screens which display the transaction list either with or without the associated member.

Display when a member is entered:

Display when no member is entered:

Entering Transactions

At this point you can now enter one or more transaction codes either by typing them in, pressing a function key (when mapped) or by scanning a card or barcode. As you do so the transactions appear in the list.

As you can see from the above example several barcoded goods have been added to the system, which when scanned have been charged accordingly. The charges and transaction codes can be setup the the Admin Tool Transaction Tab.

Voiding a transaction

Sometimes a transaction is entered incorrectly and needs to be voided. There are 2 options here. To void the most recent transaction (the top one on the list) simply enter the code VOID which will remove the last transaction. This can be assigned to a function key.

However you can also void a transaction by specifying its ID, so if in the above example we wanted to void the transaction ID 3 (Windscreen Wash) we would enter VOID:3. This would result in the following:

where we can see that the transaction ID 2 has been removed from the list.

Accepting Payment

When all transactions have been entered you need to enter a payment type to complete the transaction. This can be one of the following:

CARD - A card payment
CASH - A cash payment - you will be prompted for the amount tendered and the change will be calculated for you.
CHEQUE - A cheque payment
CHECK - Alternative spelling for CHEQUE
ACCEPT - A special payment type to accept the current payment when the balance is zero.

Once you have enter the payment details you will be prompted to accept the sale.

At this point you must enter your acceptance as YES or NO. If you enter NO the entire sale will be cancelled. To go back and amend the sale press ESC.

When you accept the sale the following actions take place:

The sale is recorded in the FrontGate transaction log
A receipt is printed (if connected and enabled)
If loyalty points are enabled they are added according to the value of the sale. (See the Admin Tool Loyalty Tab)
Adjustments are made to the member record (renewals of membership, new member created, points balances, etc)

Cancelling Actions

At any time a entry can be cancelled by pressing the Esc key. This will progressively return the user to the previous level of entry.