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Till Rolls Business Gude - How to configure a receipt

By Mike Leary

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 19Nov2009 Word count: 1125 Viewed: 286 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Millions of receipts are issued to customers every day but few of us take any great notice of the information that is printed on them. What information should be on your receipt? Where should it go and why? This article covers the basics on what a business should consider when deciding on what information should be shown, and how to display this information on their receipts.

A customer receipt is generally made up of five sections. From the top they are:

Company logo, Header, Body, Method of payment & Footer

The company logo or name is usually centrally aligned and positioned right at the top of any receipt. It is for the simple purpose of easy identification of the issuer. Logos take time to print so for the quickest printing speed the logo should be stored on the receipt printer, EPOS systems or cash registers.

Header & Footer

The header is the informational part of the receipt usually situated below the logo and normally consisting of no more than one or two lines of data. The footer, as the name suggests, is situated at the bottom of the receipt and generally consists of two to three lines of information. Both are centrally aligned but interestingly there are no hard and fast rules for what information to include in the header and footer and for the most part the data is interchangeable. As a general guide the majority of business tent to stick to the following;

Header - Store specific information such as branch name, address and phone number with almost all retailers including a date and time stamp followed by the transaction number.

Footer - Company information such as address, phone number, email, web address etc plus a short message such as "please call again" or "thank you for your custom". No businesses are the same so there is a wide variety of different data printed in the header and footer but here are some commonly used further examples, assistant or manager name, refund policy, coupons, barcode, till number & tax reference number. Large chain retailers often print a barcode at the bottom of the receipt. The barcode usually contains embedded information that scanners can read such as the branch number, date, time & transaction number. When this barcode is scanned the software normally recalls the original transaction electronically for the operator to view who can then process refunds etc. This process can save huge amounts of time although this function is solely down to the capability of your solution and not the printer itself.

Receipt Body

Different countries and different regions have different laws regarding the exact information printed so the first thing any business should do is seek the best local advice. This can be from government websites or sometimes can easily be obtained from suppliers. There are general guidelines however which do not tend to differ country to country and below we look at the simplest example of a receipt. The most understandable information to be printed and normally left aligned, is the item description or department/category. For example; Pot of tea (item description) and Hot drink (department/category). What is actually printed is dependant on the solution that is used and how it is configured. EPOS solutions (electronic point of sale) are far more configurable than cash registers and have many options on how the items are printed. Many cash registers are capable of printing the product description but lower end models tend to have department/categories such as in the hot drink example. The quantity of the item is printed next to the item itself. This can either be printed before the item description or after. For example

Pot of tea x 2 2 x Pot of tea

Another option is to simply print the same item twice on the receipt.

You have printed the item purchased, so logically the next thing to print is the items price. Depending on the country, region & business type this could include or exclude tax. To keep things simple the example below shows the price including tax and uses dollars for an example currency.

Pot of tea x 2 $4.20

The next part of the body of the receipt is the financial total. This is a monetary total of all the items which can be displayed either including tax or alternatively with a break down of the tax applied.

Other options that can be included in the body of the receipt are product code, discounts/promotions, refunds, coupons, detailed tax data & calculations, services, item specific data, forms, and much more.

Method of payment

The last section of the receipt before the footer is the method of payment or more simply how the customer paid. The simplest example (shown below) is when a customer pays with cash.

Logo

Header

Pot of tea x 2 $4.20

Coffee $ 2.00

Total $6.20

Cash $10.00

Change $3.20

Footer

The most complex method of payment is usually credit cards as the way the receipt is printed is totally dependant on the solution that is being used. Many EPOS solutions have integrated payment systems so that the credit card details can be printed on the same receipt with all the other information. Some solutions print the credit card details on a separate slip to the main receipt with others printing the information from a totally separate machine supplied by the retailer's bank or system supplier. Other methods of payments also vary in the data that is printed on the receipt so check the regulations that apply in your region.

Solutions

As previously mentioned what is printed on a receipt is highly dependant on the solution that is being used. Commonly used solutions are simple cash registers that print minimal information and complex EPOS solutions that are capable of printing vast amounts of complex data. Complex receipts can be difficult to understand so the best practice is to keep the receipt as simple and easy to read as possible to encourage return visits by customers. A new business should consider the following rule; the more complicated the business the more complicated the receipt therefore the more complicated the solution required.

What else can be considered?

Your business is producing basic or complex receipts what else could you do to get the most out of your receipt. Many companies use the receipt for marketing purposes and use colour paper to help promote their messages. Others have information or paid advertising pre printed on the back. Nearly all major retailers print coupons and some even have colour printers and all in the aid of promoting their business creating loyalty and achieving as many return visits as possible. Does it work? You bet it does! A receipt is given to customers with most purchases so use it to your advantage and make it work for to your advantage.

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