Blog
The BIG Template Update
Posted on February 7, 2012 at 3:45 pm by Murdoc Trammell
While some of you have been enjoying personalizing your receipts and labels there was a large demand for several changes that needed to be implemented. The main criticism of receipt templates was that the credit card receipts did not print out a signature copy. Great news, that works now.
We fixed some other buzz-killing issues in our latest revamped template code:
- Per-line discount is now a special template in GitHub. You can show the breakdown of each item if they have varying levels of discounts. In the default.tpl it just groups all the discounts in the subtotal.
- Timezones are now accurately reflected. This was only broken for a very small window, but it didn’t go unnoticed.
- Fixed the requirement for HTML <br> tags in shop headers. If you have those in Admin > Shop Settings / Setup Shops > Receipt Setup, you’ll want to remove them.
- Account Deposits and Charges now shows correctly.
- Fixed an odd formatting issue that involved padding – this should correct the issue where wouldn’t utilize the full paper width.
- Gift Receipts never revealed prices, but they would show discount names, now they won’t (this is true of non-template generated receipts as well).
- Remaining balance now displays the correct amount. Earlier it did not subtract the amount On Deposit from the Open Orders.
- Totals for Open Orders now include the discounts.
It was a long road to fixing all of these and it wouldn’t have been possible without the awesomeness that is Luke Bowerman. It only took a few weeks of Luke’s time, a kilometer of receipt paper, and several death threats by mail directly to our office to fix these issues but that’s all behind us now. There is a lot of potential in using templates to personalize your storefront. I recommend starting with our default.tpl, see how it looks and then move on to one of our other print templates or start editing your own.
One note: our support staff cannot help you with designing custom templates - we love all our customers but designing custom templates is simply too time-intensive for us to offer. If you’re having issues with printing receipts we should be able to help, we just can’t help with per-customer tweaks to the templates. With that said don’t hesitate to send us an email or give us a call at 866-554-2453 ext. 0
Cheers!
Giant Bicycles Real-Time Stock Check
Posted on January 31, 2012 at 11:06 am by Nathan Horter
Things have been busy around MerchantOS lately and we’re proud to announce a new feature for our integration with Giant Bicycles. We have added real-time stock checking to purchase orders with Giant when you use our integration with them. Previously we updated stock information once daily. By the time you created your Purchase Order in MerchantOS the stock levels could have been hours out of date.
Real-time stock checking will allow you to see the actual stock availability for the products you are ordering as you are creating your order. This allows you to know if a product would be back ordered or if there are more available for you to purchase for your shop. You can find information about setting up the Giant integration in the MerchantOS Manual.
We are also working on several updates to existing integrations and a few new vendor integrations in several different industries. Check back on our blog for updates as we release them.
Murdoc in Germany
Posted on January 27, 2012 at 4:16 pm by Murdoc Trammell
My break from MerchantOS starts with three sunrises. The first was on the bus ride to the Seatac Airport. The second was at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I managed to stay awake for the third at my home in Grafenwoehr, Germany. It helped that I arrived to enjoy my stepbrother Tobias’ 21st birthday party in a large garage full of smoke, beer, and hard alcohol in a bar he built. Stumbling home drunk with the family was a great way to come home after 3 years. The days I had between Weihnachten (Christmas) and Sylvester (New Years) were not wasted.
This Weinachten provided my family with the best times we’ve had in years. The very last gift was a small round box my stepbrother Mathias handed to my mother. Inside were two small knitted socks, one red, one blue. Between the socks and cotton padding was a sonogram. There was a small pause before comprehension dawned as everyone at the table looked at the young couple. The celebratory drinking started shortly after.
My mother decided before I had even got on the plane that we would travel together and catch up. I suggested Hamburg, or more formally the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. What I originally came to see was the Miniatur Wunderland; a 6,400 square meter attraction of impossibly detailed miniatures. Imagine a COSTCO sized building with a fully active ecosystem of trains, planes, buildings, communities, an active airport, a day/night cycle, and over 200k human figurines. Pictures do not capture the extraordinary amount of lights, mechanisms, detail, and thought put into each model; so this video will have to suffice.
The first night in Hamburg we met some acquaintances that soon became friends in St. Pauli, the quarter of Hamburg famous for its mile of sin known as the Reeperbahn. That area is ripe with sexual energy and you couldn’t find a better place to go in Europe for a night of drinking with friends. If I wasn’t there with family, that portion of the trip would need to be omitted from my travelogue.
While I will never forget being harassed by sex workers on Herbertstraße, what left the biggest impression on me was a hole in the wall Portuguese restaurant named after its owner, Franco. There was no menu in Casa Franco. You enjoy your meal by paying 20 Euro while the open kitchen prepares the fresh catch of the day in 4 courses. While we were being seated our new friend Markus pointed out that the soft orange walls were significantly darker than the ceiling. I couldn’t help but think there must have been an epic kitchen fire that was just not cleaned up thoroughly. Amidst our introductions to one another, Franco walks the three slate steps to our table carrying our appetizer of shrimp in a garlic wine sauce. Did I mention it was on fire? Not just a dull blue blaze when you light strong alcohol (which we enjoyed throughout the evening) but a tall flame, over a foot high! All the while having a casual conversation with us in his comical and romanticized German. All of this accompanied by good wine, live guitar and serenata, an owner who loves to yell Caramba and, in jest, berates his cooks for their cuisine and expediting. Franco ended up treating the four of us to the best dining experience we could have had. That evening, my mind was opened to what I now see as the right way to serve food to people.
Our 3 days in Hamburg were just not enough. My mother and I were upset that we didn’t make it to the Fisch Markt open on Sundays. Alas, we had festivities back in Grafenwoehr to prepare for. We ended it the best way possible-splitting a case of Astra Rott Licht (6% ABV) between four people. There was a lot more to Hamburg than I imagined. It’s a place I’ll be visiting again and would recommend you do the same.
I did my best to conceal it but I was more than disappointed that I came home to not a drop of snow. I flew all the way to Germany in the heart of winter with scarves, gloves, and multiple coats prepared for the wurst, worst. The same crappy weather I left behind in Washington was there to greet me when I got off the plane.
Just before New Year’s Eve the rain drifted much slower to the ground, dancing in the wind, but not sticking to pavement. That night Tobias asked me if I wanted to go snow hunting with his friends. We get in his 4-wheel drive Audi and sped off into the night. With his foot all the way down on the pedal I watched the speedometer climb over 120 km/h when we finally found snow-covered roads and fields. When we arrived Tobias asked “Haben sie angst?”. Having watched The Green Lantern on the plane, I thought the line “I have no fear.” seemed appropriate. I realized I was the only one in the car with a seatbelt on and who hadn’t been drinking that night. All those drifts and offroading, on what I believed to be a ski course, seemed like a terrible idea that I was happy to be a part of.
The only day I had to myself in the 10 day vacation was well spent in Nürnberg. It’s just a 45 minute train ride from the nearest train station in Vilseck.
None of my friends really believed my story of accidentally finding Nürnberg’s red light district, but it really doesn’t look like anything during the day. To me it was a magnificent wall with beautiful arches made of black, mossy stones unlike anything we have in a country so infantile in comparison to Germany. On my way back from the 1 FCN fan shop I took the same route, still mesmerized by the dark stone wall as dusk approached. As I hurried to catch my train a pink glow to my left distracted me from the wall. I was instantly struck with the realization as to why I was the only one on this street before. Scheisse! I used my experience on the Reeperbahn to keep my head forward and ignore the aggressive sex workers behind the windows and caught my train home with just one minute to spare.
I know this is a generalization, but seriously, the Germans know how to party. In a town of just 9000 people, you would think the locals would be content with a few sparklers and roman candles. No, not Grafenwoehr. It was turning 650 years old and it was going into 2012 with a well-lit sky, battle simulators that needed to be detonated with car batteries, and illegal fireworks you can pick up from the Czech border just 30 minutes away.
While I lived in Germany for over half my life I hadn’t realized until this trip how much I took for granted. I’m not sure when I’ll be returning, but while I was there I already knew that I would. So I did my best to capture the things I experienced with this photo gallery, I hope you enjoy it-
Cheers!
Weather Related Outages For Most of Olympia (Delayed MOS Support)
Posted on January 20, 2012 at 12:03 pm by Ivan Stanojevic
I’m writing this post from California as one of the only employees of MerchantOS with power. An unusually large winter storm has covered Olympia with snow and freezing rain knocking out power to most employees houses (some were working from home) and at our main office. Those with power do not have internet. All of our support is run out of Olympia and we are not able to field your calls or emails right now.
I apologize for the trouble. We do have a couple people available with communication to handle emergency situations and continue close monitoring of our systems.
** Point of sale software customer service is now back to normal **
MerchantOS API Changes
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 12:00 am by Nathan Horter
It’s been one year since we first introduced our API. It’s taken a lot of work to get where we are and it will take even more to get where we want to go with our API. We’ve seen ever increasing use of our API for external integrations like Perkville and internal projects like adding new inventory and generating packing lists. We wouldn’t have been able to make many of the improvements listed below without the valuable feedback of our API users. Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.
We are proud to annouce some changes and improvements to our API that are coming in our next release. Here is a quick overview of what is coming.
API Errors Returned in the Requested Format
Now when the API encounters an error instead of returning an html error page it will return error information in the format that was selected in the request (XML or JSON). This should allow for better error handling by client applications.
Fixes to API Datetimes
There was a bug that was causing some datetimes in the API to be returned incorrectly. Datetimes are now returned as GMT corrected for the timezone set in account.
Add Category and Tags to Receipt Template Items
We had a request to load the Item Category and Tags on the XML returned in the receipt template. This change will give access to those values to people using custom receipt templates.
Load Customer and Employee on Workorders
Another request we had was to load Customer and Employee information on returned Workorder objects. This gives access to the Customer name and address and Employee details for a Workorder without having to make more requests.
Sale Write Access
The biggest change that we have made is open up write access to Sales via the API. This is an important step forward for our API as it exposes more of the functionality of our application via our API. There are some important caveats to the functionality that we have exposed:
- Refunds and Returns are not yet supported
- Sales can be Archived (using the Delete method) or Completed, but they cannot be Unarchived or Uncompleted
- We have made every effort to fully test Sale write access via the API, but proceed with caution. If you find an error or discrepancy please contact us and let us know so we can correct it.
We still have plenty of work to do to improve our point of sale software API, including improving performance and exposing write access to more objects. We’re excited about these changes as they allow us to make big improvements to our product in the future.
If you have an API question, comment, suggestion or issue feel free to contact Nate at nate@merchantos.com.
Weekly Rewind
Posted on January 13, 2012 at 2:28 pm by Rob Richards
This week brought with it a flurry of activity. We expanded our head quarters, moving the Dev team into a cool new office downstairs. Keep an ear open and an eye out for fresh new developments and updates to the software!
In the coming week, Murdoc is going to tell us all about his holiday trip to Germany, and Chris is going to give us another installment of the Workaround series, this time he’ll be covering coupon items.
- And now, as always, some cool stuff we found in the ether:
- Remember Ted Williams? No, not the baseball icon – I’m talking about the homeless man that became an internet sensation a year ago because of his smooth radio voice. Well, evidently life has taken a turn for the better.
- 343 days. 17 countries. 19 planes. 58 buses. 18 boats. 6,327 photographs. One stunning video.
- A step in the right direction – Apple outs itself over labor violations in its supply chain.
- ‘OK Go’ has an awesome music video/slash web project with the folks at Play with Chrome.
We had a party!
Posted on January 9, 2012 at 5:20 pm by Rob Richards
As you’ve read in recent posts, we’ve been hiring a lot this past year, doubling the size of the company, in fact. We recently had to rent more office space downstairs in order to accomodate the entire development team. In typical MerchantOS fashion, we had a party to celebrate the opening of the MerchantOS Annex!
Now back to improving our point of sale software!
MerchantOS 2011 MixTape
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 1:51 pm by Rob Richards
It’s the end of the year, and like many, we’re looking back on 2011, the highlights, the lowlights, the mediumlights. Our team has doubled in size this year, and with that comes many different influences, no better representation of that is the 2011 MerchantOS MixTape – here for your listening pleasure…
How To Retail Giftcards
Posted on January 2, 2012 at 8:00 am by Ryan
Everything you ever wanted to know about gift cards
One thing that many retailers offer is gift cards or gift certificates, but you may not be sure how to do this in MerchantOS. We’ve seen a few original methods that our customers have tried, and while some are very creative, they ultimately do not work out. So how can you, as a MerchantOS customer, get in on the gift card craze? We have a handy-dandy point of sale software module that we can add on to your account, totally free of charge: the Gift Card Module! Okay, the name is a bit anticlimactic, but this module’s convenience and functionality more than make up for that.
For now, you will need to give our support line a quick call to get this module activated: (866) 554-2453, extension 0. It takes about ten seconds for us to enable the module, and you will be able to use it immediately. One day soon, you will have the ability to turn this on by yourself, but that feature is not yet active (it is coming down the pipes in a future update, so stay tuned).
I’ve Got the Module, Now What?
Once you’ve got the module active, it’s quite easy to use. When you want to activate a gift card, you’ll see a new button on your register called ‘Gift Card’. Go ahead and give that button a click, and you’ll be asked for the amount to put on the gift card and for a “card scan.” The card scan is the number of the gift card (we’ll cover that in more detail below), which you can enter by hand or by scanning the barcode if you have gift cards pre-printed with barcodes on them. Once that is entered, finish out the transaction like you would any other transaction.
When a customer is ready to redeem their gift card, you’ll find a ‘Gift Card’ button at the top of your ‘Done/Pay’ menu. When you click that button, you’ll be asked for a “card scan” again. Go ahead and either scan or key the card number, and that card will be used. This will update the balance stored on the card, and will pay for the customer’s purchase.
Card Numbers
The primary thing to know is that all gift cards must have a unique, 12-digit number beginning with 23. So, for example, you might have 230000000001, 230000000002, and so on. You can get gift cards with scannable barcodes (EAN-13 encoding) either from us or from a third-party printer with these codes on them, or you can enter these numbers by hand. If you’re going to enter them by hand, some shops use their seven-digit phone number instead of having to count out as many zeroes. For example, if your phone number is 555-1234, your gift card numbers might look like this: 235551234001. This allows for unique codes ending in a range from 000 to 999, which provides for a total of one thousand unique cards before you have to find a new number combination.
Other Features
The ‘Customers’ tab will have three new buttons on it if you have this module enabled. They’re fairly self-explanatory:
- Gift Cards – This button shows a list of all active (issued) gift cards and their balances
- Check Balance – Yep, it checks a card’s balance
- Recycle Card – Now this one is pretty cool. If a card reaches a zero balance and the customer doesn’t want to keep it, instead of throwing it away (and killing a plastic tree), you can use this feature to de-activate the gift card. This means the number will be ready for activation again as if it were a brand-new, unused gift card, fresh off the press.
Where Can I Buy Gift Cards?
We offer a few designs of pre-printed, inexpensive gift cards that we sell in bundles of 50 cards, $75 per bundle. We have a bike design, a fleur-de-lis, and a couple others that you can check out over at our online store.
You can order these online, or give our support line a call and we can take your order over the phone.
If you’d like more custom gift cards, you can certainly get them printed by a third-party printing company that can offer customized cards. We don’t have any such companies that we recommend specifically; as long as they can make gift cards with barcodes as described above, they should work just fine. You might want to pass this manual page along to your printer, so they can review the barcoding requirements.
Anything Else I Should Know?
The above information should wrap up the Gift Card Module quite nicely. If you do have any further questions, if you’ve gotten yourself into a pickle trying to sell gift cards in MerchantOS some other way, or if you’re just ready to start selling gift cards, feel free to give support a call or drop us an email, and we’ll help you get going.
As Murdoc would probably say at this point:
Cheers!
MerchantOS New Year’s Resolutions
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 6:00 pm by Justin Laing
This time of year is always a natural time to reflect on the past, and set goals for the future. In this vein, I’ve asked some of the folks at our company to think about their resolutions for MerchantOS in 2012.
A Look Back At 2011
We accomplished a lot this year and added a number of awesome folks to our team. In 2011 MerchantOS…
- Reached the 1,000 customer mark. We now have over 1,300 retail locations using our point of sale software. Thank You!
- Processed our One Billionth dollar in transactions. We averaged $1.4 milion per day in our point of sale system.
- Added 7 full time employees, a half timer, and an intern.
- Released 28 versions of our software with over 400 individual improvements and fixes.
- 525,570 minutes of up time, 10 slow, 20 minutes of downtime for a subset of customers. 99.994% uptime overall.
- Secured a bank loan for 2012 expansion.
- 2 awesome parties, many ping pong matches, beer-pong games, and trips to the bar downstairs. Along with 2 babies born.
Seven 2012 Apocalyptic Resolutions
It may be the end of the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still make plans:
1. Focus on making our point of sale software awesome:
I want to take our point of sale to the next level. Making it easier and more pleasant to use while adding functionality. This is a difficult balancing act but we have a good plan for how to accomplish it and I’m excited about the challenge.
2. Have Fun:
I started this company because I didn’t like the other jobs I had. There weren’t fun. It wasn’t rewarding the way I wanted it to be. In 2012 I want to make sure that everyone that works here (and hopefully our customers) have some fun, enjoy their work, and feel valued.
3. Provide the best dang support:
We spent a great deal of effort searching for awesome support heroes to hire this year (adding Ciara, Ryan, Chris, Vanessa, and Jered). We try to treat our employees like we’d want to be treated ourselves. And we ask our employees to do the same for our customers. We have fun. We also take our jobs seriously and really care about our customers and the product we give them. That’s our recipe for awesome support.
4. Hire awesome people:
We are what the people who work here make us. If we want to be awesome we have to hire awesome. We’ve already got 2 (a programmer and designer) lined for the start of the year. We’ll probably add a few more before the year is over. I’m going to make sure we take the time to hire the right people.
5. Stock pile food, gold, and guns…
To fight the zombies. Oh we might also need this.
6. Sign up another 1,000 retail locations:
This is a high bar to reach for. With purely natural growth and without any change in our marketing strategy, I’d predict we will add somewhere around 700. How will we get those extra 300?
We have a bank loan so we can spend more on Adwords, that will help. We are optimizing our sign-up process. Working on our website marketing. We want to improve the look and feel of our application while we make it easier to use and more powerful. And I’ll just give you a hint there might be something with Mobile and web based accounting systems (no promises! It’s software development, nothing is guaranteed).
7. Build a product we are proud of.
Most of all in 2012 I want to build a product we are proud of. I want to write excellent code, create awesome user interfaces, build solid and reliable server and network infrastructure, and provide awesome support.
I’m Proud Of Our Employees, And Thankful To Our Customers
Without the great people that work for us and all our customers who support us, we wouldn’t be able to take on these goals. So thank you for making this all possible!