JPH02184995A - Unmanned accounting system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To reduce store operation cost without necessitating the use of casher while preventing congestion of commodity registration lanes by using a commodity registration terminal and an accounting unit to constitute the unmanned accounting system so as to separate commodity registration application from the casher application. CONSTITUTION: The customer finishes the registration of purchased commodities at each checkout lane, and receives a temporary sheets (or bills) issued from the printing section of a commodity registration terminal 20. An accounting unit 22 installed separately from the commodity registration terminal 20 receives data of registered commodities and code data designating the customer from the commodity registration terminal 20. Further, when the customer inserts the temporary receipt in the barcode reader section 5 inside the accounting unit 22, the accounting unit 22 recognizes the customer from the received barcode data, and displays a total accounted amount of purchased commodities on a display section 6. The customer, when seeing the displayed amount, pays the displayed price in cash, credit card, prepaid card, etc. With this, congestion of commodity registration lanes by customers can be prevented.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a cashless system that automates the process of receiving product payments at supermarkets and the like.

[Prior art]

Traditionally, as a means to prevent congestion in checkout lanes where products are registered using ECRs or POS terminals, two separate parties have been used to perform checker operations, which register products, and cashier operations, which transfer money. There is a discount system. Furthermore, from the perspective of reducing store operating costs, a self-checkout system in which customers perform checker work themselves or a cashierless accounting system in which cashier work is mechanized have been proposed.

In the conventional cashless accounting system, a method using a magnetic card or other 1-nox card as a means of securing payment for sold products was proposed in a patent application filed in 1983.
-330403. In other words, at the end of the product checkout, a card containing data such as the customer's ID number and total purchase amount is issued, and the customer places the card along with the purchased product at the location where the payment machine is installed. The method is to bring the pass card to the payment machine, read the pass card into the card reader in the payment machine, deposit the money into the payment section, and exit the store.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, in this conventional technology, a large number of magnetic cards,
This requires a magnetic card writing device and a magnetic card reading device, which requires a large amount of capital investment, and there are problems in implementation in terms of maintenance and management of the card itself. Therefore, in place of magnetic cards, a different means was needed to mediate between product registration and payment/receipt.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides a cashless product purchase system similar to the conventional technology by using a bar code printed on a part of a receipt etc. instead of using such a magnetic card. It is something.

The customer registers the purchased product at each checkout lane and receives a temporary receipt (or invoice) issued from the printing unit in the product registration terminal.

The item of the purchased product (product name and unit price) and total purchase price are printed on the temporary receipt, and at the bottom of the receipt, information to identify the customer such as the date, checkout lane number and serial number are printed. Print the code in the form of a barcode.

The accounting device installed separately from the product registration terminal device is
Data regarding registered products and code data identifying the customer are received from the product registration terminal device. The customer inserts the temporary receipt (or bill) into a barcode reader within the checkout device. The accounting device recognizes the customer from the read barcode data and displays the purchase accounting amount on the display. The customer pays the displayed amount using cash, Friendly Card, prepaid card, etc.

cormorant. An indication certifying receipt is printed on the temporary receipt, or a new receipt is issued if the temporary receipt is a bill. The customer exits the store after payment and authentication.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an embodiment illustrating the configuration of a product registration terminal and an accounting device that constitute an unmanned accounting system of the present invention.

The product registration terminal (20 or 21) is a device for registering products that a customer wants to purchase.

The input method of the input section (1) does not matter. keypad input,
Possible input methods include scanning a barcode. The scanning input method includes both the normal method performed by an employee of the store and the self-check method performed by the customer himself/herself. Display section (2)
is for displaying registered data such as the product name and amount of the input product to the operator or customer for input operation and confirmation of the amount. The temporary receipt issuing unit prints the details of the registered product on a portion of the printed receipt paper (for example, at the bottom) with a bar code to confirm the identity of the customer, and issues the printed receipt to the customer. The code that confirms the identity of the customer is, for example, ■The date■The number of the product registration terminal■
This is a serial number etc. for each terminal. An example of printing of a temporary receipt is shown in FIG.

(a) Id This is an example of a case where after the payment, a receipt is printed in the lower margin and the receipt is then given to the customer. This temporary receipt has a blank space for later receipt printing. (b) is an example in which an invoice is issued, a receipt is issued separately after payment, and this invoice is stored as a sales journal in the accounting device.

The code for confirming the identity of the customer and the sales information related to the code are sent from the product registration terminal to the accounting device or the central control device in the store via an in-house communication line or the like.

After completing the registration of the purchased product and receiving the temporary receipt, the customer moves to the location where the accounting device is installed.

The accounting device (22) is a device that reads the barcode of the provisional receipt and performs tasks related to payment and receipt in place of the cashier.

The barcode reader section (5) has an insertion slot on the front side of the accounting device, and reads the barcode while pulling the temporary receipt inserted by the customer into the device. The customer is identified by reading the barcode, and the accounting display section (6) displays the amount to be billed to the customer. The customer pays the billed amount to the deposit department (7). If paying in cash, deposit the money into the cash acceptance department. Credit card or prepaid
If payment is to be made by card, the card is inserted into a card reader and the PIN number is manually operated to make the payment. In the case of cash payment, if change is generated, the change payment section (8) pays the change. After receiving the purchase price, the receipt issuing department (9) displays the amount received and the amount of change in the margin of the temporary sheet (Figure 2 (a)) sent from the Bacode League department (5), and confirms its receipt. Print (or stamp) the certificate and issue the temporary receipt as a receipt. If the method of using a temporary note as a bill as shown in FIG. 2(b) is adopted, the winning sheet issuing unit prints and issues a new receipt. In this case, the invoice is stored in the accounting device and used as a journal to record sales information.

This unmanned accounting system is normally configured with a ratio of multiple product registration terminals to one accounting device.

PLU (Price Look Up) files, which enable the sharing and centralization of product data, are held in the accounting device for small-scale systems, and in a separate central control device for large-scale systems. Common.

It would be necessary to separately install an opening/closing dart or the like that is linked to the accounting device so that only customers who have paid can leave the store.

Figure 3 shows a product registration terminal (2) that uses barcode scanning input.
3 is a flow chart showing an example of a control procedure of the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in the terminal control unit (4) in FIG.

When the customer brings the purchased product to the product registration terminal and product registration begins (31), a customer code is first set (32). The content of the customer code does not matter as long as it is a code that can identify the customer. The bar attached to the product
The product code is read by scanning the code (33)
. By identifying the code, product data corresponding to the code is received from the PLU file (34 and 35).

Typically, the PLU file is stored on a device other than the product registration terminal, such as an accounting device or a separate central control device (such as an in-store processor). The received product data is sequentially registered in a purchased product registration file assigned to each customer (36). For each product registration, the unit price or product name of that product is displayed on the display section (for operators and customers) and printed by the temporary receipt issuing section (37).
. The steps from (33) to (37) t are repeated (38) until the registration of all purchased products is completed. After the registration of all purchased products is completed, the total purchase amount for the customer is calculated (39). The temporary receipt issuing department prints a temporary receipt or invoice and prints the customer code in the form of a barcode on a part of it (usually at the bottom) and issues it (40
). The customer code and its registration file data are transferred to the accounting device (41).

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing an example of the control procedure of the accounting device. FIG. 4(a) shows the procedure for storing the registration file. Purchased product data sent from the product registration terminal is stored in a registration file in the own device for each customer. FIG. 4(b) shows a control procedure regarding transfer of purchase price. When the temporary receipt is inserted into the insertion slot of the barcode reader section, the barcode reader detects it, pulls the temporary receipt into the device, and reads the barcode (53 and 54). The customer's purchased product data file corresponding to the barcode is read out from the registered file (55), and the total purchase amount is displayed on the accounting display section (56). After completing the payment procedure by cash or credit card, etc. (57 and 5)
8) The temporary receipt issuing department prints a message indicating that it has been received on the temporary receipt sent from the barcode reader section, or prints a new receipt and issues it to the customer (6)
0).

Customers who have a printed receipt indicating that the item has been received may leave the store.

〔Effect of the invention〕

The present invention unmannes the cashier work in the two major POS systems, and by separating the product registration work and the cashier work, it is possible to prevent congestion in the product registration lane, and also to eliminate the need for a cashier, thereby reducing store operating costs. In addition, compared to the conventional method using magnetic cards, a large number of magnetic cards, a magnetic card writing device, and a magnetic card reading device are equipped with a barcode printing function that can print temporary receipts and ordinary dot printers. By replacing printing devices and barcode reader devices, we built an inexpensive and simple unmanned accounting system, making it possible to significantly reduce capital investment and operating costs. Also, in terms of safety, since no amount data is printed on the barcode on the temporary receipt, fraudulent activity due to falsification of the barcode can be prevented.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an unmanned accounting system according to the present invention, FIG. 2(a) is an example of printing a temporary receipt, and FIG. 2(b) is an example of printing an invoice.
Fig. 3 is a flowchart of the control procedure in the terminal control unit in the product registration terminal, and Fig. 4 is a flowchart of the control procedure of the accounting device, in which the registration file storage procedure is shown in parentheses.
(b) shows a control procedure regarding transfer of purchase price within the same device. In the figure, 1 is the input section of the product registration terminal, 2 is the display section, 3 is the provisional receipt issuing section, 4 is the terminal control section, 5 is the barcode/IJ-da section of the accounting device, and 6 is the accounting section A display section, 7 a doujin cash section, 8 a change payment section, 9 a receipt issuing section, 20 and 21 product registration terminals, 22 an accounting device, and 23 a central control device. Application agent Isao Saito jshi [≦1 figure] Kaku1≧Minomi, I2≧J1 Satoshi → Tonshi and Mizomiko... Nna I11〆t+m (1) Ira receipt Wholesale Uizuki (b) i bar Rendou minisa i Insho example stem 30 A, u mairi 4 Yuryona y-tsu direction (accumulation A included negative flowi?-
p-)-(A)

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) Regarding cash registration operations in product sales transactions, there is an input section for registering purchased products, a display section for displaying the registered contents, and a barcode printing of the registered contents as well as a code to confirm the identity of the customer. a product registration terminal consisting of a provisional receipt issuing unit and a terminal control unit that controls these; a barcode reader unit that reads the barcode on the receipt; an accounting display unit that displays the amount charged to the customer; An unmanned accounting system comprising an accounting device consisting of an input unit for receiving payment, a change payment unit, a receipt issuing unit for authenticating the receipt of money on the receipt, and an accounting control unit for controlling these. (2) The provisional receipt issuing unit which is a component of the product registration terminal in the previous claim is an invoice issuing unit, and after the invoice is read into the barcode reader of the accounting device, it is stored in the accounting machine. , the receipt issuing section within the accounting device is an unmanned accounting system that prints and issues new receipts.