Glossary of EPOS Terminology
EPoS
Electronic point of sale, a generic term relating to the hardware and software at the point of sale.
Ethernet
A cabling and signalling specification – currently the most widely used LAN (local area network) technology.
IPoS
Integrated point of sale.
LCD
Liquid Crystal Display
OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer.
PoP
Point of Purchase, the part of the store where the customers will make their selection of goods.
PoS
Point of sale, refers to the place where transactions are
processed, is also refereed to the cash register/till.
OPOS
Ole for Point of Sale. A programming standard for the development of Point-of- Sales (PoS) terminal applications.
TFT Display
Thin Film Transistor display. A type of flat panel display.
USB
Universal Serial Bus (high-speed serial communications
between digital devices). A method of connecting peripherals to computers.
Receipt printer
For printing receipts, a receipt printer is necessary for all point of sale systems. There are many choices of printers available, such as thermal printers or impact printer, and many different features are offered, such as automatic paper cutters, and parallel or serial ports.
Thermal transfer printer
A printer that uses thermal ribbons for printing. The
thermal head heats up the thermal ribbon and then transfers the image on to the
paper Only used in label printer.
Direct thermal printer
A printer that prints onto special thermally coated paper. The thermal head has direct contact with the thermal paper, which cause the item to be printed.
A technology that uses white spaces and black bars to represent encoded information. This encoded information can then be read with an optical device that converts the bars and spaces into an electrical signal, which is then decoded into the original characters.
Bar Code Reader Device
Light pen, Laser gun, Fixed scanner, etc. Used to read a bar code.
CCD
Charge Coupled Device. Type of bar code scanner that uses LED’s (not lasers) to flood the bar code with light.
Character Set
Characters available for encoding in a particular bar code type. Not all bar code types can encode the entire ASCII character set.
Decoder
As part of a bar code reading system, the electronics that process the signals from the scanner, interpret the signals into meaningful data, and control the interface to other devices.
Moving beam scanner
A device where scanning is achieved by mechanically moving a light beam through the bars of a bar code field.
Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR)
A device that can read and decode the magnetic stripes on the backs of credit cards, etc.
Omni-directional
When the barcode can be presented to the scanner and read in any orientation.
Scanner
An electro/optical device that converts the bars and spaces of a bar code field into electrical signals.
Symbology
A set of rules defining the encoding of conventional data into a barcode form.
Cash drawer
A solid metal box attached to a point of sale system that opens at the completion of a sale. Cash drawers come in a variety of sizes, some with slots in the front for credit card slips or cheques.
Floor limit
Floor limits are set by merchant services and other card schemes, and will be set according to the type of business, fraud risk, and the average spend per customer transaction. When a transaction is above your floor limit (which may also be called a fallback limit), it is vital the transaction is authorised. If it isn't, you risk receiving a charge back or losing money if it turns out to be fraudulent.
PDQ terminal
PDQ stands for Process Data Quickly and refers to the electronic processing system used to process credit and debit card transactions.
PIN
PIN stands for Personal Identification Number used to identify a user on a system.