The cash drawer works by using the “Windward Point of Sale Device Manager” Click here to search our self help online resources for this topic. It interfaces with your hardware through your Windows operating system to tell your drawer to perform the drawer kick operation.

The normal config for a cash drawer is for it to connect via a special phone style cable to a receipt printer. This is commonly the Epson TM88IV and simular printers. THere is a drawer kick code sent to the printer from the POS Device Manager that siginals the printer to kick the drawer.

Who are the devolopers that work on cash drawer issues?

• Craig Ralph

There are a few different things you can do to validate the problem and eliminate certain problems when it comes to cash drawers.

The point of sale device manager asks for the registry entry for tender types just before it makes the drawer kick.

Basically we want to make sure they are running the same version on POS Device Manager as they are on Windward. If not, there could be something to that.

Click here to link to an article on opening the cash drawer by tender type

If you can kick the drawer by using the Open Drawer button, then we know that the drawer is properly connected and operational on the physical side of things. From there we can limit the problem to being on the “Hardware” side or on The “Software” side. If the drawer kicks then the problem is on the “Software” side. We can further reduce the problem by finding out whether System Five is trying to kick the drawer. There is a great troubleshooting method for this. We turn on the Cash drawer sound. Use the link below to learn more about configuring the sound. If the system makes the sound, then it is trying to send the drawer kick to the printer, but something got in the way between closing the sale and the POS Device Manager trying to kick the drawer. Make sure you can hear sound on your computer or you won't be able to hear the cash drawer.

Click here to see how to set up the cash drawer sound

http://keyhut.com/popopen.htm
Sometimes the printer needs a CR LF afterwards to clear the printer line buffer eg “7 CR LF”

• Use Keyboard Wedge Credit Card Scanner: Checked
• Ask for Credit Card Information: Checked
• A, M, and V are checked. These are the tender types associated to credit cards for the gathering of Credit Card information
• Check Tender Types to see that the tender type you are using is enabled. Ex: V, and M are enabled

The path and version of the POS Device Manager should be the same as System Five. To get this information go to help about and scroll down. See the example below.

WindwardPOS Device manager WindwardPOS.exe   GUID: {0CE131E7-3ED4-471B-837A-E74CF735F533}   C:\Windward\System5_v6\bin\WindwardPOS.exe Certificate ok   Version 6.0.0.19

There are some checks you can do in the Registry. If we go to the registry key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Windward > Devices” we look at the variable for “DRAWER TENDER”. The tender type in question should show here as one of the letters.

We are looking in the registry because the POS Device Manager saves its settings in the registry. Another indicator that things are properly saved in the registry is that when you close and re-open the POS Device Manager the setting changes you made would have been saved and reloaded correctly.

In the POS Device Manager there is a tab to the far right called events. This can tell you as well whether the POS Device Manager thinks that it is sending the drawer kick. Example content below. The “Drawer Settings: Open Drawer→(Generic / Text Only) [7]” or simular would indicate that the POS Device Manager tried to kick the drawer, but it does not show. This means that the request from the registry isn't coming up with the correct results or the information is being lost between System Five and the POS Device Manager.

Help File: C:\Windward\SYSTEM5\bin\System5.chm Macro: Windward
Macro: Supervisor Macro: Enable Drawer Macro: LockDrawer Macro: Supervisor Macro: EnableDrawer Drawer Settings: Device Drawer Settings Open Drawer Settings: Device Drawer Settings Closed

Picture:

Nothing else has worked and we can't see any registry problems. This wouldn't be the first time we've seen wierd registry security issues, or corrupt keys causing problems. How do we tell the difference? To start off Test in your demo. In this case you would have to have a cash drawer and printer to use. Then get the customers data, and test the problem on your PC. Make sure you do the same test. See notes below for testing of this in my Demo, and using their data.

I used an SNBC BTP-M280B receipt printer that is USB. I connected a generic cash drawer with the phone type connector that goes to the slip printer. All tests including the CC transaction worked. My demo didn't have CC Authorization though. I then tested using the customers data using my credit card. I did a $0.01 transaction, and it kicked the drawer. 

So you have tested everything above, and it still doesn't work. There must be some sort of issue with the request to the registry, and what is returned for the visa transaction. There is a difference in behavior from the C type to the V type transaction. It is later in the string that is read from the registry key. The real question now is “what can we do next?”

• We can delete the entire registry key for Windward and re-link to the data. This might clean things out, and make the possible registry issue no longer a problem
• We can take this same data to another PC, which will verify that the problem is with the OS. It is not likely a hardware problem because the drawer can kick, and the differences in testing scenarios is is all about OS, and Software types.

It is important to check that the POS Device Manager does not have any conflicts. I don't really know what this means, I should explain it better. Maybe Craig will know.

• In one example the Visa description in tender types within the POS Device manager does not show. Not sure what this means yet.

There is some new logging to be added for the purpose of debugging. I don't yet know how this will work, but it will most likely take advantage of the logging command line option in System Five. This is the only way we can further look into this problem. To turn on logging take a look at this link click here