CACTAS point of sale function has taken full advantage of proven computer automation technology from the private sector. Such things as bar code scanning, magnetic stripe technology and electronic signature capture are important ingredients of private sector retail automation; and they are now fully utilized by CACTAS in corrections. Whether your unit uses an order bagging operation or sells through a store window, CACTAS offers a sales application that can optimize your employee and inmate resources. If selling through a store, the CACTAS front end offers a system that is so secure and so easy to use that inmates can be used as register operators. They are used successfully in several of our CACTAS installations and they can be utilized successfully in your operation. For units who choose to bag orders, our design guarantees the maximum in order processing efficiency and accuracy by utilizing an OMR bubble sheet scanner interface and hand held PDA devices to process and deliver your bagged commissary orders.

CACTAS offers the ultimate in canteen sales support. Each step in the sales process is performed with optimum speed and accuracy. Account identification can be accomplished by swiping the encoded magnetic stripe from an ID card, reading the bar code from a wristband, entering account number with key strokes, or simply utilizing an alpha search on the inmate name. Once the account identification process is complete, individual items are sold by either reading their UPC bar code with a bar code reader, entering the item number from a keyboard numeric pad, or the user may use an item lookup capability with choice of either item number or description as the search string.

When inmate operators are utilized, the CACTAS register is crippled such that it is capable of running only the sales application. This is accomplished through function provided by utilizing the Windows XP Group Policy functionality (Windows Policy Editor in older versions of Windows). This makes it impossible to accomplish anything except a sales transaction from this machine, and thus the use of inmate operators is feasible and economically attractive.

The CACTAS sales application utilizes a full screen monitor that clearly displays the sales transaction as it is created. A store level user option is provided that will allow or block item sales that potentially drive the store quantity on hand into a negative value. Units who enter commissary orders remotely prior to pick will probably choose to not allow inventory overdraw; while those units selling from a store front environment would want to allow overdraw to proceed. A line item void feature is available plus repeat of last item sale is accomplished by simply pressing the enter key. A quantity key feature allows sales of large quantities of the same item to be accomplished quickly and easily.

A receipt of each sales transaction is always printed on a receipt printer plus an electronic image of the sales receipt is written to the CACTAS SQL Server database. The SQL sales transaction tables become the source data for report queries and audits of sales data.

For operations that do not use inmate operators, CACTAS offers a return sale capability. A return is invoked by entering the sale quantity as negative followed by scanning the item to be returned. The results of a return are that the item is added back to the quantity on hand and the purchaser's account is issued a credit. Following each transaction, the purchaser's account is updated in real time mode with the appropriate debit or credit. A credit would result only if the volume returned to stock outweighs the sales volume. A sales reverse transaction is also available that will credit an entire sales transaction back to stock and leave the inmate trust account and store inventory values just as they were before the sale. This function is particularly useful for rejected or undeliverable commissary orders. Special sale items are automatically accounted for when flagged as special items on the CACTAS item table. Special items are products whose purchase may exceed inmate spending limits but not total POS fund balances.

Other functions that are available from the sales application include spending limit management, restricted item sales, and indigent item distribution. The CACTAS sales module may reject an entire sale or some portion of a sale for any one of three reasons. These reasons are (1) the purchaser has insufficient funds in the POS trust fund account, (2) the purchaser has exceeded his/her spending limit, or (3) the purchaser's account is coded such that it is barred from purchasing some set of restricted items. When any of these conditions are present, CACTAS simply rejects the item or items in violation. An unlimited number of restrictions or group restrictions may be placed on item, categories of items, or sub-categories of items. The CACTAS indigent item distribution function is a special type of restriction. These items are distributed to indigent inmates periodically from the normal sales function. The set of items allowed, their frequency of distribution, and the financial conditions defining an indigent inmate are all user defined and tracked in real time by the system.