Announced in early January, ShopKeep’s new remote printing capability is being widely adopted.  While ShopKeep was at the National Retail Federation BIG Show January 16th and 17th, CEO Jason Richelson discussed the newest feature with the editor of Retail Reseller News.  Richelson said, “by putting remote printing in our iPad product, we’re adding an entirely new level of efficiency and functionality for customers in restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, retail, and other businesses,” noted Jason Richelson, CEO and Co-Founder of ShopKeep. “At peak times, for example, employees can now take orders from customers waiting in line using an iPad, and through wireless printing, merchants can instantly and efficiently relay orders to the kitchen or barista.”

Check out the rest of the Retail Reseller News here, and don’t forget to grab a remote printer for your store!

Who uses ShopKeep? Life Disc Sports, in Rockwall, Texas!

Here at ShopKeep we admire those who do something different.  While many of you have never heard of disc golf (I know I haven’t until now), the competitive sport has actually been around since the 1950’s.  With similar rules to golf, in disc golf there is a hole in one, eagle, birdie, par, bogie, double bogie, and the list goes on… This Texas disc golf shop not only sells you discs for the sport, they’ll help you understand the game and work with you to create your own custom 9 or 18 hole disc golf course. They encourage creativity, fun and a good healthy dose of competition while playing this fast growing game.

Not only do they use the ShopKeep iPad POS system in their disc shop, they use it in the Life Disc Sports Cafe, where disc golf enthusiasts come to relax and prepare for the next round.  Managing multiple Registers with ShopKeep is easy, Life Disc Sports sees sales from each register in their ShopKeep BackOffice hosted in the cloud.  Using the secure iDynamo Credit Card reader for iPad, Life Disc Sports processes your coffee, muffin, and new disk sale on their iPad in no time.  We are proud to be a small part of the Life Disc Sports community!

The iPad is a hot commodity and if you’re concerned about the security of an iPad cash register, you should worry no longer. The Rhino Elite not only bolts to your counter, it physically locks in your iPad.

The Enclosure is safe, stable, secure and made of the best aircraft-grade aluminum that is “radio transparant” so there is no interference with WiFi, 3G or Bluetooth connectivity. This iPad case fits your iPad 2 like a glove and allows your encrypted MagTek iDynamo iPad credit card swiper to nestle in and stably process credit transactions.

What’s different and pretty fantastic about this enclosure? Its 75/100mm VESA mount compatibility, which allows you to mount it on the wall, counter (or ceiling!) and have a protected front-end for your iPad POS system. Lock the iPad into the case, bolt the case to a mount, bolt the mount to a surface and you’re ready to go.

We like these VESA mounts:

Tilt Mount – Bolt this mount to the wall or counter and tilt the enclosure from employee to customer for a credit transaction finger signature on the screen.

Arm Mount - Extend this arm off the wall 17″ and swivel horizontally 300 degrees to face employee or customer.

Don’t let THIS happen to your shop, purchase one of THESE! The Enclosure is available for $149, the Tilt Mount for $65 and the Arm Mount for $95.

We always want to provide you with the best of the best hardware for your ShopKeep POS system, so if you have any questions or suggestions email hardware@shopkeep.com.

FAQ:

Q: Is this available outside the USA?

A: No, we do not support other countries at this time

Q: Can I add modifiers to items?

A: We have recently added a new kitchen printing feature for the iPad register which includes support for adding memos to items that you specify. These items, (along with their memos) are printed to the kitchen printer for the kitchen staff to fulfill the order while allowing the cashier to remain at their station. See this article for more details.

If one of your new year’s resolutions was to bring new efficiency to your shop or restaurant in 2012, we’ve got something for you—The ShopKeep Register for iPad has a new kitchen printing feature. No more running orders to the kitchen or calling out orders to the barista — now with a tap on your iPad, orders will leap wirelessly to a kitchen printer making your business less hectic and more efficient.

We’ve also included the new Smart Memo modifier feature which allows you to print notes, such as “skim milk, one sugar” on the kitchen order in red ink. Smart Memo speeds up order entry by remembering previous notes and suggesting them as orders are entered. Think of it as a modifier on steroids.

To get started, simply update ShopKeep Register though iTunes and connect a Star Micronics SP700 LAN impact printer to your wireless router. For more details about how you can ramp up new efficiency with kitchen printing, check out this entry in our knowledge base here.

If you have further questions, you can customer support at 800-820-9814, contact us by email at support@shopkeep.com or through live chat at the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

1. Identify Fake Bills
The two obvious ways to detect large fake bills ($5, $10, $20, $50, and $100) is to hold the bill up to the light. Within the inner layers of the bill, you will find an image of the president’s face and a strip that says the bill amount. Fake bills will not have this detail within, and there will be a lack of clarity when looking at the details. The image of the president’s face is particularly intricate and dark. The Federal Reserve and Treasury Seals should be clear and distinct. The border of the bill is sharp, vivid, and the lines are never blurred. The serial number is always spaced evenly and is always same color as the Federal Reserve and Treasury Seal. Also, get a counterfeit detector pen and have accessible at all times. If the mark remains a yellow color, the bill is fake. If it turns dark brown, the bill is real and you can continue your transaction.

2. Give Receipts for Money Coming In
Though receipts are not “green”, requiring employees to give receipts to customers is important for the owner to accurately track sales. By encouraging customers to expect receipts the cashier is required to enter the sale into the system, thus, the transaction is recorded within the point of sale.

3. Get Receipts for Money Going Out
Again, receipts. If there is money coming out of your store’s pocket for any reason, it should be recorded on a receipt and given to the store owner for their records. All change should be collected as well.

4. Pop the Cash Drawer
Theoretically you could use any old shoe box to keep your store’s cash throughout the day, however, by popping a cash drawer there is an additional security factor. ShopKeep designed the register to pop the cash drawer upon the completion of a transaction to limit the amount of time that the cash is not secure, and thus a shorten the amount of time for a possible theft to occur. The only way a cash drawer is opened is upon a manager’s authorization. At the end of the day, the cash drawer must match the amount that the shift close implies.

5. The Short Change Scam
Recently there has been a “short change scam” all over New York City. Someone approaches the counter to make a small purchase with a large bill. Using a confusion tactic, the cashier gets tricked into giving the customer more change than is due. Encourage your employees to count change twice before giving it to the customer.

Also, in the rare event this does happen, be sure your shop can continue operations – use your iPad as more than just a cash register. Turn it into an end to end retail solution with ShopKeep where all of your sales, customer, and inventory data is stored, secured, and protected in the cloud. This way, when you replace the device, your store is up and running right where you left off.

ShopKeep offers secure iPad POS stands perfect for your retail shop.

Many of you have asked, “What makes ShopKeep so great?” Some of you have even tweeted “What is the difference between ShopKeep and Square?” It would be unfair for those of us who work at ShopKeep to answer given we are naturally biased. From our perspective, the differences are significant and quite all encompassing. Thankfully, however, the folks at Act of Creation have recently described some of the very basic differences within “Small Storefront Showdown: Square vs. ShopKeep”.

Though we’re always adding new features, some of the improvements we make are behind the scenes. As word gets out about the advantages of ShopKeep, we are finding great increases in our user base. In order to ensure that we can meet the needs of all these new customers and more, we recently upgraded our system. The new upgrades may be imperceptible to you but will also enable us to add more features quickly and provide us with more advanced monitoring of our systems.

As upgrades roll out, it will be necessary on occasion for you to retrieve the most recent version of ShopKeep so that your features stay current. After the most recent upgrade, users of the Dashboard App need to reinstall it to get the current updates. We’ve outlined the procedure for reinstalling the app below but if you have any questions, please call us during non-emergency support hours 9 A.M. to 8 P.M. ET at (800) 820-9814, email us at support@shopkeep.com or chat with us by using the chat at the bottom right corner of our website.

How to Upgrade and Install your ShopKeep Dashboard
1. If you are an iPhone user, delete the ShopKeep Dashboard App from your iPhone.
2. On your iPhone or Android Phone, go to the App store or Marketplace and search “ShopKeep Dashboard”.
3. Select ShopKeep Dashboard and install.
4. Enter your ShopKeep store name, user name, and password.
5. Click sign in and watch your shop’s sales while you’re on the run!

Not Using the ShopKeep Dashboard App Yet?
When you are out of your shop, or not near a computer you can still keep an eye on your shop’s sales by installing the ShopKeep Dashboard App on your smartphone. Available for iPhone here and Android phones here.

On September 30th, Tekserve hosted their “Your Business, Your App” event. ShopKeep CEO Jason Richelson spoke about ShopKeep and the ability to customize ShopKeep to improve your business. If you missed the event, watch it here!