Avero & POSiTouch POS
POSiTouch is supported for Sales data and Labor data.
Avero processes and presents data from your POSiTouch POS for your analysis and insight. Here we detail how to handle POS changes, make updates to this data, and how to handle discrepancies or problems you might encounter. For some things, such as adding meal periods or revenue centers, you must complete the action on your side in order for it to be reflected in Avero (maybe with the help of your POS reseller or IT technician) and for some changes, such as global category associations, you'll need to reach out to our support team.
In this article:
- About POSiTouch POS
- Programming for Data Quality
- Installation & Reinstallation
- Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes
- Common Problems
- Frequently Asked Questions About POSiTouch
About POSiTouch POS
POS Type: On-Premise
Avero is proud to offer Free Installation & Reinstallation for POSiTouch, and most POS systems.
POSiTouch is an on-premise system, meaning there is a server on-site at your restaurant that runs your point of sale. Avero's data extraction utility is installed on this server and each day runs the data from yesterday and transmits it to Avero to load into the platform that you can access via the web or in an app on your phone or tablet.
Differences between POSiTouch & Avero
Some POSiTouch configurations total taxes on discounts, which can throw off the matching of Gross and Net Sales. Voided checks can create a variance in Cover Counts because POSiTouch creates a record with the same check number, start date, but zero (0) cover count and can throw off our query.
Item Sales Time for POSiTouch is determined by Check Open time, this may mean that your Sales by Hour Report does not exactly match the hours in which individual items were sold.
Installation & Reinstallation on POSiTouch
POS Code: positouc
POSiTouch is an on-premise POS system. We allow our customers to save on the wait time and cost of an assisted installation by providing a supported installation process instead. If you are moving from another POS, installing Avero on your system for the first time, or reinstalling after a server upgrade or change, you can simply and easily perform the installation! Or your POS reseller can install the Avero Data Extraction Utility at the time they perform your server change or upgrade. Avero installation takes only a few minutes.
Avero must be installed on the POS Driver and not the Back Office Computer. This is important to ensure data transfers smoothly. POSDrvr is a separate terminal that has Spcwin on it and is mapped to the L drive. Spcwin looks like a menu window that cannot be closed.
There are 4 basic steps:
- Prepare for the installation. This means following our Pre-Install Checklist which will make sure you have the access needed and that our interactions will be marked safe by your system security by whitelisting Avero in your firewall (IT or your POS reseller can assist with this!).
- Retrieve your business information from our support team: Open a Reinstall Ticket
- Proceed to follow our Avero Installation Instructions. (8-12 minutes)
- Input Meal Period Information (pop-up window during Install).
Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes for POSiTouch
When changes or updates are needed who is responsible? If something appears incorrect or out-of-date, how should it be updated?
Change or Add a Meal Period in POSiTouch
Meal periods for your POS are hard-coded in Avero's data extractor at the time of your install. During installation, a pop-up window appears for you to input your meal periods. If changes are made to meal periods in POSiTouch, these will not automatically flow into Avero, you must update the meal periods in your DEU Options.
To update meal periods in POSiTouch:
- Open the Avero DEU, select Options. (Note: If Options requires a password, you need to update your DEU. An update takes 2-5 minutes: DEU Update)
- In the Options menu, select 'Point of Sale' and go to Miscellaneous tab. Click 'Set POS Parameters' to open the meal periods menu:
- In the Meal Periods screen, update the meal periods according to what has changed.
- Set the Open Time - this will be the start of your first meal period of the day.
- Provide a Name and End Time for each meal period for each day of the week.
- Meal Periods must use 24 hour time. Example: Lunch ends at 16:00 which is 4pm.
- Every meal period requires an end time every day. If you Have Breakfast and Lunch Monday-Friday but Brunch on Saturday/Sunday. End Breakfast one minute after opening and Lunch one minute after Breakfast on weekend days.
- The last meal period of the day must end 1 minute before open time.
- Select Done to close meal periods, then Apply and OK to close options.
Important to note - Meal Period changes/additions will not automatically update your logbook or saved reports.
Change or Add a Revenue Center in POSiTouch
You can change or add revenue centers to your POS configuration and see them reflected in Avero as soon as the next day. Changing a revenue center's name will only affect the data moving forward.
To add a revenue center, or move a revenue center from one outlet to another in Avero, use our Business Mapping Instructions
To add a new outlet for revenue centers to be routed to, open a ticket with Avero Support to create the new outlet. They will provide you then information to complete Business Mapping Instructions.
To change an outlet name, open a ticket with Avero Support. Changing the name of a revenue center must be done in your POS, but the business it reports to ('Business' box in report generator, name on the logbook) will be changed by Avero.
To remove an outlet, open a ticket with Avero Support to request it be removed from Avero. Doing so will remove access to the historical data which you may want for reports on previous years and cannot be undone, so be sure this is what you want before requesting.
Categories & Items in POSiTouch
Avero provides the following Global categories: Beverage, Food, Misc., Other, and Retail. The major and minor categories come from your POS.
To make changes to items you'll need to update your POS - changing an item name, price, or moving it between categories.
To make changes to major/minor categories you'll need to update your POS - changing category names, updating which items are in a category, making categories more specific.
To make changes to global categories, you'll need to open a ticket and request Avero makes the change. For example, if Appetizers are appearing under Beverage and need to be moved to Food.
When creating new Categories, they may default to Other and require a ticket to update this mapping.
To read more see: Categories
Common Problems
It is very important to keep an active connection to your POS server should you ever need Avero Support to access the server and assist. Please visit our article on Remote Access to On-site Servers. Make sure this is set up on the POS DRIVER which is where Avero is installed, and NOT the back office computer.
POSiTouch Missing Data
Missing data happens. We invest ourselves continuously into making this process faster and more reliable, but it is not, and will never be, error-proof. The internet goes down; equipment fails, bugs pop up, etc. Occasional delays are to be expected. For POSiTouch systems, we provide you the ability to recover your own data on-demand, any time you notice it missing, in just a couple of clicks. This data is processed and loaded into the Avero platform automatically within 2 hours, so you don't have to wait for a support agent, have any back and forth, or wait an entire day to rerun your reports. You are able to select the date on a calendar and send it - which means you have your data when you need it.
If any report window is open, or if an application (POSiTouch or 3rd party) is using any of the core extraction programs, it can cause Avero's extraction to fail! Be certain to close all report windows when finished to avoid this. If you find you are missing data, make sure all windows are closed before attempting to resend.
Simple instructions that take less than three minutes are found here, see On-Premise Data Recovery: Missing / Incorrect Data
Special Note: If your end of day is not closed in POSiTouch this can result in missing data. Make sure you are closing end of day daily.
Data Discrepancies - Avero's sales data is not matching POSiTouch
If you notice your sales data is not matching up with your POS reports, there are three actions you need to complete:
- Make sure the data discrepancy exists in Avero by logging in and running a sales report. If you notice incorrect data in an emailed report, it may be related to email settings and not the data itself. See our troubleshooting guide: Troubleshooting Email Reports with Missing or Incomplete Data
- Review our article on
- Run a Daily Sales Report from POSiTouch for the date in question, Open a Data Ticket, attach the report and explain the discrepancy. Make sure to include the report, the date, and the revenue center or location if you have access to several, as well as any examples you can provide.
Our team investigates all data discrepancies - due to the nature of our daily data extraction a single date and single-day sales report must be provided. We cannot investigate date ranges, but it is helpful to know if the issue is recurring and you can provide multiple dates.
Frequently Asked Questions About POSiTouch
Why don't Avero's sales look the same as my POSiTouch reports?
Some POSiTouch configurations total taxes on discounts, which can throw off the matching of Gross and Net Sales. Voided checks can create a variance in Cover Counts because POSiTouch creates a record with the same check number, start date, but zero (0) cover count and can throw off our query.
Is there any information POSiTouch doesn't export to Avero?
There are some data limitations you may notice based on what we receive from POSiTouch.
POSiTouch does not provide:
- Information on 'Order Type'
- Information on Transferred Checks
- $0 Modifiers (read more about this here: Modifiers)
- Labor: Credit Card Tips
- Item Transaction Time, so Check Open time is used for sales by hour
Why do I recover missing data myself?
We've invested in improvements to our data extraction capabilities and documentation so that it is easy for users to recover their data without relying on a back-and-forth with support. We believe this creates a better user experience. Now, when users on-site follow the instructions to recover data (it takes less than 1 minute) they get immediate results and the data is loaded into the Avero platform within 2 hours. You can also open a ticket to recover missing data, but it will not load until the next day.
Does Avero pull credit card information from my POSiTouch system?
No. Avero pulls payment type information, such as what type of card is used and the amount of the payment from all systems. We do not have access to, collect, or store full or partial credit card numbers, customer names, or any such identifying information from POSiTouch.
Can I pull back / historical data from my POSiTouch server?
Yes! If you are a new customer, are missing recent data, or have just added a new profit center that already had sales that weren't loaded to Avero, you can run the data extraction for previous dates. The data that is available and extractable on Infogenesis servers varies, but typically at least 90 days are available.
Instructions on running the data extraction are here: Missing / Incorrect Data
Do any other apps or processes interfere with Avero's data extraction from POSiTouch?
They can. POSiTouch relies on utilities called tarw.exe and chktodbf.exe to generate POSiTouch reports. Avero and other third-party applications also use these to extract data to the programs you use (such as Avero and HotSchedules). If any report window is open, or if an application (POSiTouch or 3rd party) is using any of these programs, it can cause Avero's extraction to fail! Be certain to close all report windows when finished to avoid this. If you find you are missing data, make sure all windows are closed before attempting to resend.