Avero & PAR PixelPoint POS
PixelPoint is supported for Sales data, Labor data, and Right Now Sales data.
Avero processes and presents data from your PAR PixelPoint POS for your analysis and insight. This article details 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 PixelPoint POS
- Installation & Reinstallation
- Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes
- Common Problems
- Frequently Asked Questions About PixelPoint
About PixelPoint POS
POS Type: On-Premise
Avero is proud to offer Free Installation & Reinstallation for PixelPoint, and most POS systems.
PixelPoint 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 PixelPoint & Avero
Avero does not consider taxes to be sales, so if Inclusive Tax or VAT is used you may see variation in your sales figures when compared to PixelPoint reports. Additionally, these taxes will not be included in discounts, so if they are in use you may notice variation in discount totals when comparing Avero to POS reports.
Installation & Reinstallation on PixelPoint
POS Code: pixelpoint
PixelPoint is a common POS system and is in use by many customers. 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 to PixelPoint 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 and has 5 major 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).
- Our robust integration with PixelPoint also includes the option to install our Right Now Agent to deliver sales in real-time via our mobile app. If your server meets the Minimum System Requirements (available memory, CPU usage, etc) you can continue to Install Avero Right Now after the DEU is installed!
Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes for PixelPoint
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 PixelPoint
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 PixelPoint, these will not automatically flow into Avero, you must update the meal periods in your DEU Options.
To update meal periods in PixelPoint:
- 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 PixelPoint
You can change or add revenue centers to your PixelPoint 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. Avero Support cannot change or edit your revenue centers for you.
Categories & Items in PixelPoint
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 PixelPoint- 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, changing minor to major category relationships.
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.
PixelPoint 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 your system, 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.
Simple instructions that take less than three minutes are found here, see On-Premise Data Recovery: Missing / Incorrect Data
Data Discrepancies - Avero's sales data is not matching PixelPoint
If you notice your sales data is not matching up with your PixelPoint 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 the Differences between PixelPoint & Avero to make sure this isn't the discrepancy you are noticing.
- Run a Daily Sales Report from PixelPoint 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 PixelPoint
Why don't Avero's sales look the same as my PixelPoint reports?
Avero and PixelPoint may have some variances in reports, especially if Inclusive Taxes or VAT are used, as Avero does not include taxes as sales, and discount may vary by this tax amount as well.
Is there any information PixelPoint doesn't export to Avero?
There are some data limitations you may notice based on what we receive from PixelPoint.
PixelPoint does not send the following data points:
- Transferred Check Information
- $0 Modifiers (Read more about this here: Modifiers)
- Payment reference information (such as notes, Customer Name, etc, type and amount are available)
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 PixelPoint 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 credit card numbers, and reference information such as Customer Name or Last 4 of CC are not available.
Can I pull back / historical data from my PixelPoint 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 PixelPoint servers varies, but typically at least 90 days are available.
Instructions on running the data extraction are here: Missing / Incorrect Data