EPoS for prisons

Pre Paid Cashless Customer Loyalty

Most notably is the prepaid cashless customer loyalty features that come as part of the touch screen till system. This allows the till system to be run without a cash drawer and with no on-site money; this is important as the inmates themselves are in charge of the day to day running of the epos till system.

The wall mounted TouchTopUp revaluation unit allows the prepaid customer loyalty account balances to be topped up with cash without any need for inmates, staff or visitors to have access to the till system itself. This is a totally secure, tamper proof unit that has its access restricted to accounts staff only.

The till system software can use various methods for customer lookup and identification. These include, but are not limited to Biometrics, fingerprints etc; Magnetic cards; RFID cards, proximity cards, name, roll id, and customer picture. In the event of a lost or stolen card, the epos software can very quickly blacklist the existing id card and reissue a new one. Images of the inmate/customer can automatically pop up on the epos systems front screen as a method of validating that they are the rightful owner of that card.

It is important that the system as a whole is incredibly easy to use. As it is mostly inmates that use and operate the epos system it is important that they can be shown how to operate the till software in as little time as possible and with no specialist training. Furthermore, with many day visitors having to make use of mess facilities it is important that they are able to make full use of the facilities with zero training. Once the epos till system has been installed in the prison it can be difficult regain access to it, for this reason, it is important that the minimum amount of training is required by the user.

It’s hard to regain 3rd party access to an EPoS till system in a prison once it’s been installed, for this reason it’s important that file maintenance of the system can be performed by prison staff with little training.

ICRTouch EPoS till systems run in Windows CE. These have the performance and integration benefits that you expect from a Windows-based till system but come with none of the security issues. ICRTouch Windows CE EPOS Systems have no internet browser on them, email clients or remote file sharing access. They are not vulnerable to the same viruses, spyware or malware as would a traditional Windows-based system. Furthermore, because they have no in-built internet browser, nor the ability to install standard Windows-based applications – despite being an onsite computer they provide no method to be used for any form of computer misuse. Prepaid customer loyalty account balances are stored and held by the epos till system and not on magnetic cards themselves etc which reduces the ability for cards to be defrauded.

ICRTouch has no need to be run with a separate server, nor access to the internet which means that the till software can be run totally standalone with no need to be connected to the prison infrastructure.

ICRTouch embedded Windows CE till systems are solid state, with no fans or hard drives. ICRTouch is one of, if not the, most stable, bug and crash free epos till software products on the market. It has more than a decade in development and use and well in excess of 30,000 licences in daily use.

ICRTouch has many in-built stock control and product movement tracking options that make it possible to ensure that the physical inventory unit movement in the premises match the sales movement recorded in the till epos software.

Overall having an ICRTouch prepaid cashless customer loyalty system installed in a prison is proven to increase turnover and massively reduce theft. But is also proven to boost morale as inmates and prison staff can be left in a much higher position of trust as there is no on-site cash handling involved.