ROBOTILL News and Updates

Our customers in South Africa are again experiencing load shedding (rolling blackouts). Running a shop or restaurant that is at times without power is not the only problem - load shedding can also damage your computer or files on your computer (including your point of sale database system files). When there is a power failure and your PC does not have a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), files can get damaged or corrupted because a proper shut down was not done. When the power comes back on the risk is even greater as there is sometimes a power surge that can damage electronic devices - damage to your computer itself (hardware) or files on your computer can get corrupted. You can follow the steps below to protect your point of sale system : Make sure you have automatic daily backups enabled. Your backups must be copied (or directly created) to an external device or the cloud (like Google Drive). Check your load shedding schedule and shut down any PC's without UPS before...

The ROBOTILL Hospitality module is now available. The hospitality module is ideal for hotels and B&B's - but will work for any industry where resources (rooms, tennis courts, equipment, technicians, etc.) needs to be booked. The hospitality module is an add-on to the ROBOTILL Point of Sale system and works with the rest of the ROBOTILL modules. That means it is backed with all the power of the ROBOTILL POS system (compound items, combo deals, loyalty program, discounts, customer accounts, etc). For more information on how it works you can have a look at the hospitality online help . The hospitality module has a free edition and can be downloaded from the ROBOTILL download page.

If you are trying to install ROBOTILL on a Windows 7 computer and you are getting the '.NET Framework Blocking Issues' error or another message about the .NET Framework, follow the steps below: Run all outstanding Windows updates on your computer. Restart your computer and check that your computer is up to date - if not, repeat the first two steps. Once your computer is up to date you can run the ROBOTILL install again - the install should now finish without a problem.  If you still have a problem, download the latest version of the .NET Framework directly from Microsoft's website and install directly. It is only on Windows 7 that you might get problems with the .NET Framework install as the .NET Framework is automatically installed on Windows 10.

ROBOTILL Version 8.07 is availalbe for download . The reporting module and the waiter ordering system has been improved. A lot is going on in the background when multiple waiters places multiple orders in a short period of time. Each order is split into departments (kitchen, bar, etc) and the orders are sent to the various department printers. We have made this process more robust. There is now also Order History You can now see what items were ordered, when and how. In the Restaurant Module, select the table(sale) and then select 'Menu'. In version 8.07 there is now a 'Order History' button. When you select it, the items that was ordered with the times will be displayed. It is also possible to view the history of ordered items for sales that has been completed. This is done in the Reporting Module. In the Reporting Module select the new 'Order History' report. You will then have to select the sale you want to view and click on 'Ru...

If you get the 'Windows protected your PC' when downloading and installing ROBOTILL, click on the 'More Info' link. In the next screen, make sure the Publisher is ROBOTILL (PTY) LTD and then click on 'Run anyway'. Why you got this message ROBOTILL is registered with an international certification authority that have verified our business. They have issued ROBOTILL with a software certificate that helps protect our users as our software is signed with the certificate.  Once a year (usually in November) we need to renew our certificate. That means we get a new certificate from the certificate authority and we sign the ROBOTILL applications with the new certificate. The new certificate needs to build up a 'good reputation' with Microsoft SmartScreen before it will automatically bypass SmartScreen. This usually only takes a couple of days - but for some reason this year it is taking much longer.  We are currently investigating why t...

ROBOTILL Reports ROBOTILL just released a new Reporting Module for its Point of Sale System . The new reports comes with various charts and all the reports can now be exported to Excel or other spreadsheets (previous versions only some reports could be exported). The main reason for the new reporting module is that it will allow us to add new reports and enhance current ones more effectively - something that was very important to us as we are planning on adding several new reports in the coming weeks. Reports are no longer availabe in ROBOTILL Manager. The new reporting module is a separate module that is automatically installed as part of the main ROBOTILL install file. If you are upgrading from a previous version you simply need to download and run the latest install file to upgrade your current version. A new 'ROBOTILL Reports' icon will be added to your desktop and a shortcut will also be added to the ROBOTILL program group. ROBOTILL Reporting Module The RO...

ROBOTILL allows you to connect multiple tills (POS Computers) and back office computers (used for management) to your Point of Sale System - as long as all the computers are connected to the same network (same WIFI or LAN). But what do you do if you want to connect to your shop or restaurant from home? Recommended option - Easy to do You can easily work remotely by installing something like TeamViewer or Anydesk on your back office PC at the shop. If you only have one computer at the shop, you can also install it on your till but that will mean you will only be able to connect remotely when the till is not in use. You can set TeamViewer or Anydesk up for unattended access, meaning you can connect remotely from home without needing someone at the shop to accept the connection. You will have full control on the back office PC, meaning you can log into ROBOTILL Back office, add or update products, run reports, do cash-up's and more. Other options to work remotely Using a VPN. If y...

ROBOTILL Version 8.05.01 has been released that includes an auto-logout feature and more options for using and allocating waiters. New in version 8.05: More options on how tables and waiters are allocated. See Restaurant Configuration in the online help .  The table selection screen can now also show customers allocated to tables. Using default tables were improved for fast food shops. New Auto-logout feature will log out a cashier/waiter if there were no user input for a specified period. The 'Sales Per Day' report now includes refunds. A problem was fixed when more than one discount were allocated to the same item. You can download the latest version of ROBOTILL here .

ROBOTILL just made upgrading to a new version of ROBOTILL easier. With previous versions you first had to uninstall your old version before you could install the new one. Now you can simply run the new install file and it will upgrade your current installation. Note that if you have a version older than ROBOTILL 8.00 you will still need to first uninstall your old version (for the last time). See the online help for more detail . ROBOTILL regularly releases new upgrades that are available and free to all users (also for the users using the Free Point of Sale Program ). We will post an update on this blog and facebook for new features that were added, but we don't always post and article on our blog or facebook for minor quality fixes and improvements. It is recommended that you upgrade to the latest version every now and then. To check what version you are using open any ROBOTILL application and click on Help > About. To see what version is available go to the ROBOTILL ...

One of our users wanted to know how they can import products using Excel from various suppliers for a market. It is small local suppliers that do not have proper product codes (PLU, SKU, barcodes, etc). They also want to allocate all the products of a supplier to a specific department in ROBOTILL. We have decided to give an example of how this can be done on our blog to also help other ROBOTILL users with a similar requirement. Deciding on how to use unique product codes When you import products using the Bulk Product Import feature of ROBOTILL it is important to use unique product codes or barcodes. When importing products from various suppliers that don't have international unique product codes, you can do one of the following: Allocate product codes yourself - this can work but will be time consuming. Ask the suppliers to allocate their own unique codes - the problem is that there might be suppliers that choose the same product code (by coincidence). You can use the o...

Loyalty programs are very popular these days. A good loyalty program will help you retain customers and increase sales. ROBOTILL now has a flexible, points-based loyalty program. When a customer card is scanned/swiped and a customer has earned enough points the new reward button will become visible to the cashier. The customer will be able to choose from a list of rewards or even have the option to convert the points to cash to help pay for the sale (the cash reward is optional and can be turned off). The customer details and points earned can be printed on the receipt to encourage the customer to come back and spend more. The loyalty program is very flexible and can be set up to work for your specific requirements. To see how to set up your loyalty program, see Loyalty Program in our online help . The loyalty program is available in the POS Retail Module and the POS Restaurant module. It is not available in the Free Edition.

Version 8.02 of the ROBOTILL Point of Sale Software system is available for download. All upgrades are free including for the users using the Free POS System . What's new in Version 8.02: The Bulk Import from Excel (or other spreadsheet programs) have been improved. More fields were added and the export is now adding text delimiters when commas are used as part of the description. Product Sales Report was improved. The report can now be filtered by Top Sellers (by quantity) and Top Sellers (by value).  Additional filters and sort options were also added. More fields were added to the Stock Receiving report. The additional fields are only available in the CSV export due to the space limitation in the main report. You can now delete Suppliers, Departments and Categories. The delete operation will not affect the history. An 'Aisle-Bin' field was added to the product set up. This is useful if a customer asks a cashier where a specific product is. The cashier can do a...

ROBOTILL will be adding a lot of POS Training videos. To make sure you don't miss anything, please subscribe to our  ROBOTILL Support Training Channel on YouTube . We published an article on this blog each time we uploaded a new training video. As we will be adding many more, we have decided to no longer publish an article each time a new video is available. Instead, you can subscribe to our channel. The videos will also be added to the various sections of our online help .

ROBOTILL Version 8.01 has been released and is available for download . Several enhancements and quality fixes has been done in the new version 8 (from version 8.00). It is suggested that all users from earlier versions upgrade but especially users that are using version 8.00.00 to version 8.00.12. The following is new in version 8.01 (from version 8.00): Keyboard usage has been improved (when not using a touch screen). See: Hot Keys and Keyboard . Product and Customer search has been improved. When you add a category as a button to the menu, you can now select multiple products at once instead of adding one at a time. See POS Menu Customer Orders has been added. See Customer Orders in the Online Help . Several quality fixes has been done.

This video show how to use scale items and other measured items like length or time in your Point of Sale application . Note that it does not show how to work with scale generated  barcodes . For that see Scale Generated  Barcodes  in the online help.

How to use order attributes in your Restaurant Software . Training video on how to use order attributes in the restaurant module to prompt the waiter for specific options for specific products. For example how the customer's steak should be done.

How to receive and sell stock in different combinations with your Retail Software using compound items. In this video we use the example of a 6 pack coke that you can sell as a 6 pack or individual coke cans. How to keep track of your stock on hand and use different product prices for the different combinations.   

The ROBOTILL Version 8 release is a major release. If you are upgrading from ROBOTILL Version 7 (or earlier versions) to version 8 please take note of the following: Normally you don't need new licence keys when upgrading, but we made some changes to our licencing system. You will need to follow the new registration instructions  to get new keys (no need to pay again). We should email the new keys withing an hour or two (but allow for up to 8 hours). For this reason we suggest you do the upgrade after close of business so that you will have the new keys before you start working again. In version 8 you no longer log into the POS apps using a username and password. Usernames and passwords is used for ROBOTILL Manager and ROBOTILL Branch. For the POS Apps you now use a user PIN. With a new install the default pin is 12345. If you however upgraded from version 7 the PIN will be the user's card number. If card numbers were not used, then the user will have no PIN and you will...