Receipt Printers

In the good old days most till receipt printers were ink based. A narrow roll of receipt was printed on by a dot matrix arrangement via some sort of ribbon. Virtually every type of receipt printer had its own type of ribbon. Getting hold of replacements was a regular source of fun.

With the advent of the thermal receipt printer things got a whole lot easier. The standard Epson TM-88 thermal receipt printer is found in a large percentage of retail installations. The paper is a wide thermal roll, available from a variety of suppliers and is quick and simple to replace.

Most retail EPOS software will support only a few different models of printer so make sure you buy a compatible one.

The actual design and content of the receipt is controlled by the EPOS software or the electronic cash register. Most systems will allow some degree of control over the content of the receipt.

Most modern thermal receipt printers also have a built in facility to print barcodes. This is very useful – most epos software will print the reference number of the sale as a barcode, so refunding the sale is simply a case of scanning the customers receipt.

Thermal paper does have the side effect of fading. After a few days scrunched up in a warm damp pocket or wallet, the print will rapidly deteriorate and become unreadable. Leaving a thermal receipt in daylight will also result in rapid fading. I am amazed that this doesn’t cause more of a problem than it does.

Most systems will also allow you to add extra information to the receipt such as a website address. However, adding a company logo or other graphical branding is more complicated. A receipt header logo is actually stored in the brain of the receipt printer itself. Normally, a special bit of software (available from the printer manufacturer) is required to change this logo. Some EPOS system programmers have been clever enough to allow you to program the logo into printers via the EPOS software – but this is the exception rather than the norm. Remember that the logo is programmed into the printer, so if you buy a new printer or swap in a spare, chances are the printer will stop producing the logo.

The graphic you wish to us for the logo usually has to be a specific size and colour depth. There is normally a certain amount of iterative fiddling about required before a particular graphics file is adapted to produce a good result when printed as a logo on a thermal receipt printer. Do not be surprised if your EPOS supplier charges you extra for sorting out the logo. Any competent IT department ought to be capable of figuring out how to re-program a logo, but you’ll be easy shocked how useless some “IT people” can be in practise.

Most modern receipt printers have a cutting facility to “chop” the receipt when it has finished printing. However, this chop will only happen if your EPOS software or ECR is setup to deliver the required command to the printer. If the software doesn’t send the command, it won’t print. If a particular bit of EPOS software doesn’t support this functionality, you should complain bitterly, as it is a basic requirement: Torn receipts do not make for happy customers.

More modern thermal receipt printers have the capacity to print on both sides of the paper. Supermarkets are quite keen on this technology. Whilst this results in much shorter receipts, the paper has to be two-sided. The EPOS software also needs to be programmed to support double sided printing.

It is also possible to get your company logo, marketing messages and adverts for hamburgers pre-printed on the rear of your till rolls. This service is very expensive unless done on a very large scale, so is normally the domain of big chains.

Like barcode printers, a thermal receipt printers can connect to your computer by Parallel (almost dead now), serial/RS232 or USB. Make sure you buy something that is supported by your EPOS software. Suprisingly you do not have to have a printer driver installed to use the receipt printer. A lot of EPOS software will write directly to the COM port and out to the printer. However, this is starting to give way to proper printer drivers and common interfaces such as OPOS. Using a printer driver and a bit of IT cunning you can also share one receipt printer between two computers – or make a computer print out to a remote receipt printer e.g. kitchen printer.

A lot of older printers using narrow paper made a second copy of the receipt on a audit roll. Whilst you can still get printers of this nature, they are uncommon. Modern EPOS systems make the audit roll redundant. The computer is your audit roll. If you are really paranoid you’re welcome to print out daily sales reports and put them in a file.

Some older printers also featured a complicated system for printing cheques. Again, this function needs to be supported by your EPOS software to be usable. These days cheques are rapidly being phased out, and, unless most of your customers are trade, it is not worth considering.

Generally the standard Epson TM-88 family of printers are the way to go. The genuine Epson models are usually more expensive (>£200) however, most of the cheap copies are not worth the trouble: They can be very unreliable. Insist on genuine Epson products, even if it costs you more.