Cashless Catering Systems

[Sylv3r]

Hello

 

I am looking into a Cashless Catering System for our school - does anybody have any recommendations of which system to use and which not to use.

 

Thanks

[GrumbleDook]

Jumping the gun on a few things a little ... but have a look at http://www.ict-register.net and search for cashless catering and you will find a heap of schools that can give advice ...

 

I used to work in one school that had it, the smart cards were non-standard and we were tied in with a particular system that either worked well or when it was bad ... it was very bad for short periods.

 

Make sure you go with a company that has damn good support because once you go down that route your hands are seriously tied if there is a problem

[Face-Man]

Hi,

 

We had a cashless sytem bought for us by the LEA. Who then failed to include on going support costs :twisted: . But it has worked really well and any issues have been delt with effectivly. The company is uniware and we have had it running for over 4 years so are looking to upgrade and will go back to them.

[SpuffMonkey]

Hi - this tread seems to have died - are there no others of you using a Cashless setup? We're considering ditching the truly awful systems for Cashless and Swipe Cards that we have (from a company called London Systems) and would be interested in any success stories on cashless, swipe cards and turnstile entry.

 

Cheers

[beeswax]

I did see your post but never got round to replying. we use a system provided by this company - http://www.nrsltd.com.

everything is provided by the company, including a server, software, cashless tills, and boxes which are fixed to appropriate walls where pupils/staff can swipe their cards and drop coins into a slot to add credit to their cards. for folding money, we have a couple of machines in finance with their software installed and you just pop down, give the secretary your name, card number and cash, they'll fill in the appropriate boxes and away you go.

The only drawback, if it such, is that everything's third party, we don't get involved, from installation to maintenance.

I can't give you a price on this though, you'll have to go through the company.

hope this helps

beeswax

[sahmeepee]

Ours is from a company called Infineer. It works fine mostly, but does have a few technical hitches from time to time. Support is fairly quick and they aren't afraid to visit, but they often want to charge for fixing problems which I would deem to be their fault.

 

I believe a lot of the problems our school had initially were caused by slightly overkeen sales reps selling us features which hadn't been implemented yet. People buying from them now could probably expect an easier ride.

[paul]

We use a system developed by a company called easytrace http://www.easytrace.co.uk/cashlesscatering.htm they provide and install everything from server to cashloaders.

 

Once setup works a treat!

[Ric_]

I specced the system that paul mentions and when shopping around there was one thing in particular that was worth noting - the communication method used.

 

Some systems still use serial communication rather than IP-based which can hamper expansion and cause problems if the admin is done a long way from the canteen. It also limits your options for installation of the cash loaders.

 

Most systems will also integrate with electronic registration systems too so if you use/plan to use a card-based registration system you should get one that will tie in. Steer clear of fingerprint readers since they are unreliable and very slow - remember that the idea is to speed up the payment process!

[Sylv3r]

Just thought I would bring this thread back from the dead. We are still considering Biometrics for our Cashless Catering system and will be looking to install a system ready for after the October half term giving parents time to pre pay money into accounts etc. We have passed all information to parents regarding the purchase of a biometrics system through newsletters and feedback from parents has been positive.

 

The two companies we are looking at are:

 

Nationwide --> Nationwide Retail Systems

 

CRB --> Home of the Impact Cashless Catering Payment System - CRB Solutions

 

We have visited a couple of schools up and down the country with both systems and all schools seem happy with the company they have chosen. Has anybody else used any of the above companies for a biometrics system and have anything good or bad to say? If you would prefer to send me a PM that is also fine.

 

Does anybody use parentpay for online payments to the school also? - I'd be interested to hear how this has gone also - the less administration for us the better.

 

Thanks

[Grommit]

We use Easytrace and it works very well and their supprt is good as well.. We use Parentpay for online paying and it also works well.... Parents that do not have Internat AAccess can apply for a Pay Point Card and they can then top up at the corner shop..

 

What you have to look at with a cashless System is does it speak to SIMS / CMIS etc and Easytrace does...

Edited May 30, 2008 by Grommit

[FN-GM]

My school was the first in the country to introduce the biometric cashless system, we use Nationwide. We don’t have any problems it just works. The only attention it needs are jammed coins in the revals.

 

If you want to have a talk about it please feel free to PM me and you can talk to the kitchen staff etc.

 

We are also implementing a biometric door entry system is been that successful

[dezt]

We use the Impact system here, so far we've had no problems with it, but we've only had it since the Easter holidays.

 

It runs off fingerprints here as we don't trust the kids enough to let them have swipe cards, they would probably loose them.

[adamchapman]

we've gone with VeriCool - Fingertip Registration for Schools

[bossman]

@Sylv3r:

Come over and look at ours I can recommend it first hand has been in for approx 2 years and just works.

It is so good I forget the company but they manage it and all I had to give them was a couple of IP addresses.

Support is fantastic (remote) so the girls in the office have told me, not that they have had to use it often.

Give me a bell you won't be disappointed :)

[Gatt]

We've just had ours installed (Cashless EPoS Cashless Catering Cashless Tills from Cunninghams EPoS Solutions) and registration of fingerprints has begun - though I am refusing to have mine registerd, manly cos I dont use the canteen and also cos I'm not in favour of it..

[burgemaster]

Cunninghams will be fitted here over the summer

[kylewilliamson]

We've got the same as Gatt since Easter. We had some minor issues (due to our crummy timescales) but they did go above and beyond to sort it out. It seems to be ok.

[jcollings]

We have Vericool with biometric scanners in. It was all installed quickly and after a week or so our operators were up to speed. We evaluated Easytrace at the same time which looked very good to me too.

[Batman]

I don't know if Sentinel do cashless catering as well as e-reg, but when they sent their rep to us to do a demo, he spoke very broken english and he had written in his notebook that my surname was "Cruddington" (it's Currington). Also, the address on his business card was "1 Macro Polo House". I'm not sure if it meant a larger version of "Polo House" of if he just spelt "Marco" wrong... nice enough guy, but the whole thing did make me laugh.

[Steven_Cleaver]

We have been using Cunninghams Impact system using Biometrics for around three years now, it works very well with the odd glitch which is usually fixed in a couple of minutes. The support is very good usually answered straight away or call back within a few minutes & they use remote access to fix any issues. If a reval is damaged they are usually out the same day. Parents can pay online & although this had a few teething troubles at the start it works really well once these kinks were ironed out.

[maniac]

We have the cashless system from Uniware, which has been reasonably reliable apart from the fingerprint sensors getting damaged due to greasy fingers, but after some pushing, they have supplied a different and better fingerprint sensor for the tills. We also had a few issues with the cashloaders, but they are all resolved now and were mainly due to a faulty fingerprint sensor, and a software issue.

 

We have the UPAY system implemented which means parents can see exactly what their child is buying from the canteen from the upay website or top up their childs account from home using a debit or credit card, and it's pretty much instant, that's dead handy.

 

The main reason we went for them is they are based in Medway, just a short distance from us which is dead handy for support., and one of our associated schools already had the system and were happy with it.

 

Mike.

[BTCC_Fan]

We had Cunninghams Impact Biometrics system in at end of last year. System seems to work well, had a few issues with the system earlier on this year(something to do with the dongles in the server I think) but no major issues.

 

Somehow one of the tills supplied, Toshiba till, got damaged though I don't think it was due to poor construction.

 

The two guys we had installing it where very friendly and helpful and managed to set every-one up ok and the system up and running.

[Sylv3r]

@Sylv3r:

Come over and look at ours I can recommend it first hand has been in for approx 2 years and just works.

It is so good I forget the company but they manage it and all I had to give them was a couple of IP addresses.

Support is fantastic (remote) so the girls in the office have told me, not that they have had to use it often.

Give me a bell you won't be disappointed :)

 

Thanks

 

This is a bit of an old thread as we have been running the CRB Impact cashless catering system since November and had very little problems. Occasionally the revalv machines lock up and require a restart but other then that very little issues and it just tends to work!

[p858snake]

Do any of you offer multipul ways to pay at the counter, for example both biometric or swipe card for those that have biometrics installed and users that don't like to hand their prints over?

 

And what are your privacy policies like for the storage and handerling of private data such as the pupils fingerprints?

[Sylv3r]

Do any of you offer multipul ways to pay at the counter, for example both biometric or swipe card for those that have biometrics installed and users that don't like to hand their prints over?

 

And what are your privacy policies like for the storage and handerling of private data such as the pupils fingerprints?

 

For those students / parents that chose not to provide their biometric details there is a lookup function on the tills which we use. The students top up their accounts via a cheque or handing cash into the main reception.

 

The biometric information held can not identify a student as it takes several points of a fingerprint and not the whole print therefore can not be used in a court of law etc.

 

We sent out initial letters to parents and invited them to attend an awareness session if they had any worries / concerns. Only 4 parents turned up out of a roll out 1400 students and after the session they were happy with what we had to say and agreed that their son/daughter would also provide their biometric details.

 

We only have around a dozen students who we do not hold biometric details for - travelling familes who prefered not to have their son / daughters print taking, they also do not give consent for their photographs to be taking for anything also.