Roaming POS with Altru connection

Denise Eberspeaker
Denise Eberspeaker
Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

We are building a museum, archives, education and event center in Gettysburg, to open early 2023, and will have a gift shop and cafe as well. We are trying to find out if there are any Altru users out there who have successfully established a truly mobile POS system connected toAltru, where memberships, merchandise, tickets, food, etc can all be sold completely independent of our front desk stations, which can also be used in overflow situations when it gets busy, and which will allow us to view and enter constituent data. We assume the mobile platform would have to be Windows based. We use BBMS so will have Chippers for mobile payment terminals (and the new WisePOS e terminals at the desk) If anyone has had good luck doing this and can recommend the best tablet and barcode scanner, it would be incredibly helpful to us. Thanks!

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  • Dianne Crosby
    Dianne Crosby
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    We have off-site events where we set-up laptops and process transactions through Altru. The laptops work fine for this. But we don't process our credit cards through Altru - so I'm not sure what would be involved in that.

    I've tried using an iPad with Altru and it isn't ideal. I would recommend the laptop over a tablet. I'm not aware of any tablet/barcode scanners combinations.

    When you say “cafe”, have you tested Altru for that? We sell individually packaged snacks and drinks, which is fine. But if you're trying to sell anything complicated like a typical cafe - I would warn you that Altru isn't capable of handling that type of transaction.

    I'm happy to answer any questions - just let me know!

  • Denise Eberspeaker
    Denise Eberspeaker
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Facilitator 1

    Thanks very much! Our “cafe” will be prepackaged stuff, too, or else run by a local coffee shop who will just lease the space from us and take care of their own processing, so no worries on the “food” part.

    Do you use a particular separate barcode scanner that works? Or do you just enter every sale using the Daily Sales screen and not scan anything.

    It is my understanding that Altru can't run on iOS (their mobile payment app can) so we weren't considering using iPads. Figured either tablets (very portable) or laptops (easy to see and type on) - you are the second person who suggested laptops over tablets.

    the Adams County Historical Society really appreciates your taking the time to answer!

  • Dianne Crosby
    Dianne Crosby
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    We use scanners for scanning membership cards and barcodes on merchandise items. We use buttons in Daily Sales for admission, classes, and selling new memberships.

    For our gift shop/front desk we use the wireless Motorola N410 scanners. We bought them several years ago and they may have a new model. They were more expensive, but worth it for daily use. For our events we have the less expensive Tera 5100 scanners which overall work well. But we do far less scanning at the events.

    Another warning - the merchandise barcodes printed within Altru are very large - 2" x 1". We use a third party software to print smaller 1"x1" and butterfly labels.

  • Denise Eberspeaker
    Denise Eberspeaker
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Facilitator 1

    Great information, Dianne! Thank you very much!

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