Easy to program if you have all the requirements in front of you written by a person who understand what needs to be done and how to do it.
Mark is just a true pessimist who expects that clean requirements are a pipe dream.
Which they are 😛
I work in the industry. The bolded part is the part that will kill you. There are so many questions and variables that need to be answered. Yes, a very simplistic system can be written in a week, but more likely budget a few weeks.
hi, everybody, I wanna know if it is difficult to create some self order system kiosk like in wawa, you know those machines people just order off of them and receipt printed out. I have a feeling it should be so easy, but since i know not that much about programing, what would u guys recommend about what kind of language to use if i want it done under windows.
Scenario 1: Full blown POS with ordering and payments. You're better off buying one from an existing POS software vendor. This is going to take years.
Scenario 2: It's a system that only does sending and simple order tracking. This is the most simple scenario. All it is doing is just taking orders and printing them, then pretty much not doing anything with the ticket data other than track if it's paid.
Ticket only needs to get sent to deli/kitchen. At a minimum, you will need to print a ticket for the person ordering, and one for the kitchen. You will need to store them in case you need to recall the tickets and reprint them as well as reports.
What type of reporting if any do you need? Do you need/want to track how many tickets that were ordered are paid? If so, you'll need some kind of terminal at the cashier station to input this data. We're talking basic reporting like customer's ordered 100 items. 10 were made but not paid for. You'll likely want the ticket start time and end times as well.
What type of printers are you supporting? Most common POS printers are Epson or Star Micronics.
Now, we get to the menu itself. You'll need to think of how you make sandwiches and other food items. You need to set menu categories. Menu items belong under menu categories. You need to set modifiers for your menu items.
Are they tracking price in the ordering terminal? Meaning if I order extra cheese, it will add it on the price so cashier doesn't have to manually calculate? That's a whole other headache.
If you get any more complicated than that, go buy a POS.
