The Department Maintenance procedure is used for adding or editing Departments.  Departments must be set up before entering products in Product Maintenance.  

From the Administrations icon, double click on the Department Maintenance task. The dialogue defaults to the Edit a Department screen, to add a new department, press the Add a Department button from the toolbar within the Edit a Department screen.

To add a new Department:

  1. Click on the Add button in the toolbar and enter the:
    • Department Number: The department number can be numbers 1 thru 999.  Retail uses the department number to determine where sales data is stored
    • Sub Number: The default is Zero. You should change this only if you have a department within a department (that has different characteristics) and you need a separate key on the Checkstand keypad.  For example, Grocery and Grocery taxable both have a separate key on the keypad, but both sales go into the Grocery Department. So when an item comes through the checkstand without a UPC code, the amount of the item can be rung up under Grocery or Grocery tax as appropriate, but the Grocery Department gets the credit for the sale.
    • Department Name: Use the name field for entering a description up to 50 characters for the Department.  This description will display at the Front End for department sales, as well as other product dialogues and reports in the Back End.Dept_NoSub_NoDepartment_Name
  1. From the Attributes tab enter the following department properties:
    • Food Stamp
    • Hash Dept: A “non-sale” department that will not show up in Show Store Sales. The Hash Department is used to track items that don’t belong in store sales such as bottle returns or paid-ins (such as a rebate a manufacturer pays to the store).
    • Requires Authorization: This forces the cashier to get a managers override for all sales keyed into an open department. This is also true for sales keyed into an open section when the section is saved with the department attributes.
    • Negative Dept: This is used to track departments which only deal in paid outs, such as lottery pay outs, or when the cashier pays the Paper Delivery Man from the till. If all items rung up in this department should be negative, enter NegativeItemsIfDepartmentNegative=1 in the MISC. section of the ros.ini file. Every item rung up, or amounts entered into this open department will be negative. For example, a user may create a department for bottle returns. If the cashier enters 5.00 into that department, it will ring up as –5.00.
    • Not Accumulate: Flag this box to prevent customers from accumulating Frequent Shopper Points for open department rings into this department.
    • Unit of Measure: Select the type of measurement applicable for the product you are entering. Lbs and kgs. are used for scale products.
    • Points: Specify the amount of bonus points (if any) that you would like your customer to accumulate for any item rang up to an open department.
    • Scale: Flag for department that requires weighing, for example Produce or Meat.
    • Gift Card Dept.: Flag this field if you sell store gift cards. Enter Gift Card as the Department Description.
    • Cash Card Dept.: Flag this field if Retail has been integrated with a Cash Card program, for example, Concord Gift Cards. Enter Cash Card as the Department Description.
    • Verify Age and Valid Age: This flag forces the cashier to enter in the date of birth of the customer for all sales keyed into this open department or open section.  Retail compares the age of the customer against the age entered in the Valid Age field.  Retail also verifies the cashier’s age and prompts for a manager’s override if the cashier does not meet the valid age requirement.  The manager overriding the transaction must also be a valid age. The minimum age for selling restricted products may be edited in POS Information
    • Discount Check box: This is used to attach Discounts to a Department.  For example if the Discount Category A is flagged, all customers set up for a Discount that is set up for all Category A items will also receive the same discount for an item keyed into this Department.
    • Discount %: The Discount Percentage amount specifies the amount discounted at the Front End for any item rang up to an open department, open section and any product attached to this department.  This is useful for marking down an entire department. For example, if you have a department for seasonal items you could mark down the entire department when the season has ended.
    • Emp. Disc.: The employee discount is used with settings in POS Information. Employees with Customer ID numbers in a specified range will get the discount entered in this field.
    • Tax Plan: Flag the tax plans attached to items belonging to the department.
  1. Enter information into all necessary fields under the Miscellaneous tab.
    • Coupon: Enter a UPC for a product that you want to use to track coupon multiples for this department.  Example:  If a $.40 coupon is used on a coupon multiple day when the coupon multiple is 3, $1.20 will be applied to the UPC entered here. If no UPC is entered the default will be DEPTCOUPON + Department number (e.g. DEPTCOUPON 001 for department 1). Tips:  Take care in setting up Coupon Links. If you are creating your own link, create a separate UPC for each department.  Note:  Coupon Link cannot be the same as the Discount Link nor Electronic Coupon Link.
    • Electronic Coupon:  Enter a UPC for a product that you want to use to electronic coupons for this department.
    • Discount: Enter a UPC for a product that you want to use to track discounts for this department.  For example, if your store employees receive a 5% discount on purchases the discounted amount will be applied to the product entered here. If no UPC is entered the default will be DEPTDISCNT + Department number (e.g. DEPTDISCNT 001 for department 1). Tips:  Take care in setting up Discount Links. If you are creating your own link, create a separate UPC for each department. Note:  Discount Link cannot be the same as the Coupon Link nor Electronic Coupon Link.
    • Aggregate Department: The Aggregate Department function is used to aggregate sales from one or more departments to a single department.  For example if you have a Gift department and a Toy department you might want to aggregate the sales from both of these departments to the General Merchandise department. Select General Merchandise as the Aggregate Department for both departments. Tip:  Use the Show Store Sales/Aggregate Sales report to view the results of your selection.
    • Lalo Limit: Enter the minimum amount an item can be rung up on a department’s key without displaying a message (halo limit) prompting the Cashier to verify the price is keyed in correctly. This is just a verification message: the Cashier should check that they haven’t keyed $.03 for a $3.00 item (and then they can press the Enter key if the amount is OK or the Clear key if they made a mistake).
    • Halo Limit: Enter the maximum amount an item can be rung up on a department’s key without displaying a message (halo limit) prompting the Cashier to verify the price is keyed in correctly. This is just a verification message: the Cashier should check that they haven’t keyed $30.00 for a $3.00 item (and then they can press the Enter key if the amount is OK or the Clear key if they made a mistake).
  1. Press the Save button to save your changes
  2. If necessary, repeat steps 1-4 until you have completed entering all new departments.
  3. Update the checkstands using the Synchronize Checkstands with Setup task.

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