History of cash registers
Modern trade cannot be imagined without the use of cash registers. Cash desks are everywhere with us: in supermarkets, cafes, at gas stations and at the post office. From July 1, 2017 cash registers must be used even when paying for goods in online stores. And who was the first to invent the accounting of financial receipts using the cashier? The whole history of cash registers is in our material.
The advent of new machines for receiving money radically changed the idea of retail trade, which until the end of the 19th century was conducted according to a simplified scheme. Before the invention of the cash register, the buyer gave the seller money, received the goods (or service) in return, and the seller took upon himself all the obligations of accounting for financial receipts. You do not need to be very insightful to understand - such control of sales revenue was very conditional.
The first person to think about the need to control cash receipts was James Jacob Ritti. The future inventor of the cash register in 1871 opened a bar called Pony House in the city of Dayton (Ohio). Despite the considerable number of visitors, the business did not bring money, since the staff of the establishment constantly withheld the proceeds from the owner. It was not possible to solve the problem by dismissing dishonest sellers - the same thing happened with new people.
James Ritti - inventor of the first cash register
The decision came unexpectedly during Ritti's sea voyage from the USA to Europe. James went into the engine room of the ship and saw a tachometer there - a round gauge that counted the number of revolutions of the propeller shaft. Looking at this sensor, James thought that it would be possible to assemble a similar device that would count the money received from Pony House customers in the same way. Upon returning home, inspired James designed a prototype cash register.
This device was completely unlike the usual cash desks for us. To indicate the amount of income, a round dial was used, because of which the device from afar could be mistaken for ordinary watches in a wooden case. Moreover, the first cash register, like the clock, had arrows: a long one (“minute”) showed cents, and a short one (“hour”) showed dollars. Buttons were located under this dial, each of which corresponded to the price of a particular product. For example, if a visitor purchased a drink for 35 cents, the cashier had to press a button with this value, after which the counter adjusted the position of the hands on the dial.
First working cash register model
The first cash register model turned out to be imperfect. A cunning seller could only pretend to use a cashier, or press a button with a lower denomination. And when no one saw, he acted even easier - he moved the arrows back. Therefore, James made changes to the design - wheels with numbers appeared at the box office, and their movement was synchronized by the transmission mechanism. Thanks to the “adder”, the device learned to calculate the total amount of the order, and also acquired a form that subsequently did not change for many years.
In order to accustom the institution’s visitors to the box office, Ritti hung a bell on the device, which sounded after the visitor’s calculation. This model has earned the nickname "Ritti's Incorruptible Cashier."
However, in the second modification of the cash register over time, a significant drawback was discovered. Once a strong scandal erupted in an institution - a disgruntled visitor accused the bartender of having cheated on him. Evidence, of course, was not - the cash register showed a new amount of revenue, and nothing more. Then James decided to finalize his brainchild, endowing it with a special paper tape, on which every operation performed by the cashier was recorded.
So in the third modification of the cash register, all operations were accompanied by perforation of the paper, by which it was possible to track the actions of the cashier. Probably, from that time the well-known expression “break the check” appeared.
In addition, under the cash register there was now without fail a cash drawer - at first the easiest drawer, divided into sections for different denominations. It also had pinch rollers for bills. Over time, a lock appeared in the drawer. Interestingly, for more than a hundred years, the cash drawer has not changed much.
After all the main shortcomings of the first modifications of the cash register were eliminated, James Ritti patented his invention. Then he tried to establish a serial production, but quickly abandoned this venture and sold the patent, focusing on the development of the restaurant business.
James Ritti and his brother create the first samples of cash registers
In 1884, the right to manufacture cash registers was bought by John Patterson, who is rightly called the man who created modern sales technology. Having received a patent for the production of a promising device, the businessman created The National Cash Register Company (which, by the way, today produces POS equipment).
In 1906, the first cash register on a push-button electric motor was invented at NCR. It was created by one of the most talented engineers at NCR, Charles Kettering, who in just five years at the company received more than twenty patents for various inventions. The NCR team of engineers made ever new improvements to cash registers, and it was under the leadership of John Patterson that these devices became what we used to see them.
The National Cash Register Company Classic Cash Register
When Patterson turned to cash registers, he had to go into debt and rely on his entrepreneurial intuition. But he firmly believed in the future of cash registers. It is interesting that Patterson did not impose cash registers themselves on customers, but worked on creating the need for cash vouchers (that is, in fact, he did not sell the product itself, but the benefit from its use). A whole textbook was written for NCR sellers, which they had to memorize before going to potential customers. As a result, from 1884 to 1911, more than a million cash registers were sold in the world, and by 1917, The National Cash Register Company controlled about 95% of the market.
Some of the methods that John Patterson used in his business strategy were truly innovative (and still apply). So, NCR often simply bought its competitors. As soon as John saw the sale of a cash register model with functions that were lacking in its own products, he immediately did everything to buy the manufacturer or force him to curtail his business.
Secondly, the company meticulously studied the cash registers of competitors in order to better understand their shortcomings. For example, it is reliably known that in February 1892 a circular was circulated inside the company with instructions for hacking the cash drawer of a competing brand cash register - Simplex Cash Register.
This box office worked quite unusual. She had no buttons, but there were holes for the balls. Each hole corresponded to a certain amount. After setting the balls in the desired position, a flag with a price tag rose in a small window. So the buyer could see the invoice. Once inside the cash register, balls accumulated, and at the end of the day the owner could compare the proceeds with the number of balls.
Alternative cash register type from Simplex Cash Register
NCR sellers received detailed instructions from management explaining how easy it would be to cheat the cashier and get cash out of there. The instructions included a lead bullet and horse hair. The trick was simple - instead of a ball, a bullet could be inserted into the hole, and by pulling a horse's hair previously placed under the box, pull the box without any problems and get the money from the cash register. Of course, after such a demonstration, many owners of such cash registers were in a hurry to replace them with devices from NCR.
Unfortunately for Patterson's company, this instruction led to a lawsuit against the NCR by the federal government and, in accordance with antitrust laws, the company was found guilty of dishonest sales in 1913.
However, Patterson was not afraid of lawsuits and actively argued in court with competitors. A funny incident occurred in 1894. Drawing attention to the growing popularity of cash registers, a certain Michael Heinz from Detroit created the company Heintz Cash Register, which released its cash register. A distinctive feature of this model was that instead of the usual ringing of a bell, the end of the operation was reported by ... a cuckoo. Yes, yes, a mechanical cuckoo who stuck her head out of the box office and forged.
Patterson could not pass by. He filed a lawsuit against Heinz Cash Register, accusing a competitor of copyright infringement. In court, representatives of the “cuckoo cash desk” said they had made a fundamentally new product by replacing the classic bell with a bird. But John insisted that this was not so, and in evidence presented the text of the original patent. Indeed, in James Ritti’s patent, the bell was not specifically spelled out - it indicated “sound device for notification”. The court ruling decided to silence the cuckoo forever. Although, probably, it would be funny to hear at the checkout that your money is “crap”.
In the Soviet Union, cash registers of their own production did not appear immediately. For a long time, imported designs, mainly of an outdated design, were used in restaurants and outlets. Some pre-war developments, such as those produced by the Kiev plant named after the 13th anniversary of the October Revolution, did not receive much distribution - mainly due to low reliability.
Moreover, in the country there really were no places where it was possible to repair damaged imported equipment. In 1923, the only enterprise for repair of typewriters, calculating and cash registers, the Bureau of Precision Mechanics of the 1st Moscow State University, was opened at that time.
The first more or less successful versions of cash registers of domestic production, such as A1T or a line of CMM devices, appeared in the second half of the last century. Initially, these models were exclusively mechanical and were driven by a rotary knob. Later, their design became electromechanical, they worked from a conventional network. But even when electrified samples appeared in department stores and grocery stores in the second half of the 70s, you could still see the “factory” handle on the side of the cash register, which was used in emergency cases when there was no electricity.
KIM-2 cash register
When looking at the keyboard of Soviet cash registers, a modern person must ask: why do you need so many repeating buttons?
Early Soviet box office models had a limited set of registers. Each register was entered with its own set of numbers. For tens of rubles, the first vertical column of buttons from “1” to “9” was used, for units of rubles, the second vertical column, etc. There was no zero at all, a cross was put in its place - it was a kind of protection against check forgery. Also on the keyboard was a short column of buttons - “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”. These were the numbers of departments for which goods were knocked out.
Another tricky feature designed to protect against fraudsters is the letter code. So that a person could not receive goods on a fake check, the cashier had to regularly negotiate with the seller and change the control letter of the check. Thus, if a person hands a check to the seller, and he does not see the "secret letter", he knows that the check is a fake.
The buttons had a fixation, and the check made its way - using the enter button - only when all the information was typed. If the cashier was mistaken, he could make a “reset” by pressing the current key combination with a special button.
KIM-3-SP
model The first cash register models made in the USSR were notable for their low reliability. However, the situation changed radically when the Oka model was made on the basis of the Swedish prototype.
Cash register “Oka 4401”
Since the beginning of the 80s of the last century, such a cash register stood in almost every Soviet store. She refueled immediately with two rolls of tapes: one for the buyer, the second for maintaining the control protocol. The control tape was shown under the window on the panel next to the buttons, so that the cashier could quickly see his mistake or view the history of actions.
A whole set of keys was attached to the ticket office. The first allowed the cash register to be turned on, the second served to reset the sensors, and the third to read the counters. And the cash drawer, which literally flew out of the main building at the end of the calculation, became the “calling card” of the domestic cash register.
In the eighties, the first electronic cash registers also appeared. The most popular among them was Spark-302A. It looked like a giant calculator and had built-in memory on magnetic cores. Such a cash desk was often used at Sberbank and at the post office.
Soviet cash register Iskra-302A
In our age of “smart things,” cash registers have become real small computers. A modern cash register that meets all the requirements of the law consists of the following components:
In order to understand the variety of modern cash desks, you can focus on the letter designations in the names of the models:
Modern online cash desks for outlets are usually equipped with a built-in modem that provides online data transfer to the Federal Tax Service, a SIM card slot, a waterproof keyboard, and a Li-ion battery (in case of power outages).
Cash desk ATOL 90F
There are also portable cash desks designed specifically for couriers. They are lighter and more compact (sometimes weighing up to 300 grams), can work independently for a long time, equipped with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi data interfaces.
But modern multifunctional POS-terminals in appearance look more like a classic desktop than a cash register. In any POS terminal, you can correctly recognize the familiar components - the system unit, monitor, keyboard, printer. However, unlike a regular PC, the terminal, of course, is not used for games and web surfing, but is intended for use in various retail outlets.
Multifunctional POS-terminal “ATOL Shop at home”
The operating system and software are already installed on it, all the equipment from the kit is compatible and requires a minimum of time for assembly and configuration. Since such devices are designed for continuous active use, terminals are for the most part much more reliable than conventional desktops. As a rule, there are no cooling fans in the terminal block system. This not only implies quiet operation, but also prevents dust from entering the case and, as a result, reduces the risk of electronics failure.
Cash registers, issued over the past one hundred and fifty years, are very different in appearance and function. But there is something that combines the first box office of James Ritti and modern POS-terminals. It is easy to handle.
The main user of such devices is a regular cashier, who often has a very vague idea of how a cash register works. Therefore, box office manufacturers have always paid great attention to the simplicity of their use and made them look like recognizable items. At different times, the design of a cash register resembled a clock, typewriter, desktop calculator, etc. And the more complicated the “filling” of cash registers became, the more important it was to make the device more friendly and reliable. And no matter what form the device takes, its main function remains unchanged - to help a person keep control records of monetary transactions. After all, cashier's checks are the only component of the business, the essence of which has not changed over the past hundred years.
The advent of new machines for receiving money radically changed the idea of retail trade, which until the end of the 19th century was conducted according to a simplified scheme. Before the invention of the cash register, the buyer gave the seller money, received the goods (or service) in return, and the seller took upon himself all the obligations of accounting for financial receipts. You do not need to be very insightful to understand - such control of sales revenue was very conditional.
1871-1884: the first box office of James Jacob Ritti
The first person to think about the need to control cash receipts was James Jacob Ritti. The future inventor of the cash register in 1871 opened a bar called Pony House in the city of Dayton (Ohio). Despite the considerable number of visitors, the business did not bring money, since the staff of the establishment constantly withheld the proceeds from the owner. It was not possible to solve the problem by dismissing dishonest sellers - the same thing happened with new people.
James Ritti - inventor of the first cash register
The decision came unexpectedly during Ritti's sea voyage from the USA to Europe. James went into the engine room of the ship and saw a tachometer there - a round gauge that counted the number of revolutions of the propeller shaft. Looking at this sensor, James thought that it would be possible to assemble a similar device that would count the money received from Pony House customers in the same way. Upon returning home, inspired James designed a prototype cash register.
This device was completely unlike the usual cash desks for us. To indicate the amount of income, a round dial was used, because of which the device from afar could be mistaken for ordinary watches in a wooden case. Moreover, the first cash register, like the clock, had arrows: a long one (“minute”) showed cents, and a short one (“hour”) showed dollars. Buttons were located under this dial, each of which corresponded to the price of a particular product. For example, if a visitor purchased a drink for 35 cents, the cashier had to press a button with this value, after which the counter adjusted the position of the hands on the dial.
First working cash register model
The first cash register model turned out to be imperfect. A cunning seller could only pretend to use a cashier, or press a button with a lower denomination. And when no one saw, he acted even easier - he moved the arrows back. Therefore, James made changes to the design - wheels with numbers appeared at the box office, and their movement was synchronized by the transmission mechanism. Thanks to the “adder”, the device learned to calculate the total amount of the order, and also acquired a form that subsequently did not change for many years.
In order to accustom the institution’s visitors to the box office, Ritti hung a bell on the device, which sounded after the visitor’s calculation. This model has earned the nickname "Ritti's Incorruptible Cashier."
However, in the second modification of the cash register over time, a significant drawback was discovered. Once a strong scandal erupted in an institution - a disgruntled visitor accused the bartender of having cheated on him. Evidence, of course, was not - the cash register showed a new amount of revenue, and nothing more. Then James decided to finalize his brainchild, endowing it with a special paper tape, on which every operation performed by the cashier was recorded.
So in the third modification of the cash register, all operations were accompanied by perforation of the paper, by which it was possible to track the actions of the cashier. Probably, from that time the well-known expression “break the check” appeared.
In addition, under the cash register there was now without fail a cash drawer - at first the easiest drawer, divided into sections for different denominations. It also had pinch rollers for bills. Over time, a lock appeared in the drawer. Interestingly, for more than a hundred years, the cash drawer has not changed much.
After all the main shortcomings of the first modifications of the cash register were eliminated, James Ritti patented his invention. Then he tried to establish a serial production, but quickly abandoned this venture and sold the patent, focusing on the development of the restaurant business.
James Ritti and his brother create the first samples of cash registers
The first box office of our time: John Patterson's National Cash Register Company
In 1884, the right to manufacture cash registers was bought by John Patterson, who is rightly called the man who created modern sales technology. Having received a patent for the production of a promising device, the businessman created The National Cash Register Company (which, by the way, today produces POS equipment).
In 1906, the first cash register on a push-button electric motor was invented at NCR. It was created by one of the most talented engineers at NCR, Charles Kettering, who in just five years at the company received more than twenty patents for various inventions. The NCR team of engineers made ever new improvements to cash registers, and it was under the leadership of John Patterson that these devices became what we used to see them.
The National Cash Register Company Classic Cash Register
When Patterson turned to cash registers, he had to go into debt and rely on his entrepreneurial intuition. But he firmly believed in the future of cash registers. It is interesting that Patterson did not impose cash registers themselves on customers, but worked on creating the need for cash vouchers (that is, in fact, he did not sell the product itself, but the benefit from its use). A whole textbook was written for NCR sellers, which they had to memorize before going to potential customers. As a result, from 1884 to 1911, more than a million cash registers were sold in the world, and by 1917, The National Cash Register Company controlled about 95% of the market.
Some of the methods that John Patterson used in his business strategy were truly innovative (and still apply). So, NCR often simply bought its competitors. As soon as John saw the sale of a cash register model with functions that were lacking in its own products, he immediately did everything to buy the manufacturer or force him to curtail his business.
Secondly, the company meticulously studied the cash registers of competitors in order to better understand their shortcomings. For example, it is reliably known that in February 1892 a circular was circulated inside the company with instructions for hacking the cash drawer of a competing brand cash register - Simplex Cash Register.
This box office worked quite unusual. She had no buttons, but there were holes for the balls. Each hole corresponded to a certain amount. After setting the balls in the desired position, a flag with a price tag rose in a small window. So the buyer could see the invoice. Once inside the cash register, balls accumulated, and at the end of the day the owner could compare the proceeds with the number of balls.
Alternative cash register type from Simplex Cash Register
NCR sellers received detailed instructions from management explaining how easy it would be to cheat the cashier and get cash out of there. The instructions included a lead bullet and horse hair. The trick was simple - instead of a ball, a bullet could be inserted into the hole, and by pulling a horse's hair previously placed under the box, pull the box without any problems and get the money from the cash register. Of course, after such a demonstration, many owners of such cash registers were in a hurry to replace them with devices from NCR.
Unfortunately for Patterson's company, this instruction led to a lawsuit against the NCR by the federal government and, in accordance with antitrust laws, the company was found guilty of dishonest sales in 1913.
However, Patterson was not afraid of lawsuits and actively argued in court with competitors. A funny incident occurred in 1894. Drawing attention to the growing popularity of cash registers, a certain Michael Heinz from Detroit created the company Heintz Cash Register, which released its cash register. A distinctive feature of this model was that instead of the usual ringing of a bell, the end of the operation was reported by ... a cuckoo. Yes, yes, a mechanical cuckoo who stuck her head out of the box office and forged.
Patterson could not pass by. He filed a lawsuit against Heinz Cash Register, accusing a competitor of copyright infringement. In court, representatives of the “cuckoo cash desk” said they had made a fundamentally new product by replacing the classic bell with a bird. But John insisted that this was not so, and in evidence presented the text of the original patent. Indeed, in James Ritti’s patent, the bell was not specifically spelled out - it indicated “sound device for notification”. The court ruling decided to silence the cuckoo forever. Although, probably, it would be funny to hear at the checkout that your money is “crap”.
Cash registers in the USSR
In the Soviet Union, cash registers of their own production did not appear immediately. For a long time, imported designs, mainly of an outdated design, were used in restaurants and outlets. Some pre-war developments, such as those produced by the Kiev plant named after the 13th anniversary of the October Revolution, did not receive much distribution - mainly due to low reliability.
Moreover, in the country there really were no places where it was possible to repair damaged imported equipment. In 1923, the only enterprise for repair of typewriters, calculating and cash registers, the Bureau of Precision Mechanics of the 1st Moscow State University, was opened at that time.
The first more or less successful versions of cash registers of domestic production, such as A1T or a line of CMM devices, appeared in the second half of the last century. Initially, these models were exclusively mechanical and were driven by a rotary knob. Later, their design became electromechanical, they worked from a conventional network. But even when electrified samples appeared in department stores and grocery stores in the second half of the 70s, you could still see the “factory” handle on the side of the cash register, which was used in emergency cases when there was no electricity.
KIM-2 cash register
When looking at the keyboard of Soviet cash registers, a modern person must ask: why do you need so many repeating buttons?
Early Soviet box office models had a limited set of registers. Each register was entered with its own set of numbers. For tens of rubles, the first vertical column of buttons from “1” to “9” was used, for units of rubles, the second vertical column, etc. There was no zero at all, a cross was put in its place - it was a kind of protection against check forgery. Also on the keyboard was a short column of buttons - “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”. These were the numbers of departments for which goods were knocked out.
Another tricky feature designed to protect against fraudsters is the letter code. So that a person could not receive goods on a fake check, the cashier had to regularly negotiate with the seller and change the control letter of the check. Thus, if a person hands a check to the seller, and he does not see the "secret letter", he knows that the check is a fake.
The buttons had a fixation, and the check made its way - using the enter button - only when all the information was typed. If the cashier was mistaken, he could make a “reset” by pressing the current key combination with a special button.
KIM-3-SP
model The first cash register models made in the USSR were notable for their low reliability. However, the situation changed radically when the Oka model was made on the basis of the Swedish prototype.
Cash register “Oka 4401”
Since the beginning of the 80s of the last century, such a cash register stood in almost every Soviet store. She refueled immediately with two rolls of tapes: one for the buyer, the second for maintaining the control protocol. The control tape was shown under the window on the panel next to the buttons, so that the cashier could quickly see his mistake or view the history of actions.
A whole set of keys was attached to the ticket office. The first allowed the cash register to be turned on, the second served to reset the sensors, and the third to read the counters. And the cash drawer, which literally flew out of the main building at the end of the calculation, became the “calling card” of the domestic cash register.
In the eighties, the first electronic cash registers also appeared. The most popular among them was Spark-302A. It looked like a giant calculator and had built-in memory on magnetic cores. Such a cash desk was often used at Sberbank and at the post office.
Soviet cash register Iskra-302A
Nowadays
In our age of “smart things,” cash registers have become real small computers. A modern cash register that meets all the requirements of the law consists of the following components:
- case, inside of which there should be a real-time clock.
- fiscal drive (FN) - a cryptographic means of protecting fiscal data that records data in an uncorrectable form, stores them and transfers them to regulatory authorities. It is the transfer of accumulated data that is the difference between FN and EKLZ (electronic secure control tape), which was used in earlier versions of cash registers for non-correctable accumulation of information about all payment documents issued on the device and shift closing reports.
- devices for printing receipts. However, in the era of online payments, printing a paper check for some types of trading is no longer necessary. Therefore, today there are already online cash desks that generate only an electronic check and do not print it on paper.
In order to understand the variety of modern cash desks, you can focus on the letter designations in the names of the models:
- “FS” - cash desks only for payments on the Internet (do not contain a printing device inside the case);
- “FA” - cash desks only for embedding into automatic devices (vending, payment terminals);
- “FB” - automated BSO systems;
- "F" - all the others that can be used in any of the options.
Modern online cash desks for outlets are usually equipped with a built-in modem that provides online data transfer to the Federal Tax Service, a SIM card slot, a waterproof keyboard, and a Li-ion battery (in case of power outages).
Cash desk ATOL 90F
There are also portable cash desks designed specifically for couriers. They are lighter and more compact (sometimes weighing up to 300 grams), can work independently for a long time, equipped with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi data interfaces.
But modern multifunctional POS-terminals in appearance look more like a classic desktop than a cash register. In any POS terminal, you can correctly recognize the familiar components - the system unit, monitor, keyboard, printer. However, unlike a regular PC, the terminal, of course, is not used for games and web surfing, but is intended for use in various retail outlets.
Multifunctional POS-terminal “ATOL Shop at home”
The operating system and software are already installed on it, all the equipment from the kit is compatible and requires a minimum of time for assembly and configuration. Since such devices are designed for continuous active use, terminals are for the most part much more reliable than conventional desktops. As a rule, there are no cooling fans in the terminal block system. This not only implies quiet operation, but also prevents dust from entering the case and, as a result, reduces the risk of electronics failure.
Eventually
Cash registers, issued over the past one hundred and fifty years, are very different in appearance and function. But there is something that combines the first box office of James Ritti and modern POS-terminals. It is easy to handle.
The main user of such devices is a regular cashier, who often has a very vague idea of how a cash register works. Therefore, box office manufacturers have always paid great attention to the simplicity of their use and made them look like recognizable items. At different times, the design of a cash register resembled a clock, typewriter, desktop calculator, etc. And the more complicated the “filling” of cash registers became, the more important it was to make the device more friendly and reliable. And no matter what form the device takes, its main function remains unchanged - to help a person keep control records of monetary transactions. After all, cashier's checks are the only component of the business, the essence of which has not changed over the past hundred years.