The scale talks to the bill
For anyone selling loose — grocery, sweets, meat, hardware, anything priced by weight — the weight has to get from the scale onto the bill. Typed by hand it is slow and occasionally wrong. Connected, it is neither.
Essae integrated. Others after a short test.Weigh, and the line is already on the bill
The scale is connected to the billing computer over a COM port. The item is selected, the goods go on the pan, and the weight arrives in the quantity field on its own. The rate is applied, the line total is calculated, and the next item is ready.
The gain is not only speed. A typed weight can be mistyped in your favour or against it, and neither is good: one loses you money quietly, the other loses you a customer. A read weight is the weight.
Which scales, and what happens with the rest
Essae, already integrated
Essae scales are supported as they come. Connect the scale, set the port, and billing reads the weight. This is the most common make in the shops we work with, which is why it was done first.
A locally made scale, also integrated
One locally manufactured scale used by a number of our customers is supported the same way, without any additional work at your end.
Any scale with a COM port
Every manufacturer formats its weight output slightly differently, so a scale we have not seen has to be read before it can be integrated. Any scale with a COM port can be.
Four hours with the device
That is what integrating a new make takes: we borrow the scale for about four hours, read how it sends weight, and test it against real billing. We would rather do that than promise it works and find out at your counter that it does not.
This is where most of our work starts
What is described above is how Stock2Track does it out of the box, and for most shops that is the end of the conversation. When it is not — when your business does this one step differently and the difference matters — that part gets built. Over two hundred customers run a version of Stock2Track altered in some way for how they work.
How custom development worksQuestions owners ask
My scale is not Essae. Will it work?
Almost certainly, if it has a COM port. We ask to borrow it for about four hours first, to read its output format and test it properly. After that it behaves like any other supported scale.
Can I use a scale that prints its own label?
Yes, though it is solving a different problem. A label-printing scale works well where goods are weighed and packed away from the counter; direct integration works better where the customer is standing in front of you.
What if the scale is disconnected?
Billing continues and the quantity can be typed as normal. Losing the scale slows the counter down; it does not stop it.