In early April, the Co-op introduced a new point of sale software to our front end—Catapult by ECRS. The change, though time-consuming, has been a major boon for the store. Owner sign-ups and renewals are faster and more efficient, we can search for owner accounts by name (rather than just phone number), and ringing up bulk and produce is easier for cashiers than ever. Our back-office and buyers have a slew of new capabilities as well, which will make inventory management and data analysis even easier. Thanks to Catapult, we have a new benefit for owners, as well—e-receipts!
We here at the Co-op are very proud of last year’s introduction of recyclable, vitamin C-based receipt paper. Thanks to that change, we were able to greatly reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill from our store. E-receipts will allow us to print even fewer receipts out, while allowing you, our owners, to keep all your receipts digitally. All your receipts will be sent to the e-mail addresses of your choice [that’s right, addresses. If you’d like to send your receipt to multiple e-mail addresses, you can] , and you won’t ever need to receive a paper receipt again (unless you want one!).
Any cashier will be able to sign you up for e-receipts at one of the registers. After that, it will take about two minutes after a transaction for the receipt to arrive in your inbox. An important point: all receipts from that owner account will go to the e-mail address. That means that, if you sign up for e-receipts, all secondary owner’s receipts will also be e-mailed. For that reason, in the interest of owner privacy, we will require the primary owner’s permission before signing a secondary user up for e-receipts. E-mailed receipts are just one new feature that our switch to the Catapult point of sale software allows. Our IT Coordinator is eagerly exploring the capabilities of this dynamic software system, and we will be sure to share the fruits of his labors with our owners as they ripen.
