Sales Terminal Interface

The Sales Terminal Interface is a direct communication link between Berg Company™ liquor dispensers and sales terminals. Sales terminals are either Point of Sale (POS) terminals or Electronic Cash Registers (ECR). The terminals can be set to capture sales automatically as each drink is poured.

Sales terminal companies that support Berg LDS do so via a serial data interface with two way communication. They employ one or more of three main methods to deal with the data that is transferred.

Direct Ring-Up - Pour requests sent from the Berg LDS to the sales terminal are automatically rung up as they are received at the sales terminal’s serial port. The pour occurs only after the sales terminal rings up the sale and acknowledges the request.
Pre-Checking - Pour requests sent from the Berg LDS to the sales terminal are checked against a list of what has already been rung up (pre-checked). The pour occurs only if the item is on the list and only after the sales terminal acknowledges the request.
File Posting - Pour requests sent from the Berg LDS to the sales terminal are saved to a file by the sales terminal. They are not automatically rung up, nor is there any requirement that they be pre-checked. Later, there is a report of the differences between that file and what was actually rung up. The pour occurs only after the sales terminal acknowledges the request.

More details about these three methods are available.

There are wireless options for serial interfacing. Call Berg Company for more information.

You can use a serial auto-switcher to connect more than one Berg ECU to a single POS terminal.

With the exception of the Draft Sentinel, the Tap 1 ECU in the stand-alone (without Infinity Software) mode, and the Stand-alone Laser ECU, all Berg Liquor Dispensing Systems (LDS) support Sales Terminal Interface. However, not all sales terminals support Berg LDS. And in the case of the Berg All-Bottle 744 and All-Bottle 1544, only the Berg Parallel interface (see below) is supported. Check with your Berg dealer and with your sales terminal representative to see if the product in which you are interested is supported by the sales terminal and Interface method that you have in mind. (Berg dealers can view current list in the dealer area.)

For sales terminal companies that do not support Berg LDS, the Berg Parallel interface is sometimes an option. This is a parallel data interface with one way communication, however, the communication is not with the sales terminal. It is with a circuit board often referred to as a “keyboard wedge,” which can be purchased directly from the third party vendor Postech, Inc. The Postech board is installed into the sales terminal by a competent technician with good soldering skills. We recommend that this be the responsibility of the sales terminal vendor and not the Berg Dealer. Note that there is no acknowledge sent from the sales terminal to Berg, so there is no guaranty that the portion is rung up.

It is also possible to reconcile POS and Berg sales data at the end of day using Infinity software. This method does not require direct communication between the sales terminal and the Berg dispensers.

Infinity Sales Terminal Interface Manual (590 kb)

If you are interested in developing an interface with Berg equipment, you may use one of our published specifications: Berg Basic POS Interface Driver Specification - (174 kb) or Berg Generic POS Interface Driver Specification - (188 kb). See download instructions. There is also a test program that can help you develop such an interface with the Berg Basic driver.