POS integration

Overview

This section provides explains how to integrate your POS (Point of Sale) and Back-Office systems with AiFi. It covers the store sales process, the advantages of integration, and detailed steps for implementation.

tip

If you already know what you want to integrate and need quick access to APIs and guidance, go straight to POS / Back-office system integration steps.

Store sales process

The store sales process consists of several key components:

1. Product management: Load information about products, including names, prices, and images used by AiFi systems for predictions. Identify products using barcodes (UPC, EAN), IDs, or SKUs. Create sales based on a basket of product instances and their quantities.
2. Auxiliary line item additions: Add additional line items to receipts, such as PET bottle fees or regional fees.
3. Price calculation: Ensure accurate price calculation, including taxes, to charge customers correctly and maintain price consistency with non-autonomous stores.
4. Discount and loyalty applications: Apply discounts or loyalty rewards based on specific rules.
5. Tax calculation: Calculate and apply sales or VAT tax based on product subtotals or totals.
6. Payment: Process payments, typically after customers leave the store, by capturing pre-authorizations collected at entry or using tokenized cards.
7. Sales management: Keep receipts and sales records in the store system for management, auditability, and automated actions such as immediate reporting in fiscal countries.
8. Sales reports: Retrieve and report sales summaries from the system for comprehensive sales and tax reporting.

Advantages of integrating your own POS / Back-office systems

1. Product definitions: Your systems already have the necessary product information for AiFi to recognize products and manage the planogram.
2. Additional fees: Your systems support adding additional fees to receipts, which AiFi built-in systems may not support.
3. Accurate pricing: Maintain consistent pricing across all stores, ensuring clear customer expectations and competitiveness.
4. Discounts and loyalties: Your systems may support discounts and loyalties that aren't supported by AiFi built-in systems.
5. Taxation modules: Use your existing tax calculation modules for consistent tax application across stores.
6. Fiscal compliance: Meet legal requirements in fiscal countries using certified software or immediate sales reporting.
7. Sales reporting: Integrate with your existing sales reporting systems to aggregate sales data from all stores, reducing errors and saving time.
8. Employee familiarity: Leverage employee training on existing systems.

While traditional payment integrations may not work, AiFi offers built-in payment solutions that can be used independently of POS / back-office systems.

Integrating your POS with AiFi OASIS can save time and costs. Check with your account manager if your POS / back-office system is already integrated with AiFi for out-of-the-box use.

Refer to the POS / Back-office system integration steps for a technical guide on integrating your POS.

POS / Back-office system integration steps

The table below summarizes the API calls corresponding to specific actions in the sales process:

Feature	Type	API endpoint	API name
Product Management	PULL	/admin/v2/products	Admin API - products - create product
Adding line items to the receipt	PUSH	your-server.com/mutator	PUSH API - cart mutator
Price calculation	PUSH	your-server.com/mutator	PUSH API - cart mutator
Discount and loyalty application	PUSH	your-server.com/mutator	PUSH API - cart mutator
Tax calculation	PUSH	your-server.com/mutator	PUSH API - cart mutator
Reporting on the paid sale	PUSH	your-server.com/checkout	PUSH API - checkout
Integration with fiscal system	PUSH	your-server.com/checkout	PUSH API - checkout
Issuing an e-receipt	PUSH	your-server.com/checkout	PUSH API - checkout

The specific endpoint documentation is available in the API reference, shared separately from this guide.

Integrating your POS is straightforward:

• One or two API calls to AiFi (see Creating the products for details).
• Two calls to your system from AiFi (Cart Mutator and Checkout).

Creating the products

To create and manage products, use either of these APIs:

• RECOMMENDED: ADMIN API - products - create product
• ADMIN API - products - upsert product by externalId

Manage AiFi products and create a mutual mapping of products between your system and AiFi's system. If limited in making changes, use the upsert product by externalId call.

This allows managing products on AiFi's side using the externalId identifier, which can be any unique string in your system, typically the SKU identifier.

For an example of creating a product in the public sandbox, see Creating a product

Best practices when creating the products

1. Keep products in sync: Ensure robust synchronization between your system and AiFi.
2. Push granular product updates: For performance, push product updates as they occur rather than synchronizing the entire database each time.
3. Schedule larger syncs at night: Synchronize large numbers of products (hundreds of SKUs) outside of operating hours.