Table-side device integration to a point-of-sale (POS) hospitality system

摘要

A table-side device is seamlessly and securely integrated to an existing customer POS system within an operating environment, irrespective of the particular operating characteristics of the POS system. In one embodiment, this is achieved by providing a middleware component that executes in the POS system, preferably in the form of an agent that interfaces each table-side device to the POS system for one of: order entry and update, check management, and payment handling. The POS agent is associated with a plug-in component, which is uniquely associated with the particular POS system. The POS agent preferably includes a communication interface through which table-side devices issue requests to the POS system through the plug-in component. The agent middleware enables the single service provider system to interoperate with various types of POS systems irrespective of the underlying differences in implementation among these various third party POS systems.

主权项

1. Apparatus to interface table-side devices to one or more point-of-sale (POS) systems, comprising:
a hardware processor; computer memory that stores computer program instructions, the computer program instructions executed in the hardware processor and comprising:
a middleware component that interfaces each table-side device to the one or more POS systems for one of: order entry and update, check management, and payment handling; anda plug-in component uniquely associated with each particular POS system of the one or more POS systems by a set of one or more data types, methods and properties that define POS system-specific functionality for the particular POS system.