Electronic receipts system and method

摘要

A method of enabling a Point of Sale (POS) 101 system to provide electronic receipts using existing software. The method involves identifying an output destination e.g. OPOS enabled or WindowsTM printer 102 or serial port, of a transaction record sent by the POS software in an unknown format. A data reader is configured as middleware based on the output, e.g. by redirecting data sent to the printer or using a serial port monitor, to obtain a copy of the transaction record. Where available customer identity information is collected and, when this is available, the transaction record is communicated to a parser which converts the record into an electronic receipt of a known format. The receipt is correlated with the customer identity information and stored in a data store for viewing by the customer and/or retailer. The data reader may forward the transaction record to a printer if a paper receipt is required. The electronic receipt may be accessible via a web browser 307-308 or app on a mobile device 306. The parser may be unique to the retailer or POS terminal and the system may include a parser builder arranged to initially generate the parser (Figures 10a-c), identify regions in the transaction record data corresponding to states in a state machine and/or identify similar previous transaction records in a library. The parser may check electronic receipt data for correctness, the builder refining the parser if errors are detected. Thus it is not necessary to know the format of the data created by the POS system in order to use the method, allowing electronic receipts to be generated using existing POS equipment without the co-operation of the POS supplier in providing information about the software used.