We’ve gotten a lot of questions lately about adding functionality to handle the recent penny shortage. In the currently released version of ThunderPOS, there is no option that will automatically round transactions to the nearest penny. However, we will be releasing a version with rounding early next year as an optional feature.
For the moment, we would suggest simply handling it outside of the system; our average customer does a vast minority of transactions in cash, and this should not cause balancing the drawer to be off by very much.
Currently, there is not legal guidance from the government on how this should be handled. For this reason, we’re providing two new options, in addition to the option to just handle it on the fly outside of the system.
One option, which in general should bring the overall rounding amount close to zero, is to round to the nearest nickel, rounding up if 3 or 4 pennies would be required or down on 1 or 2. This will only be applied if a transaction includes cash; check, credit card, on account, and gift card transactions will not be rounded.
The other option will always favor the customer on cash transactions, meaning that for a positive amount it will be dropped down to the nickel below, and for a negative amount it will be increased. This will cost the store money in the long run, but means that no customer ends up losing any change.
The rounding amount will be available under payment types in the Sales Totals report, as well as showing on the Daily Payment Types report.
We would recommend keeping an eye out for any sort of congressional or state level guidance on this issue, but this feature will be available in January’s update.
It’s been a busy year here so far, and it’s easy to miss new features that might be quite valuable to you. As such, we thought we’d go over many of the features and updates that have been released thus far in 2025. These are grouped roughly by the area of the software that they’re available in.
Label Printing
We’ve made several enhancements to label printing so far this year. First, we’ve added the option to use QR codes rather than barcodes on designs created through the label designer. This allows for smaller labels to be used, assuming you have a scanner that can read QR codes.
You can also now share your label designs online, allowing you to easily send it between your stores even if you’re not a cloud user, as well as sharing it with other ThunderPOS users.
Finally, we’ve added options for printing out labels for gift cards, both when they’re purchased and as a reprint. This can allow you to utilize cards that are not pre-printed with numbers, such as business cards or simple generic plastic cards.
Items and Item Searching
Item searching and items have received a few enhancements as well. First, there are three new columns available in items for your grid display. These are maintained by the system, but are quite useful for tracking what’s happening with the items. Date entered and last date sold were previously available; we have added last date traded, last date received, and last date transferred as additional columns.
For searching, we’ve gone from just having the default contains searches to allowing you to do contains, equals, or excluding searches, allowing for a much greater control over your advanced searches. You can also now sort by many more columns than were previously available.
Enterprise Updates
One of the biggest set of changes was for on premise enterprise users, as we released a full overhaul of this product this year. Bringing many features to on premise enterprise that had previously been exclusive to the cloud version, this also improved syncing performance and removed much of the configuration burden.
Beyond that, store transfers and reporting were made far easier and more powerful, with options allowing transfers to happen without even needing someone at the store to acknowledge them.
On premise wasn’t the only enterprise service getting enhancements, however. Watch out upcoming for the option to set a backup web server for your cloud enterprise service, allowing even greater resilience.
Trade Containers
We also recently introduced a new way to do trade ins called Trade Containers, allowing you to complete a trade in for a bulk amount up front, and then fill in the details long after the customer has left.
For more information on this feature, we have a blog post here
eCommerce Enhancements
As ever, we’re updating our eCommerce integrations with both requested features and to keep up with API changes. The biggest of the latter category is still upcoming, with a massive Shopify overhaul in order to utilize the GraphQL API as Shopify is deprecating their prior REST API. While not customer facing, this also increases the efficiency of syncing, allowing faster syncing of large groups of changes.
For BigCommerce, Shopify, and WooCommerce we now offer the option to not automatically restock items that are refunded. This must be set through the thunderpos.net options screen.
WooCommerce also now offers the option to sync costs, for those on WooCommerce version 10.0 and above.
For Shopify, in addition to the API overhaul above we are adding options for syncing a variety of fields as what Shopify calls metafields and for adding the description onto the end of the title field.
Finally, we’ve added the ability for all eCommerce integrations to print packing lists for orders from your windows register through the notifications screen, allowing your staff to easily prepare to ship out online orders without needing to log in to the eCommerce system to see the details of them.
New Vendor Database Features
First and foremost, we’ve added two new vendor databases this year, both related to trading card games. These are the Scryfall database, for Magic: the Gathering cards, and a Yu-Gi-Oh card database.
In addition to this, we’ve made many enhancements to previously existing databases. Many databases, including the new ones plus AEC, AMS, VGPC, and BRE have had the option added to bulk import departments and categories from them, rather than creating them on the fly as items are added.
The VGPC database has also had the option added to use the market online price, drawn from online sources such as eBay and Amazon, rather than the alternate retailer price or the suggested in-store pricing.
Beyond that, we’ve also offered the option to update pricing from a grid, rather than just for one item or for the entire database.
Stripe
We’ve also greatly enhanced our support for Stripe this year, offering a linked and simplified signup process right within the software, as well as support for non-US currencies and even for Canadian Debit!
Purchase Orders
A number of requested enhancements were also made to purchase orders. These include allowing you to show new columns, such as the current price and stock level, as well as offering an option to no longer prompt for the quantity on each item scanned.
Reports
As ever, we are always adding new reports for you! Some of these are related to new features, of course. For example, there are several new reports showing details about your trade container activity. Another new report shows sales by combination of department and category, which many users have expressed appreciation for. There are also new reports for the purchase ordered amount totaled up by vendor, and for rewards redemptions for customers.
Other Changes
There are also a handful of other changes that don’t fall under any of the above categories. We added customer discount level support to receipt printing, enhanced the speed of syncing to the backup offline server for cloud users, and added support for using the high resolution item and customer screens with scrollbars for those wanting to use them on lower resolution monitors. We made security enhancements, including additional employee permissions and tracking quantity changes made to items even when not doing full audit mode.
What’s Next?
As always, we’ll be coming out with previews of upcoming features in our newsletter, and we’re always seeking to make the software better. There are things we will need to update, such as API changes for eCommerce solutions or credit card processing. But as always, what we are most likely to implement is what we think will benefit our users the most, so if there’s some feature or flourish you think is missing in the software, please feel free to use the feedback option in the software. It may well be that the next roundup we do like this will include the feature you’ve always dreamed of.
We are offering a new way to do trade ins with the release of version 25.9.1, based on feedback received from our stores on a common scenario they are facing. This feature is intended to address the situation in which at the time of the transaction, you offer a customer a fixed amount for a bulk lot (such as a box of loose games or of vinyl records) with the intent to later itemize at a more convenient time rather than while the customer waits, possibly even several days later.
While there are ways to do this currently, they don’t necessarily tie the individual items back to the original trade. The new trade containers feature will allow you to do a trade, fill it out later, and then go back and associate the individual items with the original transaction. This is going to be available through both the windows client and through the web register, though as the windows client is the most common I will be showing it below.
At the register, to use this feature you’ll need to put the trade container on the transaction. You can either use the trade container button, now included on the all features template and of course addable through the register designer, or you can scan the new system item for this feature, TRADECO.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll be presented with the option for the price you want to give the customer and notes that you want to record about the container. We would suggest using this to make it easier to track the specific container later, especially if this is a feature you are regularly utilizing. You may also, optionally, have these notes appear on the receipt – if you choose to do this, you’ll want to put in notes that you’re okay with the customer seeing, of course.
When you’re ready to fill in the details of the container, you can see a list of all of your open trade containers through the activities menu and then trade containers.Â
You can also view the closed past containers (and print labels for them) by changing the status you’re filtering by. Select the one that you want to fill and then hit edit, and you’ll be presented with a screen like the one below:
This screen works a lot like the purchase orders screen. You can add items in three ways: scanning them in the box in the top left, searching through the lookup button, or hitting import from device and bringing in a batch scanner’s data to mass import. Like with the purchase order screen, you can directly edit the quantity and cost on the grid.
In order to fill a container, the total cost of all items on the container must add up to the value you gave the customer originally. The system will not let you finalize a container until this matches, and nothing about the transaction or your inventory will be altered until the container is finalized.
Once you’ve finalized, though, the original transaction will be modified – the trade container’s value will be reduced to $0, and all of the items you’ve taken in the container will be added to the original transaction. This will cause them to show that transaction in item history. A reprint of the receipt will contain the individual items as well as a marker that there was a trade container and the date and time that it was filled. We hope you find this new feature helpful, it not, you can just continue with the process you have been using as this is just an alternate method.
One feature many of our customers who have been using the system for a long time may be unaware of is the option for higher resolution versions of customers and items. This option is presented on initiating a new store’s setup, but you can also access it through system administration and settings under the customize section. Because this can depend on your monitor, this setting is station specific.
For both Items and Customers, the main thing that is added by using the high resolution screen is a number of functions that normally cannot be accessed directly through the item edit screen. These features are all available elsewhere in the program, but using the high resolution screen will grant much simpler access.
For items, there are ten functions available in this panel for the high resolution screen: You can manage collectible copies of the item, view the promotions attached to the item, view special orders for the item, view and edit the track list for the item, create new departments, categories, and vendors, perform an instant PO on the item, the item history, and vendor database pricing.
You can click on the buttons towards the bottom middle of this screen, and bring up the function you want. On the settings screen, you also will set the function that will display when you first edit an item.
For Customers, there are nine functions available. These are discount cards, promotions, rewards points history, on account transactions, special orders, item sales history for the customer, the customer’s wish list, repairs for the customer, and their full transaction history.
Some functions will not be available in Enterprise mode; these are functions that would not be available through Windows anyways, such as creating vendors, departments, and categories.
In upcoming version 25.8.1.0, the high resolution screens will be altered slightly, allowing you to use them with scrollbars on lower resolutions instead of simply having sections not visible.
VGPC Updates
There are two new features upcoming for VGPC subscribers to use.
First, by request, we are adding an option to utilize VGPC’s online marketplace pricing for Used and Used 2. These prices are what non-subscribers can publicly see on VGPC’s website, and are meant to compete with eBay or Amazon listings, rather than with other retailers. The base VGPC price remains their retailer listings.
Second, we are also adding a screen where you can do searches and compare multiple items’ prices in an easy format between the three available VGPC feeds and the current in store pricing. You can also selectively update pricing.
In order to view this new grid in action, you can take a look at our video on the topic.
Miscellaneous Information
We will be closed Monday, September 1st for Labor Day.
The current version of the software, available for supported users, is 25.7.1. Version 25.8.1, described in part above, will be releasing September 2nd. To get back on support, or to upgrade to phone support from email support, contact sales at (919) 387-7597 x100. If you are not on phone support, and you call, a response will be sent to the email address on file. You can also buy a support incident from our website.
If you are on a version older than 5.0 that has been sunset, you can contact sales for information on purchasing an update. All versions prior to ThunderPOS 5.0 have been sunset from support as of December 31st, 2022.
For users who are signing up with our new, simpler Stripe integration, we’re happy to announce support through Stripe for accepting Affirm. Affirm is a buy now, pay later service that will enable your users making larger purchases to break the payments up into a payment plan, with you getting your money up front.
How does it work? When you have Affirm enabled, and you send a transaction to the credit card reader in the same way as any other credit card transaction, the customer will have a button they can tap for Affirm. This will give them a QR code, where they can accept the transaction through the Affirm app on their phone.
There are limitations in place on this: You’ll need to enable Affirm both through your Stripe dashboard and through ThunderPOS. Affirm can only be used (and will only be available for the customer to select) on transactions of $50 or more, and only if your customer is not placing any preorders on the invoice. Also, do note that the fee for processing using Affirm is higher than a standard credit card fee.
This solution might not be for everyone, but we have had customers asking for support for this type of payment plan, and so we’re delighted to make this available to our users.
One unique feature Stripe brings to ThunderPOS is support for Canadian customers, including processing Canadian debit cards.
Setting this up is a snap! Just follow the normal process for setting up a Stripe account, covered in our previous blog post, and make certain you set your address to be Canadian on your account. Even if the specific location has a Canadian address, you will only be able to do Canadian debit or Canadian dollars if the base account address is in Canada, so make certain that you are set correctly when you’re creating the account.
Within the point of sale, there’s just a few settings you’ll need to make certain you turn on. The default currency in Stripe Settings for ThunderPOS is US Dollars, so you’ll need to flip that to Canadian Dollars. If you want to support Interac, the Canadian Debit processing network, you’ll need to check the box for that.
When you’re processing and the amount is displayed to the customer, you can easily verify that you have all of this correct – the amount will be listed as, for example, CA$3.50 instead of simply $3.50. All amounts in your Stripe dashboard will also be displayed in your currency of choice.
We hope this option for integrating payments will be of help to our Canadian customers!
ThunderPOS can link with Stripe for easy in-person credit card processing in the US or Canada, with predictable processing fees published on Stripe’s website.
In previous versions, we have offered a paid connector that would allow for processing credit cards through Stripe. While functional, this required a level of technical know-how to configure, as you needed to create your own Stripe account, get hardware from them, and generate and plug your credentials into the system. Moving forward once version 25.7.1 is released, we’re happy to announce that through a partnership with Stripe we’re able to streamline this process and remove the paywall to the connector. You can now sign up for a Stripe account through ThunderPOS for Windows or through thunderpos.net and your credentials will automatically be linked into the software.
To manage your Stripe account through the windows client, you’ll just go to system administration -> settings, click on the plus sign next to Credit Cards, and go to Stripe Settings. Hitting the Stripe Settings button on this screen will launch the management screen you see above. This account has already been set up, but if you are creating a new one the Stripe Account button will launch you into a web browser with Stripe’s signup process.
If you’re using thunderpos.net, you can manage a Stripe account through a similar screen available through the Payments menu and then Stripe. When you are ordering your Stripe Terminal hardware during this process, there are specific readers we are able to support. As of this writing, those are the Stripe Reader S700 and the BBPOS WisePOS E. You’ll want to get a terminal device for each register you’re going to be processing from.
You’ll also need certain business information for signing up, the same as you would for any credit card processing account – bank account information for deposits, proof of identity, tax ids, address information, etc. Stripe’s signup process will guide you through this, and you can always resume later in the event that you need to retrieve information elsewhere.
Once you’ve signed up and received the hardware, Stripe’s devices are easy to set up. On first booting one up, you’ll be walked through connecting it to your wifi network, and then presented with a connection code, which will be a few words separated by dashes. To connect the terminal to your point of sale, you’ll navigate back to the settings screen described above. You’ll need to have one or more locations created, which are the physical addresses the terminals will be operating at, and then within the location this register will be at you can add and select the terminal.
Also through settings, you can set the currency you want to use. This may be restricted based on the country of your account – for example, to do Canadian Dollars or support Canadian Debit, you’ll need to have your account in Stripe created in Canada, not in the United States. Once you’ve linked the terminal, the device will apply updates and restart. This may take a few minutes, but once the screen is back to the Stripe idle screen, you’re ready to process. Processing cards is easy – when you’re finished adding items to the transaction, just go to complete transaction, then press the Credit Card button. The transaction will be sent to your connected terminal.
At this point, the customer will be able to insert or tap their card or contactless payment. You can cancel the credit transaction by clicking cancel, or the transaction will automatically time out after about ninety seconds. If the customer runs a card and it is approved, it’ll be applied to the transaction, and if the funds cover the full transaction amount the transaction will automatically complete and a receipt will print.
Refunds through Stripe can only be done to the card used for the original transaction, and the return must be created through the transaction details screen. If no credit card was used on the original transaction, you won’t be able to refund money to a credit card. However, the card will not need to be present at the time of refund; Stripe will automatically link it to the prior transaction and protect you from return frauds like attempting to do multiple returns of the same item. We’re very hopeful that this simple solution for card processing will help you all out and are happy to answer any questions regarding it through the usual support contacts – support@thunderpos.com or (919) 387-7597×101. This feature will be available very soon with the release of 25.7.1.
With the release of ThunderPOS 25.6.1, we have a few new item fields available that are automatically maintained by the system. These are the last traded in date, the last received date, and for enterprise the last transferred in date.
You can add these to your item grid and also to custom reports. These will take into account activity from before the system was updated; for this reason, to initially set it the update script may take a few minutes to run.
We’ve added a number of new features for purchase orders in ThunderPOS version 25.6.1.
First, and most importantly, all of these changes are optional. You must alter the settings if you want to change from how the product currently operates in version 25.5.2. To do this, in the more button in the purchase orders section, you’ll select options.
Use Vendor Cost is a previously existing setting that controls the default cost of items as they are added. All other settings on this screen are new with this version.
Most of these add additional information to the purchase ordered items grid: The current stock level, projected stock level if this order fully is filled, the last dates sold and received, and the price. These are all disabled by default.
Also here is an option for prompting for the quantity of the item. This option is enabled by default, which matches the previous behavior of the system: when you scan an item, it will ask you to confirm the quantity you want to order.
If you turn this off, then the reorder quantity of that item will automatically be used instead. You can of course still edit this on the grid directly by clicking the ordered column and typing in the new number, but you will not be required to confirm the initial quantity before ordering.
These features were added by the requests of customers; while we don’t promise that we can fulfill any individual requests, we do take customer feedback strongly under advisement when considering how to spend development time.
Support for the new Cost of Goods Sold field added to WooCommerce in their release of 9.9 as an experimental feature and coming soon as a standard feature is being added to ThunderPOS and ThunderPOS.net with the release of 25.6.1 next week.
This feature allows you to sync your cost fields from your ThunderPOS database to your WooCommerce database. This includes syncing to variable products, if you are using those.
For the moment, if you want to use this feature you will need to enable it within WooCommerce. First, make certain you have updated WooCommerce to version 9.9 or above.
Then you’re going to go under settings to the advanced tab, and you’re going to find the features section. At the very bottom you’ll find the checkbox for enabling cost of goods sold:
Once you’ve checked this, you’ll also need to enable the setting through either thunderpos.net or ThunderPOS for Windows.
As you can see, there are two options for syncing costs, and you can enable neither, either, or both. This will allow for those who have been using add-ons to do costs on the WooCommerce side to make a graceful transition.
