Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Welcome to the introduction video of BillGastro.
This video will give you a general overview about the features, hardware and configuration.
BillGastro is an innovative Point-Of-Sale ordering system
for restaurants or other gastronomy enterprises.
It implements a large feature set
covering the needs of most restaurants or bars.
BG is an Open Source project.
I will give more information about this aspect at the end of this video.
In the following slides, I would like to give you
a short rundown of the most popular features of BG.
All the mentioned features will be explained in detail in following screencasts.
BG features a very clean and tidied-up screen,
fashionable colors and an appealing design
on workstations as well as on mobile devices.
Each waiter has a different predefined color.
This gives a quick and clear overview during the ordering process.
You can create as many tables as needed,
group them into rooms and move them around at short notice.
BG uses modern drag and drop functionality all over the place
which makes it very user friendly.
The ordering process is also very fast.
In case guests want to pay separately,
splitting of an order is as simple as clicking on one order item once or several times.
In some countries, take away items have a different tax class than normal items.
BillGastro easily adapts itself to tax rules of several countries,
including Austria, Germany and France.
A correct assignment of costs via so-called cost centers is also possible,
for example for broken goods or in case guests are invited by the owners of the restaurant.
For taking orders, you can customize the main categories for selling items
( i.e. like "starters", "desserts", etc.)
and characterize them by assigning colors and icons.
In case a guest orders something that is not yet in the database,
you can set the article name and price manually.
Articles can have variants
for example, a pizza or a drink can be sold in various sizes.
BG contains a database of current and previously created items.
A dynamic search function prevents the creation of multiple identical or similar articles.
That way, your database stays clean.
You can enable or disable articles simply by drag and drop.
You can also define options which modify your articles
(e.g. "warm" or "extra ketchup" or “well done”).
The creation of articles and it's variants is also very straightforward.
You can create custom slideshows or a digital menu card
simply by dragging and dropping articles onto an empty page.
You can move text and images around by drag and drop,
set the font style, color, font size and alignment.
You can include the generated menucard or slideshow directly into your website
or allow your guests to self-order from home or from a tablet at your restaurant.
BG ships with a customer database.
At the main ordering screen, you simply type the first letters of the name.
The dynamic search will return a list of matching customers.
One order can have many customers.
You can cancel already sold items on a finished order at a later time,
just by clicking on the corresponding items.
You can cancel already sold items on a finished order at a later time,
just by clicking on the corresponding items.
You can also split and cancel single items in case several ones were sold.
no special hardware
BillGastro doesn't need special POS hardware,
since it is browser based and uses conventional network technologies,
from Ethernet over Power lines to wireless.
Therefore it allows the use of universally available, cost saving hardware.
Browser based
BillGastro will display directly in the browser of your existing PC or of mobile devices
like smartphones, tablets or other handheld devices.
That is the reason why you don't need to buy specialized and rather expensive handhelds.
However; BillGastro does not depend on a connection to the internet,
because a server can also be set up locally in a restaurant.
remote access
You can immediately see how your restaurant is performing
via remote access, even if you are at home or on holidays.
You only need to connect the BillGastro server to the internet
or you just access your account on one of our servers.
BG is currently available in 5 languages.
Every waiter can set the system to his/her native language.
BillGastro ships with translations for
German, English, French, Spanish and Turkish.
BG comes in two variants.
You can choose between
an online variant that can be accessed
via the internet for a monthly fee.
All that you need for the online variant
is a browser on your existing PC.
The online variant is fully functional
and also supports mobile devices and thermal receipt printers.
On our website you can find tutorials
which explain how to set up these devices.
Or you can choose a local installation
if you need more independence from the internet.
It is also possible to obtain a hybrid variant,
which is a combination of both.
This special configuration allows for highest reliability
in case of a harddrive crash or other technical defects.
In this case you can immediately continue working
with the online variant.
In the following I would like to give you
an overview about the hardware aspects of BG.
We have researched and tested devices of various manufacturers
that work best with BG.
On our website we offer various hardware sets and combinations.
If you are already using invoice printers, PC's or touchscreen monitors,
chances are good that you can continue using them.
BG connects to and contains it's own driver
for standard thermal receipt printers.
Almost all printers can receive the standard
ESCPOS language.
The kitchen or bar will immediately be informed
about the ordered items via thermo receipt printers
or separate touchscreen monitors.
This leaves more time for what is truly important:
personal contact with your guests!
If a RS232 serial line is used,
the distance from the printers to the BG server
can be up to 50 Meters.
BG can send different items to different locations.
For printing an order receipt,
waiters can choose an receipt printer that is next to them,
which minimizes walking time.
Mini PCs function as the main BG server as well as a workstation.
That way you save the investment for additional PC's.
Touchscreen support is only limited by the Operating System.
That means you can use almost all available touchscreens currently on the market.
Handhelds complete the system.
Because BG uses internet and browser technologies only,
most recent smartphones, tablets or handhelds
should work with BG out of the box.
BG adapts itself to different screen resolutions,
even though the final result may vary a bit.
You can test your existing handheld immediately
by browsing to the live demo website of BG.
You will receive more instructions at the end of this presentation.
BG is able to leverage the use of small and lightweight handhelds,
which allows waiters to use a handy and very elegant ordering tool
that fits in any waiter apron or breast pocket.
Here you can see a Windows based smartphone.
BG worked out of the box
by entering the URL to the live demo application.
On this picture you can see the ordering screen
on an Android based smartphone.
Flipping the phone to the side
increases the size of the buttons slightly.
Some waiters prefer to work this way.
This slide shows BG on an Apple iPhone or Apple iPod.
By means of the following slides
I'd like to show you various network configurations
that were used in live settings with BG.
In the simplest case you have one BG server,
which is a fully functional workstation at the same time.
This way, you save the cost for one additional computer.
BG is a Ruby on Rails application
served by the Apache webserver.
The mini PC can generate it's own WiFi network,
to which mobile devices can connect easily via DHCP.
No configuration is needed at all.
Just browse to the fixed local IP address of the BG server and start working.
You can add additional mobile devices whenever you need it.
Employees like waiters could even use their private phones
if they wish to do so.
Newly entered articles or orders on one device
are immediately visible on all other devices.
That means that several waiters can share one table
without interfering with each other.
Waiters can also easily exchange their handhelds.
They just need to log in with their password
and continue working where their colleauges left off.
This diagram shows a slightly more complex network configuration.
Here you see additional backoffice PC's
which connect to the same network.
If you need wider WiFi coverage,
you may want to use a wireless access point with a more powerful antenna.
If you are using the online variant of BG,
all terminals can access the application on an external BG server.
It is also possible that the server is located
at the head office of a restaurant chain.
Since the data amount is very small per order,
and browsers already use caching of resources wherever possible,
BG works well even over low bandwidth networks.
BG has been shown to reliably work with many different network configurations,
which included mainstream network devices like power line adapters,
WiFi bridges, modems and hubs.
To obtain the online variant,
which the core developers of BG offer as a Software as a Service,
you can subscribe immediately by clicking on the "Subscribe" buttons
on the BG website.
Please have a look at the current prices, offers and functionalities.
The BG core developers provide a BG-certified,
fast, reliable and SSL secured access point.
After clicking on one of the subscribe buttons,
you will be redirected to a PayPal page
where you can confirm your monthly fee.
We are going to reply to you within 24 hours
with your personal BillGastro URL and password.
You then simply enter this private URL
directly into your browsers and change the password.
In 2011, the author of BG, Michael Franzl,
received an recognition certificate at the innovation price competition
of the federal state of Lower Austria.
You can test the fully featured version of BillGastro live!
Just browse with your already existing PC or mobile device to demo.billgastro.com.
The password is owner, that is, o w n e r.
BillGastro autodetects if you are using
a mobile device with a small screen
or a workstation with a large screen.
BG will automatically switch to an optimized view.
The link to the demo is also available on our website.
The link is demo.billgastro.com
You can find out more about BG on it's website
www.billgastro.com
Drop us an email if you have more specific questions
office@billgasro.com
BillGastro is free software:
you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation,
either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability
or fitness for a particular purpose.
See the GNU Affero General Public Licence for more details.
We invite developers to download BillGastro,
enhance it and publish the enhancements in return.
This guarantees that BillGastro will continue to grow and improve.
The Source Code of BG is available at
github.com/michaelfranzl/BillGastro
If you like BillGastro and think that it is useful for your purposes,
the core developers ask for a donation to the Open Source project.
Donations enable us to continue working on it
and speed up the development.
We also happily take your feature suggestions.
Please look up the donation button on the website.
BillGastro (c) Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Michael Franzl