Lay-Aways

CREATING A LAY-AWAY

In FieldStack, a Hold is a Special Order with an Arrival date. A Lay-Away is a multi-item Hold with deposit. In FieldStack, you will see the word Hold and Special order used in various places but generally will not see Lay-Away unless viewing a Client-Specific report.

1. To do a lay-away, scan all the items that the customer wants to put on lay-away. You can also bring up their customer account at this time, tap on Find Customer and tap New Customer or add the info during the Hold process. It is recommended that all al Lay-Aways be assigned to existing or newly-created Customer Accounts as opposed to entering information in the free text fields.
2. In the lower right-hand corner, tap on the Hold All… button.
   
3. Tap on Add Deposit or [ALT + D] on the keyboard and enter the amount being deposited.
   
4. Tap on Associate With Customer or [ALT + W] on the keyboard to search for an existing customer account. If there is no account, the name and phone number may be typed into the fields.
5. Tap the Hold All button or [ALT + A] on the keyboard to complete the hold.
6. The items listed will be removed from the screen and will be replaced with a deposit line (or lines) that will contain reference to an item or items that were put on lay-away.
   
   1. Note: In FieldStack, holds apply to individual items and not the whole basket of goods, the deposit will not split evenly across the items but will apply to the first item.   If the deposited amount was more than the price of the first item, a portion of the deposit would flow to the next item. For this reason, you may see a deposit amount applied to only one item on the screen, or you may see it applied to multiple items, but rarely all items. It depends on the item prices and the total deposited.
7. Complete the sale for the deposit as you would sell any other item, using cash or credit card.
8. Receipts will print out that contain the item hold information with the customer’s name and phone number.

CHECKING BALANCE REMAINING ON A LAY-AWAY

In the case where a customer comes in and wants to know how much they owe on a Lay Away, you can see the pre-tax total quickly by utilizing the Layaway By Store report (discussed later in this document).  For an exact balance remaining, including tax, follow these steps.

1. Click  Find Special Order on the POS screen or press [ALT + F8] on the keyboard.
   
2. Enter the customer’s name in the search field to bring up the items they have on lay-away. This list could also include special orders. Holds (lay-aways) are technically special orders that have arrival dates and deposits. 

            In this search box you will see the items, the customer name, telephone number, email address (if entered), the Arrival             Date – which is the date of the lay-away – the item price, and the amount deposited.

       3. Select all items in Lay-Away by holding Ctrl and clicking each item. (If customer has multiple layaways, they will be                 grouped by "Arrival Date")

       4. Tap the Sell button or [Alt+S] which will bring all items into a cart on the POS screen. 

       5. Tap Close [Esc].

       6. Total Due will be displayed excluding any prior deposits.  To back out of this screen, simply tap Remove [Delete] on all             items in cart.

APPLYING ADDITIONAL FUNDS TO A LAY-AWAY

You do not need the items or any paperwork to apply additional funds to the lay-away if the customer comes in to put more money onto their items.

1. Click  Find Special Order on the POS screen or press [ALT + F8] on the keyboard.
   
2. Enter the customer’s name in the search field to bring up the items they have on lay-away. This list could also include special orders. Holds (lay-aways) are technically special orders that have arrival dates and deposits. In this search box you will see the items, the customer name, telephone number, email address (if entered), the Arrival Date – which is the date of the lay-away – the item price, and the amount deposited.
3. To apply additional funds to all items, multi-select the items using TAP + SHIFT + TAP or mouse click + SHIFT + mouse click.
4. Tap the Add Deposit button or [ALT + D] on the keyboard and enter the amount the customer is applying.
   
5. Once the OK button is tapped, you will be able to see that the deposit fields on the listed items will show Pending Deposit.
   
6. The list of lay-away items will remain on the screen. You can press [ESC] to remove this screen.
7. On the POS screen you will now see the items affected by the new deposit amount. The deposit amount will show in the Total Due area.
   
8. Complete the sale for the deposit amount in the same way you would complete any sale.  If the customer has any additional items they are buying at the same time that are not lay-away items, they may be scanned and sold in the same sale.
9. If you were to look up the customer info again and tap on Find Special Order, you would see that the far-right column now displays the total Deposited on those items.
   
10. If an additional deposit is made at a future date, the deposit will apply a portion to the next item in the list that has not reached its shelf price. Once any item has a deposit equal to its shelf price, the deposit will flow to the next item.

SELLING A LAY-AWAY

1. If the customer would like to complete their lay-away and pay off the total balance for the items, start by bringing up their customer account or tap on Find Special Order [ALT + F8] and enter their name.
2. Multi-select the items in the lay-away by using TAP + SHIFT + TAP or mouse click + SHIFT + mouse click.
3. Tap Sell or [ALT + S] on the keyboard.
   
4. All items selected will be removed from the pop-up box and you may press [ESC] to close the box.
5. At this point all items from the lay-away will be listed in the POS sales screen. In addition, all associated deposits placed upon items in the lay-away will also appear in the POS screen.
   
6. The total due in the upper right-hand corner is the balance due on the items in the lay-away plus tax.
   1. If any items are deleted from the screen, the associated deposit will also be removed and will remain on the customer account.
   2. Deposit lines cannot be deleted from the sale. If the associated item is deleted, the deposit line will be automatically removed.
7. Complete the sale as you would any transaction.

CANCELLING A LAY-AWAY IN FULL

If the customer has started and paid deposits on a lay-away but has decided they do not want the items, the lay-away can be completed and the deposit(s) returned to the customer.

1. Bring up the customer account using [ALT + F1] or tap on Find Special Order [ALT + F8] and enter their name. This should bring up a list of the items they have on Lay-Away or special order. Special ordered items will not have a date in the arrived column.  Lay-away items will show with an arrived date.  Some but not all items may show a deposit.
2. Select the first item. And tap on Edit Special Order or press enter on the keyboard.                                                                                                                                                                                         

1. A pop-up box specific to that item will appear on screen.  If the item has deposit funds associated, you will see this in the Current Deposit field. Tap on Complete or press [ALT + C] on the keyboard to Complete (close/terminate) the order.
    
2. If there are more items in the lay-away, the box containing the list will remain on screen. If a deposit was associated with the first item Completed, it will appear on the POS screen as a credit.
    
3. Continue Completing each item from the list if the customer wants to terminate their entire lay-away. Be careful not to Complete any open Special orders that may be on their account. These would appear with no date in the Arrival Date column.
4. Once all items have been edited and completed, the search box may be empty and can be closed.
5. All deposits associated with those items will appear on the POS screen and the total will show as a Credit Balance: ($xx.xx) in the upper-right.
6. If the Lay-away was done on a customer account, the customer account will remain on the screen. The deposit can be added onto the account for later purchases by tapping the Add Up to button or [F3] on the keyboard. If the customer account was not brought up before cancelling the item from the Special Order/Hold search screen, it will not appear on screen and will need to be looked up to apply the deposit to the account as a credit.
    
7. After applying the credit to the Customer Account, the Total Due will appear as $0.00.
8. Tap Finish Sale or [+] on the keyboard to the complete the transaction.
9. If the customer paid with Cash or Credit Card and wishes to have the deposit returned as one of those methods, tap Cash or [+] to cash out the sale or tap Credit Card or [F4] to initiate a return to the credit card (a prompt will appear and the card can be inserted to process the refund.)

PARTIALLY CANCELLING A LAY-AWAY

If the customer wants to cancel an item from a lay-away, and that item has a deposit applied, you will want to Complete (close) that item from the lay-away and apply the deposit to the remaining items.

1. Bring up the customer account information and tap Find Special Order or [ALT + F8] on the keyboard.
2. Select the item the customer wants to cancel.
    
3. Tap Edit Special Order or [Enter] on the keyboard to select the lay-away item.
4. In the pop-out box, tap Complete or [ALT + C] o the keyboard to Complete (close) the lay-away for that item.
    
5. Since the item had a deposit associated with it, the deposit will come up on the POS screen as a credit.
    
6. You will want to apply this deposit amount to the remaining items.
7. Tap Find Special Order or [ALT + F8] on the keyboard to bring up the remaining items again.
8. Multi-select the remaining items.
9. Tap Add Deposit or [ALT + D] on the keyboard.
    
10. Enter a deposit amount equal to the credit amount that came from the other item then tap OK or press enter on the keyboard.
     
11. The total due will show as $0.00. You can tap Finish Sale or [+] to complete the transaction.
12. The Deposit amount has now been moved to the remaining items. It will apply to the first item in the list. If the deposit is more than the shelf price of the first item, the remainder will apply to the next item in the list.
13. The Completed item is still in stock and is now “available” again and can be put back on the sales floor. 

REVIEWING ALL LAY-AWAYS

There may be a client-specific lay-away report enabled for your chain. This report will only show if it is turned on for your company.

1. On the POS tab, locate Layaway By Store.
    
2. Tap on Run when the screen comes up. By default, this will only show the list for the store running the report.
3. This report shows the original date of the Lay-away, the customer information, the total deposited, total of the shelf price of the items in the lay-away, the last time payment was made, and the amount due (based on your policy and settings).  Also based on your settings, the late pay will show if the customer is late in making payment. The OverDueLayaway column will highlight if the lay-away has been set aside for longer than is allowed based on your company settings.
    
4. Use this list as a guide to call and remind customers that they need to make a payment or pick up their lay-away.
5. If the customer asks about specific items, you will need to look up their information in the POS screen. Copying their Customer Code and pasting it with start and stop asterisks (ex. * F0001004*) into the POS is the quickest way from this screen to find the list of items they have on lay-away.

DEPOSITS ON CLOSED LAY-AWAYS (OFFICE USERS)

Administrators or accounts personnel may want to periodically make sure there were no lay-away items closed where a deposit was not returned to a customer.  Although this will be rare, it is possible to do this from within the Special Order list in the Customers tab or from the Marketplace Center in the Marketplaces tab. This report will only show if it is turned on for your company.

1. To review these, go the Inventory tab and click on Special Orders with Deposits.
    
2. Click Run. This will show all orders, whether Special Orders, Holds or Lay-Aways, that have deposits associated with them.
3. If there is a date in the Completion Date column, this means that the order was somehow closed without the deposit being returned to the customer.
    
4. The best way to handle this would be to audit this list monthly and review any Completed items from the previous month. The deposit on the item will need to be returned to the customer’s account. This will need to be done manually.
5. To return the deposited amount to a customer account, copy the customer code from the cuCode column.
6. Go to the Customers tab and click on Find Customer.
    
7. Paste the Customer Code into the search box with start and stop asterisks (ex. *FC003209*) then click Search or press enter on the keyboard.
    
8. Click on Edit Customer Information, Points, or Credit.
9. Click on Adjust Credit.
    
10. Enter the dollar amount in the Dollars in Credit box.
11. Enter a reason and click on Add $xx.xx in credit. If no reason is typed into the reason box, the button will be grayed out.
12. This deposit issue is now resolved. The order will show up again in the report as a deposit on a completed order. This is why it would be best to use this report on a monthly basis - looking at only orders closed in the previous month - or keep a separate list of affected accounts so that deposits are not returned to accounts more than once.