Wash Select II Coupon Question

[srr5008]

My brother and I have recently taken over our family carwash when the owner, my father (username "Reds" on this forum), passed away. Prior to taking over, we were involved in some of the paperwork aspects, but are still teaching ourselves some of the finer points - hence, me posting here.

We have the Wash Select II system and currently have an agreement with the local state police barracks to give them coupons for an $8 wash, while charging them $7. I found a Unitec guide to programing coupons using Hyperterminal. What I was wondering was if coupons were set up like standard codes? I can do a fleet account report and it shows me all the codes currently programmed in the machine, and which ones have been used (we typically set each code up for one use). I don't see anything about coupons in the fleet report. Is there a way to generate a report for coupons? Is it generally set up with one fleet account that encompasses all of the coupons, or are they like standard codes, where each coupon would be entered individually?

My father used to print the coupons with numbers on them, but they didn't end in "0" so I don't have an account number to enter into the fleet report to look up the individual coupons. If it is set up with the Police having one account that includes all of the coupons then I don't know how to figure out what the account number might be.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Dcalhoun]

The coupons are not account specific. They are their own thing and do not act like a fleet account but, rather, act like money. The accounting report will show you how many coupons of each type were used during the accounting period being reported. (look under the heading "VIP Wash Coupons on the Accounting Report) In your scenario, when the police are using a coupon think of it as them inserting a $7 bill (if there were such a thing). The $7 value was most likely programmed into your Unitec by your father for this purpose because the coupons were prepaid. Anyone using that particular style of coupon would get a $7 credit.

The numbers you father put on them were probably just so he could keep track of how many came back and have nothing to do with the Unitec system. The coupons are probably a product of Coinco (the mfr of your bill acceptor) and they no longer support these coupons nor do they supply them anymore.

 

[srr5008]

Thank you for the in-depth reply. I spoke with a Unitec rep today and he informed me that the coupon option available through hyperterminal is not the same thing as a paper coupon that gets fed into the bill acceptor. Apparently the bill-acceptor coupons need to be set up manually at the Unitec machine. The coupons are set up to work with our brand bill acceptor (starts with an "R" I think?). He pointed me to the correct manual to use, so I think I should be able to figure it out now. Thanks again.

 

[jenward]

Thank you for the in-depth reply. I spoke with a Unitec rep today and he informed me that the coupon option available through hyperterminal is not the same thing as a paper coupon that gets fed into the bill acceptor. Apparently the bill-acceptor coupons need to be set up manually at the Unitec machine. The coupons are set up to work with our brand bill acceptor (starts with an "R" I think?). He pointed me to the correct manual to use, so I think I should be able to figure it out now. Thanks again.

Good morning,
If you need any additional help with coupons, please give me a call here at Unitec. It sounds as if you may be using a Mars bill acceptor and Mars coupons.
Thank you,
Jen Ward
Unitec
443-561-1200