Irish drycleaners report that that conversion from punts to euros took place without a hitch on the first day of trading this year.
Peter Kelly (pictured with staff) of Stay Bright Cleaners in Monahan said: "We started running dual currency on our SPOT EPOS terminal six months ago. The main prices were in punts with the conversion price shown below in euros. On January 2 the SPOT technical helpdesk simply dialled into our till via a modem link and changed it to work the other way round… conversion took about five minutes." Mr Kelly said he will run two cash drawers for a while.
Although the euro is not legal tender in the UK, SPOT Business Systems said that over 90% of all its EPOS installations during 2001 requested euro conversion information on all receipts.
"The general view is that, while it is not a legal requirement to provide these details, it does look kind of cool," explained Mark Reynolds, managing director of SPOT Business Systems.
At another EPoS company, DryStream, technical director Danny Wright commented: "It has been an easy change for DryStream users. The changeover went smoothly with data being converted as required into the new currency. Our users reported an easy transition." He added that all systems less than 18-months-old already have euro software, and other can easily upgrade.
