Leipzig, 07/10/2021. ALVARA | Digital Solutions is offering a smart and sustainable alternative to printed paper receipts with the eBon. Since 1 January 2020, the Kassengesetz (cash register law) has stipulated the requirement for receipts to be issued for even the smallest amounts, allowing the leading European provider for track & trace software solutions to digitally create more than 118 million receipts with this service. Besides retailers and the environment, customers are also benefitting from the intuitive application.
The so-called receipt requirement (Bon-Pflicht) means that since the start of 2020 a cash register receipt has to be printed on paper or created digitally for every business transaction − irrespective of whether the customer wants one or not. Since fewer than three percent of customers1 want a receipt when purchasing fast food, magazines, tobacco, or bakery products, the receipts almost always end up unread in the paper waste. However, due to the use of thermal paper and the toxic substances it contains, they do not belong there – they need to be disposed of in the residual waste bin.
“In our experience, printed receipts increase the demand for cash register rolls thirty-threefold per cash register per month. The additional costs for this could be up to 1,000 euros per store per year.1 This is a significant cost factor for small and medium-sized businesses in particular,” explains ALVARA | Digital Solutions Managing Director Steven Schwarznau. “And that’s not at all sustainable. With the digital receipt, eBon for short, we have created a smart and climate-friendly alternative, and declared war on the flood of paper.”
The service provides customers with an electronic receipt, including the company logo and fiscal information, but without personal data. The only prerequisite for using the service is that the cash register has an active internet connection. There are three possible ways to use the service, making it very accessible to customers. “Modern smartphones simply scan the relevant QR code with their camera. For older models, customers can use any app that reads QR codes. Or customers can opt for the easy-to-use ‘bon-online.de‘ app,” explains Steven Schwarznau. Users are automatically redirected to the eBon and can save this on the smartphone.
In addition to major thermal paper savings, there are also obvious benefits in the field of data protection: When a purchase is made at a checkout system that uses the ALVARA | Digital Solutions ITR POS software, it is guaranteed that no customer data will be transferred. When a purchase is made with a debit or credit card, either a receipt is printed or the cash register hides personal information before forwarding the receipt. “Furthermore, the receipts only exist as images and are therefore not regarded as analyzable data,” says Steven Schwarznau. The information is also only available for 30 days, after this period it is deleted, and only saved on the smartphone of the customer. “More than 1,340 cash registers are already using the eBon service today. Thanks to the development of drivers for a wide range of POS systems, it can be used with any software. The eBon service has already saved 35,400 kilometers of toxic receipt paper,” adds Steven Schwarznau.
More information: https://www.itrelations.de/en/products/ebon/
[1] Reference: https://www.rnd.de/wirtschaft/fragen-und-antworten-zur-kassenbon-pflicht-mussen-kunden-bald-alle-belege-annehmen-EX5J5L25QJEK7IZFK3D2NJYLRY.html
