iKavárna

iCafe is an interesting piece of software that pretty much fulfils the requirements for it: to record payments for goods and services in an internet cafe. The installation on the operator station is seamless, so you don't have to worry about the maliciousness of configuring a separate package for the server and separately for each client station.

The "counter" is started manually for customers, not automatically, which I consider more of an advantage (anyone who has ever had a bunch of restless Italians on the premises will know what I'm talking about). In the newly redesigned, now more pleasant GUI, I also welcomed the possibility of charging for the Internet not only by the minute, but e.g. after every quarter of an hour. The editing of item types (drinks, CDs, print...) and their assignment to client PCs via drag & drop or double-click is also well handled; if you misclick, it doesn't matter, you can also remove the added item using the right button.

I was amused by the behaviour of iKavárna after clicking the "Exit" button - the box changes colour and "remembers" the amount billed until you restart it, which is very useful in case of a dispute with a customer. During the final billing of the client it is possible to specify the discount (goods and internet), after filling in the received amount the program calculates how much to give back to the client.

Compared to the previous version, a direct sales account has been added, which was noticeably missing before. It is also now possible to define any number of admin or user accounts. A regular user does not have permission to manage items + user list and perform configuration. In the new version of iKavárna we can also set the currency (e.g. Czech or Slovak crowns) and edit items in the final billing window.

In the instance directory of the program, the log.txt and log.csv files store the payments made in the form of receipt number, date, time, user, internet price, goods price, total price. This information can therefore be easily processed further, e.g. by a spreadsheet. The program did not crash once during the testing and took up around 6MB in memory, the CPU consumption was also negligible. The development of the program is still ongoing - more new functions should appear soon. You can send your suggestions and comments to the author.