Age Verification for EPoS: Ensuring Lawful Alcohol Sales with OpSuite

Retail and wholesale businesses selling alcohol are no strangers to the importance of complying with age verification laws. Initiatives such as Challenge 21 and Challenge 25 play a vital role in preventing the unlawful sale of alcohol to underage customers. Traditionally, this process has relied on cashiers manually verifying IDs and recording the transaction. While this method may appear to be effective, manual entry is prone to errors, slows down the checkout process and is challenging to audit. That’s where OpSuite’s ‘Item Messages’ feature steps in, ensuring you have a robust system for the lawful sale of alcohol and other restricted items.

The Importance of Age Verification Compliance

Compliance with initiatives like Challenge 21 and Challenge 25 ensures businesses remain within the law while promoting responsible alcohol sales. The schemes require cashiers to request proof of age from any customer who appears younger than 21 or 25, respectively. However, manually recording these checks may leave room for inconsistencies, especially during busy trading hours.

RMS Top Tip: According to the RASG, Challenge 25 is a legal requirement for the sale of alcohol in Scotland and is also placed as a condition on a significant number of licenses across England and Wales.

Retailers and wholesalers need a reliable solution to meet these requirements. Enter OpSuite: an EPoS solution designed to simplify and ensure the age verification process with its ‘Item Messages’ feature.

How OpSuite EPoS Supports Age Verification

The age verification process in OpSuite integrates into the checkout workflow with ease. The Item Messages feature ensures your business remains compliant and efficient. Here’s how Item Messages ensures the lawful sale of alcohol:

Prompt for Age Verification: When an alcohol (or other restricted) product is scanned, OpSuite automatically prompts the cashier to confirm whether an age verification challenge, e.g. Challenge 25, was conducted.

Recording the Challenge: Instead of relying on manual logbooks, the cashier can record the outcome directly within the system. Whether ID was requested and verified is documented in real-time.

Centralised Data: The recorded information is stored securely within the cloud-hosted system, making it easy for business owners and managers to access reports and ensure compliance.

Audit-Friendly: With all age verification challenges digitally logged, the system provides robust audit trails. This ensures businesses are always prepared for inspections or reviews by licensing authorities.

OpSuite’s Item Messages Feature for Age Verification

The Item Messages feature gives businesses selling alcohol a robust solution for age verification. Here’s how it works:

Configurable Prompts: Item Messages can be assigned the individual products, departments or categories, to ensure that alcohol and other age-restricted items are flagged automatically during checkout. If multiple restricted items are included in a single transaction, OpSuite can be configured to prompt just once to prevent unnecessary repetition.

Cashier Age Restrictions: To further ensure compliance, businesses can set both a required customer age and a minimum cashier age for processing restricted sales. If the cashier does not meet the age requirement, OpSuite prompts for the credentials of an eligible manager or supervisor to authorise the transaction.

Minimum Date of Birth Display: When the “Show Date Limit” option is enabled, OpSuite calculates and displays the exact minimum date of birth required to meet the age restriction. This eliminates guesswork for the cashier, increasing their confidence in asking for age verification and reducing the risk of human error.

Benefits for Retail and Wholesale Businesses

1. Smooth Checkout Experience

By supporting the age verification process, OpSuite reduces the workload on checkout operatives, allowing them to focus on providing excellent customer service. It also speeds up transactions, ensuring a smoother checkout experience for customers.

2. Enhanced Accuracy and Compliance

Manual recording can lead to human error, putting businesses at risk of non-compliance. The Item Messages feature eliminates this risk by providing a clear, consistent process for every transaction involving age-restricted products.

3. Valuable Data Insights

OpSuite’s analytics allows business owners to analyse age verification trends and identify potential risks. These insights can lead to better decision-making and improved compliance for your business.

4. Improved Inspection Preparedness

OpSuite’s detailed reporting capabilities ensure that businesses have all the necessary documentation to demonstrate compliance in the event of an inspection, or internal audit, reducing the risk of fines, penalties and even a ban on selling alcohol or other restricted products. With OpSuite’s Cashier Age Authorisation Audit Report, business owners can closely monitor and audit transactions where age verification is required, to ensure the lawful sale of age restricted items.

Why Choose OpSuite for Your Alcohol Sales?

OpSuite EPoS is a powerful, cloud-based solution tailored to the needs of retail and wholesale businesses. The Item Messages feature is just one example of how OpSuite addresses industry challenges and helps businesses stay safely within the law.

With OpSuite, you’re not just investing in an EPoS system, you’re equipping your business with tools to operate more efficiently, comply with regulations and deliver better customer experiences.

Ready to Upgrade Your Age Verification Process?

If your business sells alcohol, we have the solution to ensure your compliance with Challenge 21 and Challenge 25 initiatives. OpSuite EPoS makes this easier than ever by automating the age verification process and providing a robust procedure for the sale of restricted items.

Why Choose RMS?

RMS have worked with ambitious businesses since 2004, supplying tailored software solutions and EPoS hardware from the Shetland Islands to the Seychelles. We work with businesses in most retail sectors, contact us to learn more about how we can transform your alcohol sales and ensure compliance with ease.