Forecourt adds functionality to LS Central POS to interact with fuel pumps in a petrol station, show status of pumps in a graphical way, and finalize fuel sales.
With Forecourt comes the Forecourt Manager, a GUI program that runs on top of the POS and communicates seamlessly with the pumps and LS Central POS, and thus provides the POS user with a real-time overview of pump status and transactions on a pump. The Forecourt Manager also provides some pump control from the POS, such as stop and start pumps and authorize pumps. Numerous types of fuel sales are supported, for example Post-pay where a fuel transaction is finalized after pumping and Pre-pay where the fuel sale is paid in advanced and the pump is pre-set to an amount or volume. The Forecourt Manager also supports scenarios, Drive-off for example.
The Forecourt Manager interacts with the fuel pumps through a forecourt controller that is a connection hub to all the hardware (pumps, tanks, price signs) in a petrol station. The POS needs a driver to be able to connect to the forecourt controller. LS Retail has developed drivers for a few types of forecourt controllers, but if a driver does not exist for a specific forecourt controller type, the POS cannot connect to the pumps.