Hands up if you love Cashless!

As the autumn leaves begin to fall and the new academic term begins, Kensington Aldridge Academy have decided to go cashless with their catering and upgrade to EventPOS!

Their new cashless catering system replaced a competitor’s system that had not been updated for 11 years – that was expensive and inefficient. 

We happily provided a state-of-the-art new system for less cost, which has made their break and lunch times much more efficient.

They can now enrol fingerprints / thumbprints for a whole year group in around just 30 minutes.

Thanks KAA, enjoy your smoother break times!

Portsmouth Grammar School go Cashless!

This month we installed our popular Cashless Catering system, EventPOS, in the independent secondary school which has a student population of 1,351.

Their system is programmed specifically to their requirements, to charge different rates for those who pay daily, versus those who choose to pay for a term in advance. 

This categorisation is not visible to students, nor are bursaries or any allergens/dietary requirements.

They opted to use smart ID cards with their system, but other options such as biometric fingerprint readers are also available.

Their system is linked to WisePay for parents and carers to top up and monitor their children’s accounts.  This keeps parents happy as it is so easy to use!

Thanks to The Portsmouth Grammar School, we can’t wait to hear how you get on with EventPOS!

To find out more about our cashless catering system, click here!

Queue-Busting Extension for EventPOS!

We are very excited to soon be launching an extension for our cashless catering system, EventPOS by idXtra!

In the form of a handheld portable tablet or a mini till, along with a card reader, these ‘pop-up’ stations will allow you to extend your services at lunchtime/breaks and reduce queues.

Adding a portable tablet or mini till to your existing EventPOS setup would allow you to have a ‘pop-up’ station, for example, at a mini cafe or drinks stand for an event, without the need for an additional big EventPOS till.

Additionally, incorporating this to your setup would improve throughput and reduce queuing in the canteen. At busy times, adding a ‘pop-up’ till station at short notice can ensure that students aren’t waiting for large amounts of time to grab their lunch.

Find out more about our cashless catering system, EventPOS, here.

Get in touch here if you’d like to find out more about our mini till / tablet extension for EventPOS!

Welcome on board the United Colleges Group!

As it begins to feel like summer at last, we welcome on board a new customer to the idXtra family- the United Colleges Group! We are thrilled to welcome them and we look forward to working closely with them.

We have been chosen by the United Colleges Group to supply their new cashless catering and visitor management systems, alongside some streamlining of ID card issuance and population of the access control system.

We are installing our cashless catering system, EventPOS, at 22 locations across all of the United Colleges Group’s campuses (City of Westminster College and College of North West London). Their upgrade to EventPOS will simplify the issuing of discreet free school meals and bring several disparate systems together as one system, on a single network linked to MIS. 

Our visitor management system, VisiTapp, will enhance the security and safety of their staff, students and visitors, whilst improving their front of house image. Our VMS comes in various forms and it can be customised precisely to suit their specific requirements.

Thank you United Colleges Group, we can’t wait to upgrade you!

To find out more about our systems and services, check out the links below:

Season’s Greetings from idXtra!

As 2021 slowly draws to a close, we reflect on what a year it has been. Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, we are thankful to be able to spend this festive period with our loved ones.

We would like to thank our loyal customers for their continued patronage, and we look forward to all that is to come in 2022!

Before we see in the new year, we’d like to welcome on board two new idXtra customers, Queen Mary’s College in Basingstoke and Newham College London!

Queen Mary’s College have just had our cashless catering system installed in their premises; it will make their catering and payment processes so much easier. To find out more about our cashless system, EventPOS, click here.

Newham College London have also recently decided to have EventPOS installed in both of their campuses, Stratford and East Ham. The new system is a big step forward from their previous one.

We look forward to hearing how both colleges get on with their new tech!

The Inspire Education group goes cashless!

Working with our partner, Wisepay, we installed our cashless catering system, EventPOS, at thirteen locations across two of the Inspire Education Group‘s campuses (Stamford and Peterborough Colleges).

The aim of the project was to simplify the issuing of discreet free school meals and to bring several disparate systems together as one system, on a single network linked to MIS. 

Their system is now much more efficient; the college group also made use of EventPOS‘ latest upgrade, which is the allergen tracking feature. This clever feature keeps a record of all students’ allergies and dietary information, and alerts if a student tries to purchase a prohibited item. Safeguarding has never been simpler!

Big thanks to the Inspire Education group, we look forward to hearing how you get on with EventPOS!

Please click here for more information on our cashless catering system, EventPOS, and here to hear more about its new allergen tracking feature.

New City College group gets major upgrade!

In these summer months as the new school year rapidly approaches, many schools and colleges use this time to get upgrades to their premises.

The New City College group are no different, and this month have decided to get a major upgrade to their systems, and opted for idXtra’s cashless catering and visitor management systems.

The NCC group had our cashless system, EventPOS, installed across their six colleges and ten campuses. They chose EventPOS to manage their cashless catering across its very large estate; the system works perfectly for them as it links to MIS to deliver FSM and other bursaries in real time.

A recent and major upgrade to the EventPOS system is that it now caters for allergies and dietary preferences, meaning the safeguarding of students is greatly enhanced.

Not only did the college group opt for a new cashless system, but they upgraded their visitor management system too! We upgraded and replaced all of their systems to our VMS, VisiTapp, across all of their campuses. VisiTapp is highly efficient and reliable, and can be adapted to meet your specific requirements and preferences.

Lastly, just in time for the enrolment period, we supplied the NCC with ten new ZXP 7 card printers plus eighteen new CardExchange v10 licenses. Our card printers and software are very reliable and easy to operate, plus our printers can be hired on a daily basis!

Big thanks to the New City College group, it was a pleasure installing our systems in your premises!

For further information on our products and services mentioned here, please click on the following links:

Welcome New Customers!

In recent weeks, we have had the pleasure of welcoming some new customers to the idXtra family! We are delighted to welcome the following establishments on board:

  • Hartlepool College of Further Education – EventPOS Cashless Catering
  • Derwentside College – EventPOS Cashless Catering
  • Warley Primary School – VisiTapp Visitor Management System
  • Colchester Sixth Form College – EventPOS Cashless Catering

Our cashless catering system, EventPOS, is proving to be very popular at the moment. Now is a great time to invest in a cashless system, as it would be installed during the summer months, so it would be ready just in time for the start of the new academic year!

Bicester School, who have been an idXtra customer for a few years, have recently upgraded to our cashless catering system too.

Benefits of using a cashless system include:

  • Allergen tracking for students (the system records allergies and dietary requirements for all students, and alerts you if a student selects an unsuitable product)
  • Improved customer throughput and reduced queueing
  • Minimised cash handling
  • Improved reporting
  • Easy managing of payments (option to top-up cards online or with cash at a kiosk)
  • Built-in bursary function with discrete FSM feature
  • Ability for parents to view their child’s meal purchase history

For more info about our cashless catering system, EventPOS, please visit idxtra.com/new-eventpos.

For more info about its allergen tracking function specifically, please check out our blog post from February here.

For a free demo or quotation, please email info@idxtra.com or call 0800 083 6053!

idXtra To Feature in New Magazine, ‘The Headteacher’!

We are thrilled to announce that idXtra will be featured in the upcoming inaugural issue of the new education publication, ‘The Headteacher‘ magazine.

February’s issue marks the launch of the magazine and will bring the very best in financial and leadership expertise to headteachers and school business managers across the country.

Our latest advert, featured in the publication, demonstrates how you can achieve the highest level of safeguarding within your establishment, through the use of our ID cards and Visitor Management, Access Control and Cashless Catering systems.

We wish the team at ‘The Headteacher’ the best of luck with their new venture. The inaugural issue of the magazine will be sent out on February 26th… if you want to get your hands on a copy, click here!

Read on for more info about how our systems can help you to improve the security and safeguarding of your students and staff!

VisiTapp, our Visitor Management system:

  • Gives 100% accurate management information of who is on the premises at any time
  • Records late students and those leaving site early (option of saving to MIS)
  • Has a strong safeguarding strategy including ‘roll call’ and ‘person search’ functions
  • Has an optional evacuation app for mobile phones and tablets

Our Access Control systems:

  • Allow you to manage access to your premises through our range of networked and stand-alone systems
  • Give enhanced security and peace of mind, knowing that only authorised personnel can gain access to certain parts of the building
  • Ensure that buildings, rooms and the valuable equipment contained within remain secure until an authorised individual wishes to gain access

Our ID cards:

  • Are versatile and can have whatever technology you choose; they can be encoded and integrated to work with your existing or new systems
  • Can be designed by us according to your specific requirements, incorporating your organisation’s logo and staff and student photos
  • Can include any information provided within your database, for example student numbers, form details and dates of issue and expiry

EventPOS, our Cashless Catering system:

  • Has a built-in functionality which stores data of students’ allergies and dietary requirements
  • Thereby automatically prohibits the sale of any harmful products to students, such as a milkshake to someone who is lactose-intolerant
  • Ensures no allergens go unnoticed, thus assuring the safeguarding of your students and compliance with ‘Natasha’s Law’, which comes into effect in October 2021

As 2021 Welcomes a New Law on Allergen Labelling… Ensure Safeguarding with EventPOS!

With ‘Natasha’s Law’ coming into effect in October 2021, there is a duty for businesses and establishments to have strict requirements on food allergen labelling.

The law denotes that pre-packaged foods must carry a full ingredients list, in order to ensure the safeguarding of the consumer. Millions of people in the UK suffer from food allergies, which makes this a top priority for catering companies.

Did you know…

1 in 4 people living in the UK has a food allergy?

School catering teams are required to provide information about 14 allergenic ingredients that are used in the foods that are sold or provided by them within the school. The allergens are:

Our cashless catering system, EventPOS, has a built-in functionality which stores data of students’ allergies, and thereby automatically prohibits the sale of any harmful products to them.

It can also store data of any other dietary requirements that your students may have, for example things that are not potentially life-threatening such as allergens, but cultural, religious, nutritional and aspirational preferences such as:

It is a simple, easy to use and fail-safe system that ensures the safeguarding of your students. Students are assigned with their dietary needs in MIS (such as no nuts, no pork, no gluten etc) which the EventPOS system reads dynamically.

Every product in the canteen that contains an allergen or potentially disallowed ingredient is flagged, for example peanuts are flagged as “no nuts” allowed and a bacon sandwich is flagged as “no pork” allowed. If a student tries to purchase an item which contradicts with their dietary requirements, a message will flag up saying ‘item not permitted’.

Ensure safeguarding and ‘Natasha’s Law’ compliance by using our cashless catering system, EventPOS! Find more information about it here: https://idxtra.com/new-eventpos/