Northwest Missouri State Campus Dining has implemented a new, web-based point-of-sale system on its campus. The new POS system replaces an on-site POS system that backed up using various forms of storage devices.

As reported by Northwest Missourian, the transition to a web-based server is intended to make the system more flexible and personal. The university's food service partner, Aramark, had been planning the POS update for about a year.

“The unique piece of the puzzle to solve at Northwest was the integration of the existing vending program," said Spencer Martin, Aramark spokesman, in a Northwest Missourian interview. "With the previous system, we were able to allow students one card that could be utilized everywhere on campus and wanted to keep this piece.”

Along with the new point-of-sale system, Northwest Missouri Campus Dining is introducing the new Bearcat Account Center. Using this new account interface, students can now view meal plan information and deactivate a lost or stolen Bearcat Card.

While there were some problems with the implementation of the new update, Aramark is looking forward to the new features of the update including increased security and flexibility. As part of the system update, Aramark has also updated the card system to a 16-digit ISO number scheme.

The process of updating the system caused some minor hiccups with student ID cards, prompting some students to be issued new Bearcat Cards -- an issue that has since been resolved.

Meal plans also weren’t showing up for some students, leading to unauthorized meal charges at the student union. For those students, cashiers wrote down their student account numbers and meal plan and manually resolved the purchases with the university's accounting office.

The new update removes Domino's and Pizza Hut from the list of locations that accept Bearcat Cards as a form of payment. Prior to the system update, students also reported a desire for the campus Starbucks to accept gift cards. Aramark’s new update now addresses that request and will accept gift cards both standard magnetic stripe and on mobile apps, according to Martin.

“The upgrade will allow us to grow with emerging market trends in the way we are able to provide dining options for students and campus as a whole,” Martin said.