What iVendNext offers an optical chain
Optical · checked 2026-11-08
This page lists what an optical chain can use in iVendNext today. The format is the Optical store: each store of the chain has an optometrist, who writes the eye prescription, and a dispensing counter, where staff sell frames, lenses, contact lenses and care products and send the glasses to a lab. Every store runs the same till, the iVendNext POS at /pos. The prescriptions and lab orders are kept in iVendNext Desk, so every store of the chain sees them.
Every part below is in the till or in the App library today. Each part says who uses it, what it rests on and where you can have it. To set the parts up, follow Setting up an optical store. For an overview of the apps, see Optical on iVendNext.
What you get in an optical store
| What the store needs | Who uses it | What it rests on | Where you can have it |
|---|---|---|---|
| The eye prescription on file, in every store | Optometrist, dispensing staff | Optical prescriptions and lab orders: a Prescription in Desk for spectacles or contact lenses, with the test date, Valid until, each eye's values and a scan of another practice's paper. It is numbered and listed on the customer, and every store of the chain reads it. | App library, free, in every country. |
| Lenses refused at Pay without a prescription in date | Cashier, dispensing staff | The same app, on the till's check before Pay: a lens line from an item group marked Sold against a prescription needs a prescription of its kind that is still in date. The check also runs when an order or a layaway is placed. A refund is never refused. | App library, free, in every country. The chain chooses the tills the check runs on. |
| The lab order and job sheet | Dispensing staff, lab | The same app: a Lab Order made from the prescription, with the lab, frame, lenses, coatings, fitting heights and due date, and a job sheet to print for the lab. | App library, free, in every country. |
| The lab orders to chase | Store manager, dispensing staff | The same app: the report Lab orders to chase, every open order with the one due back first at the top. | App library, free, in every country. |
| The hand-over | Dispensing staff | The same app: Back from lab when the glasses arrive and Hand over when the customer collects them. | App library, free, in every country. |
| The remake | Dispensing staff | The same app: Send back to lab sends the order back through its steps. | App library, free, in every country. |
| A deposit at order, the balance at pickup | Cashier | The till's order: the customer pays a deposit when the glasses are ordered, the deposit stays as the customer's advance, and the balance is taken at pickup. See Split Tender and Layaway. It is for a job without a vision plan. A vision plan's share is taken at Pay on a sale, so an insured job is rung up as a sale on the day the glasses are ordered. | The till, in every country. |
| The vision plan's share at Pay | Cashier | Third-party payer, on the till's payer door: payers of the kind Optical plan, their plans, price lists and members. A plan carries a co-pay percentage, a limit per sale, a cap on the co-pay and a plan price list. The customer pays their share with the till's tenders, the plan's share is billed to the plan, and the receipt shows Billed to. A return gives the plan's share back to the plan. | App library, free, in every country. |
| The claims file | Claims clerk | The same app: one claim for each booked sale, one claims file for each plan, which your claims clerk sends, and the plan's remittance matched to the claims it paid. | App library, free, in every country. |
| Contact-lens repeats | Cashier, dispensing staff | Optical prescriptions and lab orders: a repeat of a contact lens sells only against a contact lens prescription in date. | App library, free, in every country. |
| Frames in colors and sizes | Dispensing staff, stock officer | The item's variants: one frame item with a variant for each color and eye size, each with its own barcode and stock. See Creating a Variant Item. | The till and Desk, in every country. |
| The gift receipt | Cashier | The till prints a gift copy of the sale with the prices removed. See Gift Receipts and Reprints. | The till, in every country. |
| Your glasses are ready and your eye test is due messages | Customer, dispensing staff | Your own Notifications in Desk on the app's records: one when the lab order is ready to collect, and one 30 days before a prescription runs out. The steps are in the app's guide. | The Notification belongs to your site; the records it reads come with the app. |
| An FSA or HSA card | Cashier | A payment method you name on the optical tills, taken as an ordinary card. See Cash and Card. | The till, in every country. |
| Post-sale feedback | Store manager | Post-sale feedback: each customer is asked how the visit was, and you see the answers by store. | App library, free, in every country. |
| Sales tax in each store | Cashier, accountant | A tax category for each state, and on each item group an Item Tax Template for each tax category, so a state's treatment of prescription lenses, frames, contact lenses and sunglasses is set once for every store. The store's own Item Tax Template, set on its warehouse (see Important Retail Settings), is the default for an item with none. The till reads the templates and posts the tax. | The till and Desk, in every country. |
| The chain's own ERP | Head office | Connectors to SAP Business One, SAP S/4HANA, Acumatica, NetSuite and Sage X3. | Every country. Any other ERP is connected by a partner or your own developers. |
The checks before Pay share 10 seconds, and the prescription check uses its share of them. Third-party payer answers through the payer door, not as a check.
The two kinds of job
A job with a vision plan is rung up as a sale on the day the glasses are ordered. The patient pays their share, the plan's share is billed to the plan, and the lab order follows the glasses to the pickup, where staff press Hand over. A job without a vision plan takes a deposit on the till's order, and the balance is paid at pickup. A deposit and a vision plan's share do not sit on the same order.
What a partner or your own team adds
An iVendNext partner in your region, or your own developers, sets up and extends what these parts do not cover. Examples are your lab's own system linked to the lab order, contact-lens reorder reminders on your own schedule, and each vision plan's own rules and claims link. They can copy the apps and change them. See How to customize.