The first cash register had been invented…

The first cash register had been invented by James Ritty following the American Civil War.

Ritty, the owner of a saloon in Dayton, Ohio, had wanted to stop employees from pilfering his profits, and had invented the Ritty Model I in 1879 after seeing a tool that counted the revolutions of the propeller on a steamship.

With the help of John Ritty, his brother, he had patented it in 1883.

The first registers are entirely mechanical, without receipts.

The employee is required to ring up every transaction on the register, and when the total key is pushed, the drawer opens and a bell rings, alerting the manager to a sale taking place.

Those original machines are nothing but simple adding machines.

Shortly after his patent, Ritty had become overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running two businesses, so he had sold all of his interests in the cash register business to Jacob H. Eckert of Cincinnati, a china and glassware salesman, who had formed the National Manufacturing Company.

In 1884, Eckert sells the company to John H. Patterson, who renames the company the National Cash Register Company and improves the cash register by adding a paper roll to record sales transactions, thereby creating the receipt.

The original purpose of the receipt is enhanced fraud protection.

The business owner can read the receipts to ensure that cashiers charge customers the correct amount for each transaction and do not pilfer the cash drawer.