Antique Mall Aggregator: Multi-Booth Sales Payouts, Locked Routing, & Thermal Receipts

We have successfully wrapped up a massive development sprint, transforming the inventory tracker into a full-scale local-first aggregator tailored specifically for physical antique malls and multi-booth store environments.

Here is a breakdown of the database architectures, routing protocols, and custom register print engines we designed and deployed.

1. Multi-Booth User Assignment & Context Locking

In an antique mall setup, booth vendors must log into the system to manage their own catalogs while being strictly gated from viewing or modifying other vendors' data.

Comma-Separated Access Mapping: We updated the user management database schema to support comma-separated store IDs. Admins can now assign a vendor to one or multiple booths simultaneously.
Context Auto-Routing: Refactored the database connection resolver to dynamically intercept the user session. If a restricted user logs in, the backend locks their context, bypasses the master database, and routes them to their specific booth database file (store_[id].sqlite).
Dropdown Gating: We updated the header store selector. Unrestricted admins see the entire mall catalog and a switcher dropdown. Restricted vendors only see a locked badge of their assigned booth or a filtered switcher showing only their permitted booths, completely hiding the global catalog.

2. Cross-Store Sales Attribution & Payouts Reporting

The central checkout register scans items from all booths. The scanner captures either a vendor's custom-printed barcode (containing a unique item UUID) or the manufacturer's original UPC.

Dual ID Cross-Referencing: We designed a central attribution engine in /api/admin/sales-report that maps sold register items to the correct vendor by scanning booth databases for matches on both the internal item ID (UUID) and the manufacturer UPC barcode.
Unattributed Sales: Scans that cannot be matched to any vendor catalog are categorized as "Direct / Unattributed Sales" (e.g., direct mall register sales).
Expanding Payout Sheets: Admins get an expandable breakdown drawer detailing total units sold, gross sales revenue, and net vendor payouts after mall commission fees.

3. Adhesive Labels & Receipt Printing Hub

To support checkout cashiers and vendor tag printing:

The Receipt Printing Hub: We built a register print module at /receipt that pulls active checkout items, computes sales tax, and attributes booth names inline on each line item.
Dual Layout Render Engine:
- Thermal Roll (80mm): Generates a monospaced checkout printout styled with dotted partition dividers, optimized for thermal receipt printers.
- Letter Invoice: Generates standard business-size bills.
Adhesive Barcode Labels: Vendors can instantly print price tags for their items. The tag dynamically outputs the mall name, booth number, a 20-character shortened item name, price, and barcode.

4. Database Schema Upgrades & Test Mocking

To guarantee the new local-first multi-store architectures are stable:

TEXT Primary Keys: Migrated pos_items.itemNum from INTEGER to TEXT primary keys. This ensures SQLite does not truncate leading zeros on standard manufacturer UPCs (like 000767...) and correctly processes alphanumeric UUIDs.
Automated Cookie Mocking: Mocked Next.js 15+ async cookies() headers inside our test runner environment. This allows testing authenticated API endpoints offline without browser instances.
Image Cleanup on Deletion: Updated the item deletion API to check the database for imagePath and imagePathBack and delete the physical files from the local /uploads/ folder, preventing disk space leaks.

What’s Next

With the multi-store sales aggregation, user access gating, and receipt printing hub complete, the platform is now fully equipped for physical store testing. All 28 automated integration tests pass with 100% success.