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Operation glossary
Operations and POS fraud terms, from pattern to deviation, explained without jargon.
What Bewacher does
Bewacher is a Brazilian AI company for multi-unit chains, working on three fronts. In loss prevention, it detects fraud and theft and links every POS transaction to the video of that moment. In operations, agents check that each unit's routines, such as opening, closing and cleaning, are done as planned. In customer experience, it measures traffic, conversion, queues and the most visited areas, and matches traffic against marketing campaigns and social media activity.
Operation terms
- Operation reading
- The operation followed continuously, unit by unit, with pattern, deviation and flow recorded as data.
- Purpose-built agent
- The AI software that follows each unit's operation. It reads the day-to-day, flags anything that breaks from the pattern and hands the validated case to the right team. It is built from the operation your network actually runs.
- Pattern and deviation
- The operation's routine becomes the baseline, and only what breaks from it rises as a signal, before it turns into an alert.
- POS fraud
- A point-of-sale transaction that doesn't match what happened at the checkout: a refund with no customer, a void after payment, an improper discount, a fake return or an unrecorded sale. It shows up when the entry is matched with the video from that moment.
- Refunds and voids
- Checkout operations that undo all or part of a sale. They are a legitimate part of the routine, so the reading compares amount, time and customer presence to separate normal from suspicious.
- Fake returns
- A return recorded without the product actually coming back. The reading checks the exchange or return transaction against what happened at the counter.
- Sweethearting
- When a cashier skips scanning items, applies an improper discount or rings up a cheaper product for a friend or acquaintance.
- Barcode switching
- A barcode or price label from a cheaper product applied to a more expensive one. Common in supermarkets, at the scale and at self-checkout. Also called ticket switching.
- No-sale drawer opens
- The cash drawer opened with no transaction attached. A single one can be routine, but repeated opens outside the unit's pattern are a sign of checkout fraud.
- Receiving fraud
- A gap between what the supplier delivered at the dock and what the invoice says: short shipments, swapped items or an inflated invoice. The reading counts the volume moved and compares it with what was expected.
- Operational flow
- People flow, line crossing, entries, exits and occupancy, in aggregate, unit by unit.
- Queue time
- Queues and wait times read continuously, as part of the customer experience.
- Readiness
- The service standard read by unit and by shift, to know whether the operation is ready to serve.
- POS integration
- Point-of-sale data feeds into the operation reading, with notification rules by transaction value or type.
- Loss prevention
- Reducing loss through the operation, including checkout and receiving fraud. The reading looks at the transaction and the condition of the operation without identifying people.
- Internal consumption
- An item consumed inside the unit. In retail and pharmacy it is tracked as an operations metric, with a record.
- False positive
- An alert raised when nothing was wrong. Too many of them wear the team down, which is why deviations are validated before anyone is called.
- Computer vision
- The field of AI that interprets images and video. Here, it reads the condition and movement of the operation.
- LGPD
- Brazil's data protection law (Law 13,709/2018). The reading is about the environment and the operation, with privacy built in from the design stage.