Forecourt Controller: What It Is and How It Works

The two names often get swapped, but Glassbox's glossary draws a line between them. A pump controller is the hardware that talks to the fuel dispensers and tells them what to do, and Gilbarco, Invenco and POSTEC all make them. A forecourt controller, or FCC, coordinates the devices on the forecourt more broadly, talking to the pumps and other equipment. When you're choosing software, the label matters less than the question underneath it: can the platform read and control whatever is fitted at each of your sites? Glassbox brings both into the same view in Head Office, alongside the tank gauges, price signs and payment terminals, so you're not running one console for the pumps and another for everything else.

The point of sale loses its link to the pumps, so fills can't be authorised or recorded through the system until the controller is back. That's why it pays to hear about a controller problem early. Head Office watches the controller like any other device and sends an alert when it throws errors or drops its connection, with enough detail to act on. On a staffed site someone would notice the queue at the counter, but on an unmanned site there's nobody there to notice, which is why operators running unmanned networks want alerts that find them before problems find their customers. As one Glassbox customer with a mostly unmanned network put it, real-time access to their fuel sites has been "a valuable tool especially because the majority of them are unmanned sites."

No. Glassbox works with the controllers already on site, including Gilbarco, Invenco and POSTEC, and keeps running if you change vendors down the track. It has a track record with retrofits too: bringing its technology stack together with Invenco payment has given existing sites a simple, cost-effective replacement path instead of a full rip-and-replace. The usual starting point is the trial box, which plugs into the site network, connects to the controller, gauges and terminals that are already there, and puts the forecourt on the dashboard. You see your own hardware running in Glassbox before you decide anything.

Yes. The controller is what tells each pump its price, so a price change has to reach it before the pumps charge the new rate. Glassbox sends the change from one screen to the pumps and the price boards together, across every site, and tells you if a change didn't take anywhere. That matters because rolling prices out site by site is one of the jobs Glassbox hears about most from operators, along with reconciliation admin and month-end corrections on account pricing. Our price board and relay control page shows how the boards side works.

No. Card payments are handled by the point of sale, the payment terminals and the payment provider behind them. The controller's part is the pump: once a payment is approved at an outdoor payment terminal, it authorises the pump, and when the fill finishes it reports the final litres and amount so the transaction can be completed. That's why the controller and the terminals have to work closely on any unmanned site. In Glassbox, payment system management sits alongside the controller in Head Office, so you can see terminals and pumps on one dashboard and suspend, reset or reconfigure a terminal without a site visit.