Offline, printers and the customer screen: dashboard guide

What the POS does when the internet drops and how offline sales are sent later, setting up the receipt printer, the customer-facing display, full screen, brightness and checking the version.

The bar along the top

Needs the permission Use the POS.

Every POS screen has a thin bar along the top. From left to right:

The name of the person who signed the POS in (with a key icon).
The POS register’s name and the shop. Tap it to change which POS register this device is.
The printer button: the Receipt printer screen.
Customer display: opens the screen that faces the customer.
Full screen.
Three brightness buttons: Light, Dark and Match the screen.
Sign the POS out: ends the POS’s sign-in, after asking. See Setting up and signing in to the POS. While the POS is offline it reads Sign out needs the connection instead.

The Sell screen keeps working without an internet connection. While any POS screen is open and online, the POS keeps a copy of the shop’s products and prices on the computer, refreshed every five minutes. When the connection drops it sells from that copy.

A banner appears under the row of buttons, on every POS screen: No connection for and how long, then Selling from what is on this machine., how many sales are waiting to send, and when prices were last checked.

While offline you can:

Scan items, or search by name or SKU.
Change quantities, void lines and, if your role allows it, change a price.
Take cash, card, or split cash and card. A card payment can only be taken if the card machine itself still has a connection.

While offline you cannot:

Sell a gift card, or take one as payment. Their balances are only on the server.
Look up, earn or spend loyalty points.
Give a discount on the whole sale.
Print receipts. A POS register with a receipt printer prints them later, when the sales are sent (see below).
Sign the POS out. It needs the server to end the sign-in, and the button says Sign out needs the connection until it is back.
Use Collect, Return, Look up, Today, Drawer or End of day. These show a No connection screen. Tap Back to selling to return to the Sell screen.

Stock figures shown while offline are from the last copy. The POS does not stop you selling more than it thinks is on the shelf, because the item is in front of you: the line just says The last figures on this POS register say only N here.

Take care: No catalogue is cached on this POS register yet, so nothing can be sold offline. means no POS screen was open on this computer while the internet worked. Open the POS each morning while the connection is up, so the copy is there if it drops.

Sales taken offline

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An offline sale is saved on the counter computer and gets its own receipt number starting OFF-. The Sold screen shows it with the total and any change.

No receipt can be printed while offline. The Sold screen asks you to write the number on a receipt for the customer, so they have proof of what they bought and a number to bring back.

If this POS register has a receipt printer, the printed receipt comes out by itself when the sale is sent. It says Sold offline as and the same OFF- number, and the time the sale was made rather than the time it was sent, so it can be matched to the one you wrote. Give it to the customer if they are still there, or keep it with the day’s paperwork.

Take care: If the POS says That sale could not be saved on this POS register. Do not take the money., the sale was not recorded. Do not take payment for it. Try again, or write the sale down by hand and tell a manager.

Take care: Offline sales are kept only in this browser on this computer until they are sent. Do not clear the browser’s data, switch to another browser or computer, or reset the computer while sales are waiting.

When the connection comes back

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While offline, the POS tries the connection every 20 seconds. When it is back, it sends the waiting sales to the server one at a time, by itself. The banner changes to Back online with how many sales are still to send, and says Leave the POS on until this clears.

Tap Send now to send them straight away rather than waiting.
Sales are sent from whichever POS screen is open, as long as somebody is serving. Nothing is sent while the POS shows Who is serving?, or once it is signed out, so leave somebody serving until the banner disappears.
Each sent sale becomes a normal order with a normal reference. It appears on Today and counts in the drawer. It keeps its OFF- number, shown as receipt on Today and Return, and both find the sale by it.
Sending the same sale twice is safe; it is only recorded once.
If the shelf did not have enough stock for an offline sale, the difference is added to the Needs counting list on the End of day screen.

Take care: Send offline sales before you count and close the drawer. A cash sale that arrives after the drawer is closed is not in that drawer’s count.

Tip: To print a receipt for an offline sale again once it has been sent, find it on Today by its OFF- number and use the receipt button on its row.

When the server refuses an offline sale

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Occasionally the server will not take a sale the POS saved offline, for example because its payments do not add up to its total. The other sales carry on being sent, and a red panel appears under the row of buttons on every POS screen: A sale taken offline was refused by the server. Each refused sale is listed by its OFF- number, with its total, when it was sold, how many items, how it was paid and the server’s reason.

Try again sends that sale again. Do this first: a refusal can be temporary.
That sale was taken on a different POS register. Set this screen back to that POS register to send it. means this device was switched to another POS register after the sale. Tap the POS register’s name in the top bar, choose the POS register the sale was taken on, then tap Try again.
Discard is only shown to somebody whose role has Cancel orders. Anyone else is asked to fetch somebody who can.

Record the sale another way first, for example ring it up again on Sell while online, or note it for a manager.
Tap Discard beside it.
The POS asks Discard OFF-…?. Type why in the box, for example "Re-entered as R-1234". A reason is required.
Tap Discard the sale, or Keep it to change your mind.

Every refusal, and every discarded sale with everything that was on it and both reasons, is kept in the audit log, as Pos sale sync refused and Pos sale discarded, so the back office can see what happened without standing at the POS. Discarding needs the connection for that reason.

Take care: A discarded sale is not in the takings, the drawer count or the stock. The POS holds the only copy until then, and discarding cannot be undone. If its cash is in the drawer, the drawer will be over by that amount: say so in Why is it out? when you close it.

Set up the receipt printer

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Whether a POS register has a receipt printer, and what paper it takes, is set in the dashboard: Locations, open the shop, then under Point of sale choose the POS’s Receipt printer:

Receipt printer, 80 mm roll
Receipt printer, 58 mm roll
Office printer, A4 or Letter paper
None — a Receipt button opens the PDF

With a printer set, every sale prints its receipt by itself as soon as it goes through, and a sale taken offline prints its receipt when it is sent. With none, the Sold screen shows a Receipt button that opens an A4 receipt instead.

Which printer the receipts go to is chosen on the counter computer itself. Tap the printer button in the top bar to open the Receipt printer screen, then:

Plug the printer in and install its Windows driver, so it can print a Windows test page.
Tap Print a test receipt.
In the print window, choose the receipt printer.
Under More settings, set Margins to None and untick headers and footers.
Print. The browser remembers all three for every receipt after this.

The test receipt is marked as a test, is not a sale and does not use up a receipt number. If it fits the paper, real receipts will too.

The Receipt printer screen has the POS’s usual row of buttons under Serving, so tap Sell to go back to selling. If nobody is serving yet, it shows Back to the POS instead.

Stop the print window appearing

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Until this is done, every sale opens the browser’s print window and somebody has to press Print. Browsers do not let a website print on its own, but each has a setting that allows it. The Receipt printer screen shows the steps for the browser the POS is open in, with the others folded underneath.

In Chrome or Edge:

Print a test receipt and choose the receipt printer, as above.
Put the POS on the desktop, if it is not there already. In Chrome: with the POS open, press the ⋮ menu, then Cast, save and share → Create shortcut…, tick Open as window and press Create. In Edge: press the … menu, then Apps → Install this site as an app and Install; in the box that follows tick Create Desktop shortcut and press Allow.
Close every Chrome or Edge window on the computer.
Right-click the POS icon on the desktop and choose Properties.
At the end of Target, after the closing quote mark, add a space and --kiosk-printing, then press OK.
Open the POS from that shortcut and print a test receipt. It should print with no window.

In Firefox:

Print a test receipt and choose the receipt printer.
Type about:config in the address bar, press Enter and choose Accept the Risk and Continue.
Search for print.always_print_silent.
If nothing is found, choose Boolean and press +. If it is there and says false, press the switch button until it says true.
Print a test receipt again. It should come out with no window.
Put the POS on the desktop: make the Firefox window smaller so the desktop shows, and drag the padlock to the left of the address onto it. On a Mac, drag it to the Dock or the desktop. Open the POS from that icon from now on.

Safari has no setting for this. Every receipt opens the print window. To print automatically, use Firefox, Chrome or Edge. To put the POS in the Dock, choose File → Add to Dock with it open; on an older Mac, drag the address from the address bar onto the desktop.

Take care: In Firefox this setting applies to everything printed from that Firefox, not just the POS. In Chrome and Edge only windows opened from that shortcut print without asking. To change to a different printer later, turn the setting off (or open the browser without the shortcut), print a test receipt to the new printer, then turn it back on.

The customer display

Needs the permission Use the POS.

A second screen facing the customer can show what they are buying. It runs on the same computer as the POS, plugged in as a second monitor.

Tap Customer display in the top bar. A new window opens.
Drag the new window onto the customer’s screen.
Click inside it, then press F11, or tap Full screen in the corner of that window. The note in the corner disappears once it fills the screen.

Between customers it shows the shop’s logo, or its name if there is no logo.
While you sell, it shows each item with its quantity, size or colour and price, any discount, and the Total. On the payment screen the total becomes To pay.
After the sale it shows Thank you, what was paid and Your change, for 20 seconds.
It never shows the customer’s name, phone number, email address or points.
It keeps working when the internet drops, because it talks to the POS on the same computer.

Tip: Tapping Customer display again brings the same window forward rather than opening another one. If the display opens part way through a sale, it catches up straight away.

The display only follows the Sell screen. It must be opened from the same browser on the same computer as the POS.

Full screen

Needs the permission Use the POS.

Full screen hides the browser’s address bar and tabs, so nobody closes the POS by accident in the middle of a sale.

Tap Full screen in the top bar, or on the Open the POS screen.
Tap Exit full screen (or press Esc) to get the browser back.
Moving between POS screens keeps full screen. Reloading the page drops it, so tap it again.

Light and dark screens

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The three buttons at the right of the top bar set how this screen looks:

Light: always light. Best for a screen in bright sunlight.
Dark: always dark.
Match the screen: follows the computer’s own light or dark setting, so a computer that goes dark in the evening takes the POS with it.

The choice belongs to the device, not to the person serving: it stays the same whoever is on the POS, and is remembered on this computer. The buttons are on the Open the POS screen too, so a POS register left on overnight can be dimmed before anybody signs in.

Check which version a POS register is running

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When reporting a problem with one POS register, it helps to say which version it is running. Add /version to the end of the POS’s address in the browser. It shows a short line of text with a build code and when it was built. Copy or read it out to whoever looks after the shop’s system.

Tip: If one POS register behaves differently from the others, reload its page. A POS register left open for weeks may still be running an older version until it is reloaded.