Running the register
Everything a till needs between the first sale of the day and the last: a
counted cash drawer, a quick way to change who is ringing, the customer in
front of you, returns, and a proper printed receipt. All of it runs from the
register at /{site}/pos. Staff PINs are set under Commerce → Settings,
and the register's rules under the site's Admin → Plugins → Commerce.
These are part of the point of sale, so they need Pro or above, like the register itself. Only members who can use the register — a site admin or editor whose Manage POS permission is on — can open shifts, switch in, look customers up or take returns.
Shifts and the cash drawer
A shift is one stretch of trading on one register, counted against one cash drawer.
- Open a shift from the strip above the basket and enter the starting cash (the float) you counted into the drawer.
- While it is open, every sale on that register is counted in the shift.
Use Cash in/out to record cash that moves without a sale:
- Paid in — cash added to the drawer, such as change from the bank.
- Paid out — cash taken for an expense, with a reason.
- Safe drop — cash moved from the drawer to the safe.
- X report shows the shift so far at any time and changes nothing.
- Close shift, count the drawer and enter what is in it. The Z report freezes the shift's figures, and the register is free for the next shift.
A register has one open shift at a time. If two tablets try to open the same register at once, one opens it and the other is told a shift is already open.
What the reports show
Sales (orders, gross sales, discounts, tax, tips, refunds and net sales), the same broken down by tender (cash, card, gift card and room charge), and the drawer:
| Starting cash | the float you counted when the shift opened |
| + Cash sales | what cash sales took (change handed back is not counted), plus cash tips |
| + Paid in | |
| − Paid out | |
| − Safe drops | |
| − Cash refunds | returns paid out of the drawer during the shift |
| = Expected in drawer |
The variance is what you counted minus what was expected: positive means the drawer is over, negative means it is short. Print either report on your receipt printer from its dialog.
Shift history
Commerce → Orders → Shift history lists each register's shifts, newest first, with net sales, expected and counted cash and the variance. Click a closed shift for its Z report, and use Export CSV for a spreadsheet of the shifts listed.
Requiring a shift
Turn on Require an open shift to sell in Admin → Plugins → Commerce to have a register refuse sales, and cash refunds, until someone opens a shift. Off by default.
Who rang it
Every sale records the cashier who rang it, the shift it was rung in and any discount's author. After a PIN switch, that is the person who switched in, not whoever is signed in on the tablet.
Staff PINs
A shared tablet stays signed in; each person switches in with their own PIN instead of signing out.
- Set your 4–6 digit PIN under Commerce → Settings → Staff PINs. A PIN that is one digit repeated or a straight run like 1234 is refused.
- At the register, tap Switch cashier, pick your name and enter your PIN. Every sale, shift and return you ring is recorded under you until someone else switches in.
- A PIN never grants more than your role: the register checks your role and your Manage POS permission each time it is used, so removing someone's access takes effect on their next tap.
- Five wrong PINs in a row lock that person out for 15 minutes. A workspace admin can reset or remove anyone's PIN, which also lifts a lockout.
- Lock the register after (minutes idle) in Admin → Plugins → Commerce locks the register after that long without a tap, so the next person has to enter their PIN. Tap Lock to lock it yourself.
PINs are stored only as salted hashes and nobody can read them back, not even a workspace admin.
Customers at the register
Search the Customer field by name, email or phone to attach a customer to the sale. The register shows how many orders they have placed at your store and what they have spent. The order is saved under their email and their name, so it appears on their record, prints their name on the receipt and can have its receipt emailed.
New customer adds someone in a few taps (an email is required, a phone is optional). Adding a customer does not sign them up for marketing email.
The search reads the people your workspace keeps in the CRM. Without it you can still type an email for the receipt.
Returns and exchanges
Tap Return on the register, then type the order number, scan the barcode at the foot of the receipt, or enter the customer's email.
- Pick the items coming back, how many of each, and the reason.
- Leave Put the items back in stock on to restock them at the register's location.
- Refund. The money goes back to how the customer paid:
- Card — refunded through Stripe to the same card.
- Cash — paid out of the drawer; the register tells you how much to hand over, and the open shift counts it.
- Gift card — added back to the same gift card. A voided or frozen gift card cannot take a refund.
- Room charge — taken back off the stay's folio.
A sale paid more than one way is refunded to cards first, then gift cards and room charges, and to cash last. Turn on Split by hand to choose the amounts yourself; a payment can never take back more than it paid.
Each unit's refund is its price less its share of any discount, plus its share of the tax, so returning items one at a time refunds exactly what returning them together would.
Every register return is also listed under Returns, beside the returns customers ask for online, already marked refunded. Items a customer has already asked to return online are held for that return: the register shows them as In an online return and will not refund them a second time.
Exchanges: after the return, tap Ring up the exchange to start a new sale for the same customer.
Refund limits and manager approval
Cashier refund limit ($) in Admin → Plugins → Commerce is the largest return a cashier may refund without a manager. It is $0 by default, so every register refund needs a manager until you raise it. Above the limit the register asks a workspace admin to enter their PIN to approve that one refund. Workspace admins have no limit.
Printed receipts
Receipts print on any 80 mm receipt printer through your browser's print dialog. Each receipt has your logo and store name, the order number and its barcode, the date, cashier and register, the customer's name, every item, discounts, tax, the total, how it was paid (card with its last four digits), the tip and change, and your receipt footer from Commerce → Settings. Two more lines are set in Admin → Plugins → Commerce: Address on printed receipts, printed under your store name, and Return policy on printed receipts, printed at the foot.
- After each sale, the register shows Print receipt and Gift receipt for that sale until the next one completes.
- Gift receipt prints the items and the barcode without any prices.
- Reprint any register sale from its order on the Orders page: open the order and use Print receipt or Gift receipt.
Most network receipt printers open the cash drawer cabled to them whenever they print, so printing a cash sale's receipt also opens the drawer. That is a setting on the printer.