RetailOS — Point of Sale (POS) Manual

A hands-on guide to running the till: setting up registers, opening and closing cash sessions, selling, taking payment, reprinting receipts, handling returns, and working offline.

Base URL: https://goretailos.com POS terminal: /admin/pos · Registers & cash: /admin/registers · Orders & returns: /admin/orders · Offline sync: /admin/sync This is the POS-focused companion to the full User Manual and the Usage Guide.

1. Who can use the POS, and what a register is

Who — the POS is available to Owner, Admin, Manager and Cashier roles. Accountant / Inventory / Staff roles do not sell.
Register — a register (or "till"/"drawer") is the point money is taken at. Every sale, cash movement and cash session belongs to a register. A shop can have several registers (e.g. one per counter), each optionally bound to a branch.
Assignment — a cashier must be assigned to a register before they can open its session (managers can open any register). Manage registers and assignments in Registers & Cash.

Tip — install it as an app. The POS runs as a Progressive Web App: on the till device open /admin, then Install (Chrome/Edge address bar) or Add to Home Screen (iPad Safari). It launches full-screen like a native terminal and keeps working through Wi-Fi drops. See the Usage Guide → Installing the POS for the full setup.

2. Opening the register (start of shift)

You must open a cash session before you can complete a sale. The session tracks every cash movement from open to close so the drawer can be reconciled.

Open the terminal at /admin/pos.
In the session bar at the top, pick your register.
Enter the opening float — the cash you're starting the drawer with (count it first).
Select Open session.

Rules:

Only one open session per register at a time. If the register already has an open session you'll be told to close it first.
Non-managers can only open a register they're assigned to.
The session bar then shows the register, the open-session state, and the online / offline and sync badges.

3. Selling — the terminal

The terminal is a full-screen workspace: catalog on the left, cart on the right (a slide-in sheet on phones).

Finding items

Scan — keep the scan field focused and scan a barcode, or type a barcode/SKU and press Enter. The item drops straight into the cart.
Search (F2) — fuzzy search by name / SKU / brand / category. Use ↑ ↓ ← → to move the highlight and Enter to add the highlighted item.
Category chips — tap a category to filter the product grid. Live stock badges show what's available.

The cart

Quantity — use the − / + steppers on each line.
Line discount (F6) — a discount on a single line.
Order discount — a discount across the whole sale (spread evenly across lines when the sale posts).
Attach customer (F4) — link the sale to a customer (or leave it as a guest sale).
Hold / resume (F8) — park a sale to serve someone else, then resume it. Held sales live on the device.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
F2	Focus search
F4	Attach / change customer
F6	Apply a discount
F8	Hold the current sale
F9	Open the payment screen
Esc	Cancel / close the current panel

Prices and tax shown on screen are an estimate — the server always recalculates the authoritative total when the sale is completed.

Customer-facing display (second screen)

Show the customer the bill as it's built. In the POS toolbar select Display — a full-screen customer display window opens; drag it onto a second monitor or customer-facing screen at the counter.

Every item appears with its price and running total the moment it's scanned, with the newest line highlighted.
The big Total updates live after each item.
When you take payment, it switches to a Thank you screen showing the amount paid and the change due, and returns to a welcome screen once you close the receipt.

It's a read-only mirror — it never changes the sale. It runs on the same device/browser as the till (open it from the POS on that machine), works offline, and shows nothing to anyone who opens the page on a different device.

4. Taking payment

Press F9 (or Pay) to open the payment sheet. It shows the Total due.
Pick a payment method tile (Cash, Card, Bank, etc.).
For split payments, use Split payment to add more rows — the sheet shows Allocated, Remaining and Change due live.
Press Complete sale. The button shows Processing… while the sale posts, and can't be double-clicked.

Payment rules:

The payment total must cover the order total (you can't under-pay).
Cash over-tender is fine — hand over more cash than the total and the sheet shows the change due; the drawer records the net (cash in − change out). Example: a 600 sale, customer gives 1100 → 500 change, drawer nets +600.
Non-cash tenders can't exceed the total — you can only give change from cash, so a card/bank amount must not be more than what's owed.

On success you get the receipt screen (and, if offline, a "Saved offline" confirmation).

5. Receipts

Print a 58 mm or 80 mm thermal receipt (plain-text, ESC/POS-style), with a browser print fallback if no thermal printer is configured.
Reprints are available from the order later (see §8).
Configure the printer per device in Settings → Receipts (printer type, paper width, bridge URL, auto-cut, cash-drawer kick). Printer settings are stored on the device, not the shop.

6. Cash in / cash out during the shift

Money sometimes moves in or out of the drawer outside of sales — a float top-up, a payout, or a cash expense. Record these so the drawer still reconciles at close.

From Registers & Cash → the open session panel:

Type	Use it for
Cash in	Adding cash to the drawer (e.g. a float top-up).
Cash out	Removing cash (e.g. a payout, banking).
Expense	A cash purchase — also posts to the ledger under the chosen expense category.

Each movement takes an amount and an optional note. Only the session's opener or a manager can record movements.

7. Closing the register (end of shift)

Go to the session (POS session bar Close session, or Registers & Cash).
Count the drawer and enter the Counted cash — this is required; you can't close with a blank amount (type 0 if the drawer is genuinely empty).
Close. The system computes the variance.

Expected cash is calculated as:

opening float
  + cash sales
  − cash refunds
  + cash in
  − cash out
  − cash expenses

The close screen shows the full reconciliation — Opening, Cash sales, Refunds, Cash in, Cash out, Expenses, Expected, Counted, and the Difference. Only the opener or a manager can close. A discrepancy raises an alert for a manager to review (flagged critical if it's more than ~5% of expected).

8. Recent sales, the order ledger & reprints

On the till — recently completed and held sales are reachable from the POS (recent-sales / held-sales panel) so you can resume or reprint quickly.
Full ledger — every sale (POS, online and AI) lives in Orders, returns & payments. Search by order number or customer contact, filter by status / payment / channel / date, and page through them. Open an order to see its lines, payment status and to reprint the receipt.

9. Returns & refunds

Returns are processed from the order, not the till screen.

Open the order in Orders, returns & payments.
Choose Full return & refund.

What happens: the returned items are restocked, a refund is issued (cash refunds re-enter the open drawer), and the sale's revenue/tax/COGS are reversed in the ledger — all in one step.

You can't refund an order that was never paid. For an unpaid order (e.g. a Cash-on-Delivery online order that wasn't collected) the refund option is hidden and the server blocks it — there's no money to give back. Cancel such an order instead.

10. Offline mode & sync

The POS is offline-first: if Wi-Fi drops (or a checkout call fails), it keeps selling.

Prime first, on Wi-Fi. Open the POS online once at the start of a shift so it caches the catalog, prices and barcode index for the shop.
Selling offline — sales are computed on the device and queued (each carries a unique local_uuid so syncing can't create duplicates). The session bar shows the offline badge and the queued count.
Reconnecting — queued sales sync automatically and duplicate-safe when you're back online. The server re-prices authoritatively; if a price or tax changed while you were offline, the customer keeps the amount actually charged and the difference is recorded as a variance rather than silently rewritten.
Conflicts — a manager resolves any price/tax variances or rejected sales in the Offline Sync console (Accept / Reject / Retry).

11. Troubleshooting

Problem	What to do
Register not in the list	Ask a manager to create it and assign you to it in Registers & Cash.
"Register already has an open session"	Someone else opened it — close that session first, or use a different register.
Can't complete a sale — payment doesn't match	The total tendered must cover the order total. Over-tendering cash is fine (you'll see change); a card/bank amount can't exceed the total.
Close button won't work	Enter the Counted cash amount first — it's required (use `0` for an empty drawer).
Nothing loads offline	You never primed the cache online, or you're in a browser tab instead of the installed app. Reconnect, open the installed app, load the POS once, then retry.
A sale is stuck "syncing" / rejected	A manager resolves it in the Offline Sync console.
Refund option missing on an order	The order was never paid — there's nothing to refund; cancel it instead.

This page renders POS_MANUAL.md. See also the full User Manual and the Usage Guide.