The lights flicker or the internet drops and there is a line. Know this in advance: the POS needs a connection to complete a payment. It will keep showing products and the cart, but it will not let you charge until you are back online. Plan for that, and do not improvise with the records.
Signs you are in this situation
- The sidebar shows Offline and a banner says Offline — running on cached data.
- When you tap Process payment, the POS shows You're offline and asks you to reconnect.
- Screens load slowly or show old numbers.
What to do right now
- Check the obvious: router lights, the cable, the phone hotspot as a backup connection if you have one.
- Keep building the cart for the customer in front of you. When the connection returns, tap Process payment again, or Try Again in the dialog. If a line shows Price changed — tap to review, a promotion changed while you were offline: tap it and accept the current price before charging.
- If it will take a while, use Hold to park the current cart. Only one sale can be held at a time, and it survives a restart of the app.
- If you must sell during the outage, do it on paper: product, quantity, price, payment method, time. Tell the customer the receipt will follow.
- Do not open or close the caja, receive shipments, or adjust stock while offline. Wait.
- When you are back online, enter the paper sales one by one at Checkout so stock and the caja match. Then reconcile as usual.
Decide
| If… | Then… |
|---|---|
| Internet is down, power is fine | Hotspot from a phone if possible. Otherwise paper for cash sales only; card terminals usually need connection too. |
| Power is down | The app closes. The held sale comes back when you reopen. Sell on paper if you must, cash only, and enter it later. |
| The outage hits at closing time | Do not close the caja with an unknown total. Keep the drawer locked, close when you are back online, and put the time in Notes (optional). |
| A payment was in progress when it dropped | Check Payments → Recent Payments once online before charging again, so the customer is not charged twice. |
Afterwards, and how to prevent it
- After entering the paper sales, compare Reports → Session View cash against the drawer before closing.
- Keep a small paper sales sheet in the drawer, always.
- A phone hotspot and a small battery backup for the router cover most short outages.
- Tell the staff the rule once: no charging, no caja actions offline; paper, then catch up.