Registers, Shifts & Cash
Overview
A register — the till — is the unit a POS tablet logs in to. Every device runs one register, and inherits that register's menu, printers, payment methods, and cash rules. You set registers up in the admin console under Outlet Registers; this page is about operating one at the counter.
Before a cashier can take any payment, the till's shift must be open. A shift is the working session between counting cash in and counting cash out — it ties every sale, refund, and tender on that till to one accountable period. Try to pay with the shift closed and the POS stops you with "Shift closed! Open a shift?".
Where shifts live
The cashier opens and closes shifts on the tablet. The figures then roll up into the admin Shift Report, where the owner reconciles the till. See POS & Sales Reports.
Opening a shift
The Shift tab shows the till's current status — Shift OPEN or Shift CLOSED, with who opened or closed it and when — above a numeric keypad.
- Open the Shift tab.
- On the keypad, key in the cash total in till — the opening float you're starting the day with (notes and coins already in the drawer).
- Tap Open shift.
The shift opens with that float, the POS jumps to the Shift Report, and a success toast confirms it. Sales can now be paid on this till.
No register assigned
If the device has no register, the Shift tab shows an empty register prompt instead of the keypad. The register is assigned in the admin console — see POS Settings.
Auto-shift
If the register runs on auto-shift (Auto Shift enabled in its admin settings), shifts open and close on a schedule and the Shift tab is hidden — there's nothing for the cashier to press. Use this for tills that should follow fixed trading hours rather than a manual count.
Closing a shift
At the end of the session the cashier counts the drawer and closes the shift.
- Open the Shift tab.
- Count the cash in the drawer and key in the closing amount.
- Reconcile any custom-payment tallies (see below), if shown.
- Tap Close shift.
On close the POS opens the Shift Report for that session. How the closing amount is checked depends on one register setting — the two modes are mutually exclusive.
Variance check (threshold mode)
By default the POS knows the expected cash in the till — opening float plus cash takings, minus cash refunds and payouts — and checks your count against it. The allowed gap is the register's Shift Cash Threshold.
If your count falls outside ±Shift Cash Threshold of the expected amount, the close is refused with "Unable to close the shift. Please check the amount you have entered." Recount, or have a manager review, then try again. A threshold of 0 means the count must match the expected figure exactly.
Show-expected mode
If the register has Show Expected Cash Total in Till on Shift turned on, the close screen displays the expected till total alongside your counted amount — and the threshold check is switched off. The cashier sees what the system expects and what they counted side by side, and the variance is recorded rather than blocked.
One mode at a time
Showing the expected total disables the threshold block. Pick the behaviour you want per register in its admin settings — either the POS hides the expected figure and enforces the threshold, or it shows the figure and records the variance. Both feed the admin Shift Report.
Custom payment reconciliation
If the register has custom payment methods — card-machine tallies such as Amex, Visa, Master, or a manual PayNow count — the close screen shows a Custom payments table so the cashier can reconcile each one against the card machine's own settlement total:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Expected | What the POS recorded for that tender this shift. |
| Actual | What the cashier keys in from the card-machine settlement slip. |
A running total sits at the foot. Any difference between Expected and Actual is recorded with the shift and surfaces on the report, so a mis-keyed card sale shows up at reconciliation rather than going quietly missing.
Settlement at close (DCS)
If the register has a DCS payment method configured, closing the shift first triggers a DCS terminal settlement so the day's card batch is settled before the cash is locked in.
- On success: "Settlement successful", and the close proceeds.
- On failure: the POS asks "Cannot settlement. Do you want to close the shift?" — answer to close anyway or cancel and retry.
DCS settlement is Android-only
DCS settlement runs on Android terminals only. On iOS the POS shows "DCS payment is not supported on iOS." — close the DCS batch from the terminal itself.
Opening the cash drawer
On a tablet with a cash drawer, the Shift screen has an Open till button that kicks the drawer open — via the native cash-drawer connection and/or the Sunmi printer's drawer port — and toasts "Cash Drawer Opened." Use it for manual cash handling: making change, dropping a float, or a quick count.
The drawer also opens on its own:
- whenever a sale is paid with cash, and
- when a cashier taps Pay (or the default cash button) with an empty cart — a no-sale drawer open.
Drawer hardware required
Open till needs a connected cash drawer — a Sunmi device with a drawer port, or a drawer wired to the printer. Without that hardware the button has nothing to open.
The Shift Report (X / Z report)
Opening or closing a shift lands you on the Shift Report. You can also reach past shifts from Settings → Shift Report, which lists each shift; tap one for its detail. This is the till's X/Z report — the single sheet that says what the register did and whether the cash balanced.
Each report shows:
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Shift header | Opened by / closed by, with timestamps. |
| Cash line | Opening amount, expected till amount, Short (the over/under), and closing amount. |
| Net Sales | Sales, service charges, delivery charges, tax, discount, and the final total. |
| By order type | The same Net Sales breakdown split across Dine-in, Takeout, Delivery, and Unaccounted orders. |
| Payment Summary | Totals per tender. Where a custom payment's counted figure differs from the expected, the actual is shown in parentheses beside it. |
| Discount Summary | Discounts given over the shift. |
A print icon opens a popover to print the report two ways:
- With Category — items grouped by product category.
- Without Category — a flat list.
Unaccounted orders
The Unaccounted line catches orders not tied to any shift — orphans worth investigating. They appear here on the tablet and again in the admin Shift Report. See POS & Sales Reports and Order Management.
How this rolls up to admin
The tablet's shift open/close is the cashier's side of one reconciliation; the owner reads the other side in the admin console. The counted float and closing cash you key in here become the Opening Cash and Closing Cash columns of the admin Shift Report, alongside the sales, payment, and unaccounted figures. See POS & Sales Reports for the full report and its Xero export.
The cash figures only line up if rounding is set the way you intend — cash totals are rounded at checkout per outlet, so the expected-till maths uses rounded cash. If your Short figure looks consistently off by small amounts, check your rounding rule. See Cash Rounding.
Related
- POS & Sales Reports — the admin Shift Report that reconciles these closes.
- Payments — the tenders that fill the Payment Summary.
- Cash Rounding — the rounding rule behind the expected-cash maths.
- POS Settings — where the register, threshold, and auto-shift settings live.
- Register & Shift Issues — when a shift won't open or close.