The counter till

The till is meant for selling on the spot: at the entrance, at the door table of the dinner evening, at the jetty. It runs in a browser on a tablet or a laptop. This article is about what you need physically, how a day at the desk goes from opening to closing, and why you can never wipe anything from the till journal.

If you sell drinks and food alongside your tickets, read Selling at the bar: beer, chips and deposits go over the same till, but do not produce a ticket.

What is a till session?

A session is one shift at one till. You open it when you start and you close it when you stop. Everything that happens in between — sales, money going into or out of the drawer, corrections — hangs on that session.

That is precisely what you need when the cash does not add up at the end of the evening. With three people at two tills and one session, you only know that forty euros is missing. With a session of its own per till you know where.

What you need beforehand

• A staff member with the desk role or higher. A scanner cannot open the till; that device is at the entrance.
• A tablet or laptop with a browser and the internet. A cheap Android tablet is enough, as is an iPad or an old laptop.
• Products with a desk price. The till uses the price of the desk channel, not your online price. See Products and prices.
• A cash drawer or cash tray and change.
• Optional: a receipt printer and a payment terminal.

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What you put on the table physically

A tablet or laptop with the internet

The till is a web page. You open it in the browser that is already on the device and sign in with your usual details. There is nothing to install.

That also means that you need the internet while you are selling. Unlike the scan app at the entrance, the till does not work offline: a ticket has to be created, and that happens on the server.

Note: this is the honest bit. If the network drops out, you cannot sell at that moment. Prepare for that instead of hoping:

• Have a phone with a mobile hotspot ready as a second connection. In a field or in a parish hall, 4G is often more reliable than the wifi on site.
• Test the connection at the place where the table will really stand.
• If everything drops out, sell on paper for a while — a list with tally marks — and ring those sales up afterwards.

A cash drawer or a cash tray

A drawer that closes with a key is pleasant, but a plastic coin tray from the shop does the job too. What counts: the money is in one place, and nothing comes out without being booked.

Change, and how much

The money you put into the drawer at the start is called the opening float. You type that amount in when opening the session; without that figure the difference at the end of the evening means nothing.

An example for a dinner evening with tickets of 5, 12 and 25 euros, with an opening float of 200 euros:

Denomination	Number	Together
10 note	6	60.00
5 note	10	50.00
1 coin	50	50.00
0.50 coin	40	20.00
0.20 coin	50	10.00
0.10 coin	100	10.00
Total		200.00

The rule behind that division: you need more small denominations than you think, and 50 notes are not change but a risk. Reckon on about one euro of opening float per expected visitor when you mainly sell in cash, and do feel free to take large notes out of the drawer as you go — you then book that as out of the drawer.

A receipt printer

Not required, but handy when people want a piece of proof. The till prints on 58 mm receipt paper, the narrow roll you also see in a sandwich shop. In practice it works like this: you click Print receipt, a print page opens in a new window, and your tablet's browser sends it to the printer.

On the receipt there is a VAT breakdown per rate, so that your accountant can do something with it. No printer? Then you email the tickets to the address you filled in at the sale, or you let the visitor photograph the QR codes on the screen.

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The till on an iPad or tablet, with the app

The till does not have to live in a browser. The same app your scanners use at the entrance also runs on an iPad or an Android tablet, and the till simply sits inside it. You open it with a single tap, without typing a password a second time.

At a desk that matters more than it sounds: no web address to retype on a tablet keyboard, no browser window somebody swipes away by accident, and the screen stays on as long as you are selling.

What you need for this

• An iPad or Android tablet. It works on a phone too, but the product buttons get small; at a desk you want a tablet.
• Wifi or mobile internet. The till only works with a connection.
• The desk, administrator or owner role. Anyone with only the scanner role does not get to see the till.
• If you want to accept cards: a payment terminal linked to this till device — see below.
• A cash drawer and change, for whoever pays in cash.

Step 1 — installing the app and signing in

The app is in the App Store; for an Android device we send you the link. How to install it is in Scan app and scanning staff.

Signing in uses the same three fields as for a scanner: the organisation code, the email address and the password. There is no separate till account and no second password.

Step 2 — choosing: scanning or till

If you sign in with the desk, administrator or owner role, the app opens on a home screen with two large tiles:

Tile	What you get
Scan	The scanning screen at the entrance: camera on, reading QR codes. Works without internet too.
Till	The full counter till inside the app itself: product buttons, basket, methods of payment, daily close.

If you only have the scanner role, you do not see that home screen. The app goes straight to the scanning screen, as always. So nothing changes for your scanning staff.

Step 3 — opening the till

Tap Till. Three things then happen one after another, without you having to do anything:

1. The app signs you in to the till with the account you are already using in the app. You do not type your password a second time.
2. The tablet is linked to the till device right away. You no longer have to copy over a pairing code; the app does that itself.
3. The till opens in the same language as the app.

In the back office the tablet then appears twice under Point of sale → Devices: once as Scanner and once as Desk. That is not a mistake. The cash drawer, the payment terminal and the Z report belong to the desk device; so you link a terminal to that device.

After that you sell exactly as described below: open the session with an opening float, ring up products, choose a method of payment, and at the end of the day the Z report.

The tablet's screen stays on as long as you are in the till. So you do not have to unlock it for every visitor.

Back to the app

At the top of the till there is Back to app. One tap and you are back at the two tiles; from there you go to the scanning screen.

On an Android tablet the device's back button asks for confirmation first. That is deliberate: it keeps you from closing the till by accident while somebody is standing in front of you with a half-rung-up basket.

Internet: the difference between the two tiles

• Scanning works without internet. The app has its manifest and keeps scanning.
• The till does not work without internet. A ticket has to be created, and that happens on the server.

If the connection drops while you are in the till, the app says so in as many words and you can go back to the scanning screen. Just as with a till in the browser, keep a phone with a mobile hotspot ready as a second connection.

What if the till says the session has expired?

Then you do not have to do anything. The app asks for a new sign-in itself and you carry on where you were. The link it uses for that is single-use and valid for sixty seconds — deliberately, because a link that keeps working is a key lying around.

If nothing happens anyway, go back to the home screen and tap Till again. Every time the app opens the till this way, it is written to your organisation's activity log, with the device and the time.

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Card payment at the desk

A payment terminal is the little device your visitor holds their bank card against. The till knows two ways of receiving a card or app payment.

Way	What you need	What the visitor does
Payment terminal	An active Mollie connection and a terminal you have registered in your Mollie account	Hold their card against the terminal
Bancontact Pay	An active Bancontact Pro connection	Scan the QR that appears on the till screen with their banking app

Bancontact Pay needs no further equipment: the QR appears on the screen you already have. That is the cheapest route to cardless payment at a table where you stand for only one evening.

Note: the till only sends the amount automatically to a terminal that hangs on that till device through your Mollie connection. If you have a terminal from your bank or from another provider, it works on its own: you copy the amount over there by hand, and the till knows nothing about it. Ask us how best to handle those payments before you buy a terminal you cannot connect anywhere.

Ordering a terminal from your payment provider

You do not buy or rent a terminal from us — you order it from the party that processes your payments. Broadly it always runs the same way:

1. You sign in to your payment provider's dashboard (your Mollie account, your Stripe account) or you ring your bank.
2. You order a terminal there. You choose between a fixed device for the counter and a mobile device you take with you.
3. The device is sent to you.
4. You connect it to your account by following the steps the provider sends with it. With Mollie the device is usually preconfigured: you put it on your wireless network or let it work on 4G.
5. With Mollie the terminal then appears in our list under Point of sale → Devices → Link a terminal.

What we were able to check on their own sites in September 2026 — indicative, check it on their site:

• Mollie sell their own terminals, in a fixed and a mobile version, and you order them in your Mollie Dashboard. They state availability for Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
• Stripe sell various readers, to be ordered through the Stripe Dashboard or through their sales department. Which models you can order depends on your country; not every model is available everywhere. Note: the till can currently only drive a Mollie terminal. A Stripe reader works on its own, just like a terminal from your bank.
• Prices and delivery times are not on their public product pages. You only see them in your own dashboard when ordering, and they differ per country. So do not assume that an amount you read somewhere applies to you, and for an event next week do not count on a terminal that still has to be dispatched.

More about providers and costs is in What is a payment provider and Payout and costs.

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Once: pairing the tablet

If you work in an ordinary browser, you pair the tablet with a till device once. An owner or administrator does that:

1. Go to Point of sale → Devices and click New device. Give it a Name ("Desk left"), choose Desk under Type and choose the Venue. Click Create.
2. Click Create pairing code next to the device. A code of six characters appears that is valid for a quarter of an hour.
3. On the tablet, open Point of sale in the menu, type the code under Pairing code and click Pair.

After that the tablet remembers by itself which device it belongs to. If you want to sell without a device, click Continue without a device: everything works except the payment terminal.

Step 1 — opening the till

1. Open Point of sale in your tablet's browser.
2. Choose your venue if you have more than one. That determines which products and time slots you are shown.
3. Fill in the opening float: the amount you have just put in the drawer.
4. Click Open the till.

If you work with two tills side by side, each opens its own session with its own opening float.

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Step 2 — selling

• Tap a product button to ring one up. Tapping again makes it two.
• With products with a time slot you choose the time under the button. The till shows the current slot and what comes after it, with the number of free seats alongside. Sold-out slots are not among them.
• With − and + you adjust the number; with Clear you start again.
• Discount code fills in a discount that is spread proportionally across the lines.
• Name and email are optional. If you fill in an email address, you can email the tickets after settling up.

The till works out the VAT and the discount itself. Prices at the desk may differ from your online prices; you arrange that with the Desk channel on the price.

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Step 3 — choosing the method of payment

Button	What happens
Cash	Fill in what you received, or tap a quick amount or Exact. Leave the field empty and the till assumes exact change. The change appears large on the screen.
Card	The amount appears on the payment terminal next to the till. The till waits until the terminal reports "paid".
Bancontact Pay	A QR appears on the till screen. The visitor scans with their banking app.
Gift voucher	Type the code in and click Redeem. The balance of the voucher is used up.
Free	Only visible when the total is nought: invited guests, full discount.

With a card or QR payment you can always click Cancel payment. The basket then stays; nothing has been sold and nothing is in the journal.

Tickets only exist once payment has been made. That is deliberate: for money that may never arrive, no valid QR should be out there in the world.

A card or QR payment that hangs is given up by the till by itself after a few minutes. Your visitor can then try again or pay in cash.

After settling up

You get the QR codes on the screen straight away. As well as that:

• Print receipt opens the till receipt in a new window.
• Email to … sends the tickets with the QR to the address filled in.
• Next visitor clears the screen.

Note: the scan app at the entrance only knows a ticket after it has refreshed its manifest. Otherwise somebody who has just bought at the desk and walks straight to the entrance gets INVALID. Refresh the manifest on the scanning device after such a sale; see Scan app and scanning staff.

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Step 4 — money into and out of the drawer

At the bottom of the screen, under Drawer, you book what happens outside the sales: adding change, skimming off large notes, paying an expense. Fill in the amount and a reason and click In or Out.

And do actually do that. A ten-euro note that goes out of the drawer without being booked becomes a cash difference at the end of the evening that nobody can explain any more.

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Step 5 — the daily close

These are the five minutes you must never skip.

1. Counting

Empty the drawer and count the money. Count it twice, and preferably have somebody else do the second count. Do not deduct your opening float yet: the till does that itself.

2. Comparing

At the bottom of the screen, under Drawer, is Expected in the drawer: what the till says ought to be in it. Put your count next to it. The difference is your cash difference.

Try to explain it before you close. The four causes you meet most often:

• change given back wrongly;
• money taken out of the drawer without booking it;
• a sale that came in as cash but was rung up as card;
• a sale that was not rung up at all — that gives a surplus.

If you cannot find it straight away, leave it. A cash difference is kept, not tidied away. A shortfall of two euros is information: you only see it when it goes the same way several days running.

3. Filling in and closing

Type what you have counted under Counted in the drawer. If you know where a difference comes from, put that under Note when closing. Click Close the till (Z report) and confirm.

The Z report that is now fixed contains the turnover per VAT rate, the turnover per method of payment and the cash difference. It gets a number (Z-1, Z-2, …) and cannot be changed after that. The till shows the number and the cash difference straight away.

An owner or administrator finds every shift with its opening and closing balance under Point of sale → Till sessions. The cash difference shows there in red for a shortfall and in orange for a surplus:

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A correction

If you sell something wrongly, you delete nothing from the till journal.

• Not settled yet? Remove the line with − or start again with Clear. Nothing is in the journal yet.
• A bar item already settled? Ring it back with Take back; see Selling at the bar.
• A ticket already settled? A desk staff member cannot undo that; an owner or administrator can. They open the sale under Orders and click Cancel the ticket next to the ticket. The ticket is then refused at the entrance, even if the QR has already been printed. A cash sale at the desk has no Refund button: you give the money back separately, in cash from the drawer, and you book that with Drawer → Out, with the order number as the reason.

That way the till keeps adding up, and afterwards you know why money left the drawer.

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Why the till journal cannot be changed

Every movement — a sale, a correction, the opening and closing of the session, money into and out of the drawer — goes into the till journal. That journal only grows: entries are never changed or deleted.

Every entry carries a sequence number that runs strictly upwards per organisation, and a reference to the previous entry. Anyone changing one entry afterwards breaks that chain, and that is visible.

Why that is so strict: a till things can disappear from proves nothing. The daily turnover of such a till is a claim and not a fact — for your accountant, for your committee, and during an audit.

You can export the journal: an owner or administrator clicks Export journal under Point of sale → Till sessions, chooses a day and the format CSV (for the bookkeeper). The CSV opens in Excel. The file carries the hash chain with it, so that whoever receives it can check for themselves that nothing has been removed.

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German customers: KassenSichV

Anyone selling in Germany falls under the Kassensicherungsverordnung. It asks for exactly what is above: unchangeable, in order, and signed by a TSE. You connect that under Settings → Till compliance (DE); see Till compliance in Germany (TSE). For Belgian and Dutch customers nothing changes.

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Common mistakes

• Leaving the opening float at nought. Every cash difference at the end of the evening is then nonsense. Count your change and type it in.
• Forgetting to close. The session stays open until somebody closes it, if need be for two days. Close every day: a difference can then still be placed.
• Working with one session for three tills. You then know that something is missing, but not where.
• Taking money out of the drawer without booking it. Use Drawer → Out, including for that fifty euros you will "put back later".
• Counting on a terminal that has only just been ordered. Delivery times differ per country and per provider. Order weeks in advance.

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What if …

What if the network drops out during the sale?

Then you cannot ring up at that moment. Switch over to your mobile hotspot. If that does not work either, write the sales down on paper and ring them up as soon as you are online again. The scan app at the entrance simply carries on in the meantime on its manifest.

What if the terminal does nothing?

Check two things: is a terminal connected to this till device (Point of sale → Devices), and is the Mollie connection active under Payments. If you are working "without a device", there is no terminal — it hangs on a particular till after all.

What if my tablet has lost the pairing?

Create a new pairing code in the admin and copy it over onto the tablet. The old pairing lapses as soon as the new one is used. A pairing code is six characters long and valid for a quarter of an hour; it works once.

What if I forgot to close?

Close anyway. The Z report calculates with everything in it, even if that is two days. The difference is then harder to explain, but it is there.

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Frequently asked questions

Can I use the till without creating a device? Yes. Choose Continue without a device for an extra till on a busy day. Everything works, except the payment terminal — that belongs to a particular device.

Can two tills sell at the same time? Yes. Every till has its own drawer and its own Z report. Seats in a time slot are fixed per sale, so two tills can never both sell the last seat.

Do I have to have a receipt printer? No. You can email the tickets or let the QR codes be photographed on the screen. A printer is pleasant when visitors expect a paper proof.

Can I print a receipt again? As long as the screen after the sale is still open, simply click Print receipt again. Once you have clicked Next visitor, that is no longer possible: there is no button in the back office to open the receipt again.

Do I get the money from a card payment straight away? No, that runs through your payment provider and is in your account a few working days later. See Payout and costs.

Can I scan and sell with the same tablet? Yes. That is what the two tiles are for. With Back to app at the top of the till you go to the home screen and from there to the scanning screen; going back is just as quick. If there is a queue at the door, rather put a second device on scanning — every switch costs a few seconds.

Do I still have to type a pairing code in the app? No. The app links the tablet to the till device itself as soon as you tap Till. You only still need a pairing code when you open the till in an ordinary browser.