Selling at the bar

At the entrance table you sell tickets. Two metres further along is the bar, and there you sell beer, chips and coffee. That is a different kind of product: no ticket comes out of it, no time slot belongs to it, and nobody scans a beer at the door.

That is what the Bar item type is for. A bar item is simply something you ring up: it gets a price, its own VAT rate, and it appears on the receipt and in your till journal. Beyond that it does nothing.

Switch it on first

Bar items are off by default. A visitor centre that only sells tickets has no use for them, and a dropdown with a type you never use only makes the screen busier.

That switch applies to the whole platform and is not in your own settings. If you want to use bar items, ask support to switch them on. As soon as that is done, Bar item appears in the type dropdown of a new product. Nothing changes about what you have already sold.

What you need beforehand

• A working till. See The counter till for the tablet, the cash drawer and opening a session.
• One product with a desk price for every drink or dish. The till always uses the price of the desk channel.
• The VAT rate that belongs to that product. Check with your accountant: a drink consumed on the premises usually falls under a different rate than food you hand over, and this differs from country to country. See also VAT sets.

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Creating a bar item

1. Go to Products and click New product.
2. Choose Bar item as the type.
3. Fill in the name, in each language you use. This is what ends up on the receipt and on the till button: keep it short. "Lager 25 cl" reads better at a busy bar than "House beer from the brewery round the corner".
4. In the VAT section, under Kind of sale, choose what it is — for example Alcoholic drink, Soft drink, Food eaten on site or Deposit. The rate then follows from your VAT set. If you leave Kind of sale empty, you type the percentage yourself under VAT rate.
5. Save, then click Add a price under Prices. Under Channel, choose Desk.

That is all. The button appears on the till screen as soon as you open the till at the venue the product belongs to.

What a bar item deliberately does not do

• No ticket. Nothing scannable is created.
• No season pass.
• No time slot. You cannot attach one, and it never asks for one.
• Not in the scanning app. A bar item does not appear in the day's manifest; there is nothing to check about a beer at the door anyway.
• Not in your online shop. A bar item is a till product. It does not turn up in your ticket shop, not even if an online price was added to it by mistake, and a reseller cannot resell it.

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Deposits

A deposit is not a separate kind of product: it is just a bar item, with its own price and its own VAT rate. Create one product for it, for example "Cup deposit", and put the deposit you charge on it.

Ringing it up works like any other product: the visitor buys a beer and a cup, and two lines appear on the receipt.

Taking it back

When the cup comes back, press Take back at the top of the till screen. The button changes colour and a bar appears above the tiles. Then tap the tile of whatever is coming back: a line appears with a minus in front of it.

After that single tap the till goes straight back to selling. So you cannot accidentally leave Take back switched on and ring up everything negative for the rest of the evening. Change your mind? Tap Take back again — nothing in the basket changes meanwhile.

It is deliberately one button above the tiles, and not a button under every tile. The latter doubled the number of blocks on the screen for something that happens a couple of times a night — exactly where you need the room most.

That is deliberately one line on the same receipt, and not a separate refund:

• the visitor sees at a glance what they paid and what they got back;
• the cash drawer immediately gets lighter by the amount you returned;
• the VAT is reversed in the same rate, so that your Z report adds up at the end of the evening;
• nothing appears twice in the journal.

If somebody brings back four cups, tap Take back once, the tile once, and then the plus button in the basket three times.

What if only the deposit comes back and the visitor buys nothing? The whole receipt then comes to a negative amount and you hand that back in cash. The drawer still adds up afterwards.

Note: taking back only works for a bar item. Taking back a ticket is something else — that is a cancellation, because the ticket itself has to become invalid as well. See Refunds.

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Photos on the tiles

At a busy bar a staff member taps a shape and a colour, not a word. That is why you can upload a photo for every product. It shows up on the button at the bar, with the name and the price underneath.

1. Open the product and unfold Image on the till tile.
2. Upload a photo. A square image works best; 400 by 400 points is plenty.
3. Save. The tile shows the photo on every till that carries this product.

The photo belongs to the product, not to the tile. A draught beer looks the same at the bar as at the chip stand, so you upload it once and it is right everywhere. If the product sits in three layouts, one photo changes all three.

And if you have no photo

Nothing essential changes. A tile without a photo shows a coloured block with the name in it: the same size, just as easy to hit. That is a full display and not half a job — most organisations will never upload a photo.

• If the tile is in a block with a name, it takes that block's colour. That way a block reads as one surface.
• If it is in a block without a name, it gets a fixed colour tied to that product. It does not shift when you add another product later.

So it is not all or nothing: a layout in which half the products have a photo still looks tidy.

And a photo is not always the better choice. Four kinds of fries all look the same on a 400-point square. There, a coloured block reading "Large fries" helps more than a photo does.

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At the bar itself

The till screen works for a bar item exactly as it does for a ticket:

1. Tap the product's tile. Tapping again adds one more.
2. With + and − in the basket you adjust the quantity.
3. Pick a payment method and settle up.

No ticket screen follows: there is nothing to email and nothing to scan. If you want a receipt, use Print receipt, just as with a ticket.

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Charging with the camera

With cashless switched on, your till charges the visitor's pass without anyone having to type in a code. The tablet reads the QR code on their ticket itself: on paper, as a PDF, or in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

1. Ring up the order as usual.
2. Tap Charge. The camera opens, with the amount above it.
3. The visitor holds the QR code of their ticket up to the camera.
4. Done. If there is enough on their pass, the amount is deducted straight away and you see the completion screen.

Below the camera image there are three large buttons: Card, Cash and Cancel. If the visitor would rather pay another way after all, simply tap one of the first two. Cancel closes the camera and leaves the basket as it is.

If it does not work

• The camera recognises nothing. After a few seconds it closes by itself and you see No pass recognised. Choose how the visitor pays. The usual buttons are right there: Cash, Card and Bancontact Pay.
• A code that is not a pass. You see No pass found for this code. and the camera keeps looking for a moment. Often the visitor is simply showing the wrong QR code.
• Not enough balance. You see Not enough balance — top up first. The camera closes, and the pass is already waiting under Pay with the pass, with its balance. Let the visitor top up or choose another payment method; there is no need to scan again.
• A blocked pass. You see This pass is blocked. Nothing is charged. Send the visitor to the organisers.

Topping up and refunding

With Top up balance too, the camera opens by itself to find the pass. Refunding the balance happens in the same window, so you scan the pass the same way for that as well. Prefer a handheld scanner or typing the code? Tap Cancel: the code field is ready.

The Camera button next to Search opens the camera again. The same button sits next to the Pay with the pass field by the basket.

Why the camera is not always on

A tablet that films all evening gets hot and runs flat. So the camera only opens when you tap Charge or Top up balance. It closes again as soon as the pass is found, as soon as you choose a button, after a few seconds without a result, or when you move to another screen. Nothing is recorded or stored: the image stays on the tablet.

On or off per device

The camera is on by default on every till as soon as cashless is switched on. You switch it off per device under Devices: open the device and turn off Open the camera at checkout. That is handy for a laptop without a camera, or for the till at the entrance that only sells tickets. The Charge button then disappears; the Camera button by the search fields stays.

If the camera does not open

• The browser asks for permission. The first time, Safari or Chrome asks whether the page may use the camera. Tap Allow. If you refused by mistake, switch it back on in the browser settings; on an iPad that is under Safari → Camera in Settings. Then reload the till.
• Which camera? The till starts with the camera on the screen side, so the visitor can hold their phone up to the screen. If your tablet has two, switch with Other camera. The tablet remembers your choice.
• Which devices? The camera works in Safari on an iPad and in Chrome on Android. If a device has no camera, the till says so straight away and you simply pick one of the payment buttons. Then switch the camera off for that device, as described above.

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What you see afterwards

• On the receipt, every line appears separately, with the take-backs as negative lines, and the VAT per rate at the bottom.
• In the Z report of your session, bar items count towards the turnover per VAT rate. That way you can see at a glance how much went over the bar.
• In the till journal every sale appears with its lines. Nothing there can be changed any more; see The counter till.

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Till layouts: every screen its own products

As soon as you have more than one till, you run into the same thing: every tablet shows all the products at the location. At the bar you end up scrolling past chips and tickets to find a beer. On a festival site that is one list too long.

A till layout is a named set of products in a fixed order that you attach to a single device. "Left bar" shows drinks and deposits, "Chip stand" shows chips and burgers, and the tablet at the entrance simply shows the tickets. All three belong to the same location.

Only one desk? Then there is nothing to do here. A device without a layout shows all products at its location, exactly as before.

Putting a layout together

1. Go to Till layouts and click New till layout.
2. Give it the name of the spot: "Left bar", "Chip stand", "Entrance". That name appears in small print at the top of the till screen, so whoever picks up the tablet can see straight away where they are.
3. Optionally pick a location. That only makes choosing products easier later; leave it empty and you pick from all your products.
4. Click Create. You land straight in the design screen, because an empty layout is nothing yet.

The design screen

On the left are the products that are not on this till yet. On the right is the till itself, exactly as it will appear on the device — with the same tiles, the same colours and the same photos.

Putting a product on the till. Drag it from the left onto a cell. On an iPad or with the keyboard, tap the product first and then the cell where it should go. It is the same action, with two taps instead of one movement.

Moving a tile. Drag it to another cell. Drop it on a cell that already holds a tile and the two swap places — which is what you expect when you drag the beer onto the spot where the cola was.

Leaving a gap. That is allowed. An empty cell is a choice, not an oversight: the till shows it as an open space. Handy for keeping drinks and food apart, even within one block.

Making a tile bigger. Tap the tile. The buttons Wider, Narrower, Taller and Shorter appear under the block. A tile can be as wide as the grid and up to three rows tall. Make whatever crosses the bar most often big: the draught beer is the button you need to be able to hit from a metre away.

Taking a tile off the till. Drag it back to the list on the left, or tap it and choose Take off the till. The product itself stays.

There is no Save button. Everything you do is stored immediately. Close the tab halfway through and you have lost nothing.

Columns and the preview

At the top you choose how many columns the grid has: between two and eight. Six is a good start for a 10" tablet.

With Tablet 10" and Till 15" you see how big the tiles will be on that device. The grid is the same on both; only the tiles get bigger or smaller. So check in the tablet view whether you can still hit the tiles with a thumb.

You can only reduce the number of columns when no tile would end up outside the new edge. Quietly pushing those tiles onto the next row would turn your whole menu upside down; move them to the left yourself first.

Pages and blocks

You spread a large menu over pages. On the till these become tabs at the top: Drinks, Food, Tickets. One tap switches, with no scrolling needed — and scrolling with wet hands at a bar is slow. If you only have one page, the till shows no tabs.

Within a page you create blocks with a colour: Beer, Soft drinks, Deposits. At a busy bar, colour is faster than reading: the hand goes to the green block before the eye has read the text. So pick clearly different colours — green, amber and red say more than three shades of blue.

A block without a name shows no heading and no colour on the till. That way every new page has one straight away, without anyone needing to know about blocks.

You can only delete a page or a block once there are no tiles left on it. That is deliberate: taking products off the till with one click on a bin is a surprise you discover on the night itself.

Two things to know

• The same product may appear in several layouts. The beer at the bar and the beer at the chip stand are one product, with one price and one VAT rate. A layout only picks what you see, never what it costs.
• Do not move anything halfway through an evening. After twenty orders a cashier knows blindly where the beer is. Add new products in an empty cell instead.

On a phone

A grid of six columns on a phone gives tiles of fifty pixels, and every thumb misses those. So on a narrow screen the till lets go of the positions and simply stacks the tiles one below the other, in the order you read them: left to right, top to bottom. The gaps disappear, and a wide tile becomes a normal one.

Attaching the layout to a device

A layout does nothing until it is attached to a device. You do that right in the design screen: at the top is On these devices, listing all your devices. Tap one and it uses this layout; tap it again and it no longer does. If a device shows (not linked), no tablet is connected to it yet — you do that with a pairing code under Devices.

It also works the other way round: go to Devices, open the tablet in question and pick the layout under Till layout.

You do this per device and not per location — that is the whole point. And the cashier on a linked device cannot switch it themselves: the till screen shows only the name, no picker. That saves wrongly rung-up orders and keeps each till's Z report readable.

A till without a device

If you work on a laptop that is not linked to a device — to try out your layout, or as the treasurer at a small table — there is a drop-down list of your layouts at the top of the till. Pick one, and the till shows exactly what you designed. Pick All products to see everything again.

Is your till showing everything even though you have made layouts? Then it says why under the title: either no device is linked, or the device has no layout. In the second case there is a link to that device as well.

Tip for a party. Set it up in advance: one device on "Left bar", one on "Right bar", one on "Chip stand". Afterwards you can see per till what went through, and that is exactly the conversation you want to have with your treasurer on Monday.

What happens when you change something

• Setting a product to inactive takes the tile off the screen but leaves it in the layout. Set the product active again and the tile is back, in the same spot.
• Deleting a block or a page is only possible once there are no tiles left in it. That way a product never disappears from the till by accident.
• Setting a layout to inactive, or deleting it, makes the devices that used it show all products at their location again. So a till never goes blank.

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Frequently asked questions

Do I have to create a separate product for every drink? Yes, and that is the intention. It is the only way to know afterwards how many beers you sold, and the only way to give every product the VAT rate that belongs to it.

Can I sell a bar item online as well? No. A bar item is a till product and never appears in your ticket shop. If you want to sell drink tokens in advance, use a gift voucher or an ordinary ticket.

What if I make a mistake and ring up too much? As long as you have not settled up, just remove the line from the basket. If it has already been paid, ring it back with Take back, just like a cup, and give the amount back.

Does a bar item count towards the ticket limit of my plan? No. No ticket comes out of it, so nothing is counted.

I cannot find the Bar item type. Then the switch is still off. Ask support to turn it on.

Can I switch layouts from the till itself? Not on a linked device, and that is deliberate. The layout belongs to the device. Anyone who can jump between screens mid-shift will sooner or later ring up the wrong things, and then that till's count no longer adds up. If you really must, attach a different layout to the device in the design screen. A till without a device does choose its own layout, at the top of the screen.

Does a product in two layouts mean double the work? No. It is one product with one price and one VAT rate; you simply place a tile for it in both layouts.

I cannot find Till layouts in the menu. Then the same switch as for consumptions is still off. Ask your administrator to turn it on.