What the till does

• Search, tap or scan products into the cart; change quantities and prices within the discounts your role allows.
• Take cash in USD or ZiG (with change), card on your bank terminal, EcoCash or OneMoney through your own Paynow account, or sell on account.
• Print receipts on 58 mm or 80 mm thermal printers, open the cash drawer for cash sales, and weigh goods on a scale.
• Keep selling for cash and card when the internet is down; sales go to Nhimbe when the connection returns.
• Give every staff member their own account and PIN, with supervisors approving anything sensitive.
• Show product photos on the till, hold a customer's sale while you serve the next person, and send receipts on WhatsApp.
• Give supervisors today's takings and best sellers at a glance, and print X and Z reports for cashing up.
• Run promotions such as "buy 2 get 1 free" or "10% off", and let customers collect and spend loyalty points.
• Show customers their items, total and change on a second screen facing them.
• Alert the owner by SMS, email or in Nhimbe when an item runs low, and let any tablet on a till resume a held sale.
• Every sale becomes a normal Nhimbe invoice with stock, accounts and ZIMRA fiscalisation handled in your workspace.

Before you start

Your administrator sets these up once in the Nhimbe workspace:

• A plan with Tengai POS (or Nhimbe ERP).
• At least one till (a POS Profile) with its company, warehouse, price list and currency. Cash, Cash (ZiG), Card (Terminal) and EcoCash / OneMoney are added for you; check that each points to the right cash or bank account.
• Prices for everything you sell on the till's price list, and barcodes on items if you scan.
• Product photos (optional): add an image to each item in Nhimbe and it appears on the till. Items without a photo show their initials on a coloured tile.
• The day's ZiG rate (USD to ZWG, selling) if you take ZiG cash.
• Your Paynow integration ID and key in Nhimbe POS Settings if you take EcoCash or OneMoney.
• ZIMRA fiscal devices for each branch or till if your business is fiscalised.
• Nhimbe POS Settings: cashier discount limit (5% to start), how long a tablet may sell offline (24 hours), idle lock (5 minutes), receipt header and footer.
• Promotions (optional): add them under Nhimbe POS Promotion. See Promotions and loyalty points.
• A loyalty programme (optional): an ERPNext Loyalty Program for your company, with its points value and an expense account.
• Reorder levels (optional): on each item, under Auto reorder, the level for the till's warehouse, plus who gets low stock alerts.

Installing on a tablet

1. On the tablet, open this page in Chrome and tap Download for Android, or scan the QR code with the tablet's camera.
2. Open the downloaded file. If Android asks, allow Chrome to install unknown apps (Settings, Apps, Special app access, Install unknown apps).
3. Open Nhimbe POS and enter your workspace, for example yourbusiness.
4. A supervisor signs in, names the tablet and chooses its till.
5. Each person signs in once with their own email and password while online, then chooses a six digit PIN.
6. Open Printer to connect the receipt printer and cash drawer, and Scale if you weigh goods.

Updates to the till arrive by themselves; the tablet switches to the new version the next time it is on the home screen. When a new version of the Android app itself is released, install it over the old one from this page. Your sales and settings stay on the tablet.

Staff, roles and PINs

Everyone has their own account. The first sign in on a tablet uses email and password; after that people switch in with their PIN. The tablet locks itself after 5 minutes without use and keeps the open sale.

"With approval" means a supervisor types their email and PIN on the cashier's tablet. The approval works once, for that one action, within 5 minutes, and is recorded with the sale.

Managing staff and tablets

• Staff (administrators): add people, give them a role and their tills, reset a password or PIN, or switch someone off.
• Tablets (supervisors): rename a tablet, move it to another till, or block a lost tablet.
• Assign tasks: give staff jobs that appear on their home screen.
• Audit trail: who did what, on which tablet, including refused attempts.

Selling and payments

1. Tap Sell. Tap products, type in the search box, or scan. Tap a line to change its quantity or price.
2. Tap Pay. Nhimbe works out discounts and tax before you take payment, so the total matches the invoice.
3. Choose how the customer pays, then Complete sale.

A sale is never recorded twice, even if the button is pressed twice or the connection drops at the wrong moment.

Popular items

The Popular chip on the Sell screen shows what this till has sold most in the last 30 days, so the fast movers are one tap away.

Holding a sale

If a customer steps away (to fetch money, or add something), tap Hold, give the sale a name such as "Blue shirt", and serve the next person. Held sales at the top of the Sell screen lists them; tap Resume to carry on.

• Held sales are kept in your workspace, so any tablet on the same till can resume them. Only one tablet can take each one.
• When the tablet is offline, the held sale stays on that tablet and moves to the workspace once the connection is back.
• The person who held a sale (or a supervisor) can delete it. Held sales nobody resumes are cleared after 3 days; nothing was paid on them.

Receipts on WhatsApp

On the receipt screen, tap Send on WhatsApp and type the customer's number (for example 077 123 4567). WhatsApp opens with the receipt ready to send from the tablet's WhatsApp.

Promotions and loyalty points

Promotions

In Nhimbe, open Nhimbe POS Promotion and add one. There are two kinds:

• Buy X get Y free, for example buy 2 get 1 free: the 3rd, 6th, 9th... unit of the same item is free. It counts whole units only, never weighed goods.
• Percentage off, for example 10% off bread, optionally only from a minimum quantity.

A promotion applies to one item or to every item in an item group, from and until the dates you set, on every till or on one till. If two promotions fit an item, the till uses the one worth most to the customer.

Promotions apply by themselves on the till, even offline. The cart line shows the promotion's name, the free units are a separate line at 0.00, and the receipt says how much the customer saved. A promotion price never needs a supervisor. Only a further discount on top of it counts against the cashier's limit.

On ZIMRA receipts the free units are included in the item's line (3 units for the price of 2), because ZIMRA does not accept a line priced at 0.00.

Customers

Tap Customer on the cart to search by name or phone. New customer adds one with just a name and mobile number. If the number already belongs to a customer, the till uses that customer instead of making a duplicate.

Loyalty points

• Set up an ERPNext Loyalty Program for your company: how much a customer spends per point (collection factor), what one point is worth (conversion factor), when points expire, and the expense account for redeemed points. Tick auto opt in to enrol customers automatically the first time they buy.
• When a customer is on the sale, the cart shows their points. Points are earned on every completed sale, and the receipt shows the points earned and the new balance.
• To spend points, tap Points on the payment screen and choose how many to use. The rest is paid as usual. Points cannot be worth more than the sale, and a sale on account cannot use them.
• Using points needs a connection, because the balance is kept in Nhimbe. In Nhimbe POS Settings you can require a supervisor's approval to use points.

Customer screen

A screen facing the customer shows each item as it is added, any promotion savings, the total, then the payment and change, and "Thank you" with the points earned. Between sales it shows your business name and a welcome message, which you set in Nhimbe POS Settings.

• Dual screen tills and second monitors (Android app): tills with a customer display (such as the Sunmi D2 or T2), or a monitor connected by HDMI or USB C, show the customer screen by themselves when the app starts. Tap Customer screen on the home screen to show or hide it.
• Computers with a second monitor (browser): on the Customer screen page, tap Open the customer window, drag the window to the monitor facing the customer and press F11 for full screen.

The customer screen only ever shows the current sale. It never shows other sales, staff or takings.

Low stock alerts

1. On each item you want watched, open Auto reorder and add the till's warehouse with a reorder level (and, if you like, the quantity you normally order).
2. In Nhimbe POS Settings, under Low stock alerts, tick Send low stock alerts and add the phone numbers for SMS and the email addresses to alert. SMS uses the gateway in SMS Settings; email uses your workspace's email account.

Nhimbe checks after every sale and every hour. When an item reaches its reorder level, the people you chose are told once. They are only told again after the item has been restocked above the level and runs low again. Supervisors and stock staff also see a Low stock card on the till's home screen.

Cash drawer

• Plug the drawer into the drawer port on the back of the receipt printer.
• In Printer, tick A cash drawer is plugged into this printer. Choose the connector (pin 2 suits most drawers) and the command (ESC p for most printers, DLE DC4 for Sunmi and some others), then tap Save and test the drawer.
• The drawer opens with the receipt of every cash sale and cash refund. It does not open for card, mobile money or reprints.
• Open drawer on the Sell screen is for a "no sale" opening, such as giving change. It asks for a reason, needs a supervisor's approval unless your settings allow cashiers to do it, and is written to the audit trail.

The drawer is opened by the receipt printer, so it works through the Android app with a Bluetooth, USB or network printer. The browser's print dialog cannot open a drawer.

Barcode readers

• Use a USB or Bluetooth barcode reader set to keyboard mode that sends Enter after each code. Plug it in or pair it with the tablet.
• Scan on the Sell screen: you do not need to tap the search box first.
• Codes are matched to the barcodes on your items in Nhimbe, or to the item code.
• The tablet camera can scan too: tap Scan on the Sell screen.

Labels from a weighing label scale

If your deli or butchery prints price or weight labels, switch on Read labels printed by a label scale in Nhimbe POS Settings. Standard labels start with 20 to 29 and carry the item number and either the weight in grams or the price in cents. The item number matches the item's barcode, item code or its Scale item number (PLU).

Scales and weighed goods

• In Nhimbe, tick Sold by weight on the item and use Kg (or Gram) as its unit. Its price is per kilogram.
• On the tablet, open Scale and choose how the scale is connected: USB (through a serial adapter) or Bluetooth in the Android app. Pick the scale, its protocol (sends weight continuously, or answers W, ENQ or P), speed and data format, then tap Read the scale to check.
• When you tap a weighed item, the weigh screen shows the live weight and the price. Use this weight works only when the weight is steady.
• If the scale is not working, Type the weight appears when your settings allow it. Typed weights are marked on the invoice line.

Scales that send lines such as ST,GS,+ 1.234kg, Toledo format frames, grams or pounds are understood. Ask Nhimbe support before buying a scale so we can confirm its protocol.

Printers and receipts

• Android app: Bluetooth thermal printers (pair them in Android settings first), the built in printer on Sunmi terminals, USB printers, and WiFi or network printers on port 9100.
• Chrome: the print dialog for any printer, plus USB printers and Bluetooth LE printers.
• Choose 58 mm or 80 mm paper, the number of copies, and whether to print after every sale. Save and print a test page checks everything.
• Receipts show your business details, the receipt number, date, cashier, customer, items, tax, totals, payments, change and your footer. Fiscalised receipts show the ZIMRA details and QR code.
• The receipt screen says separately whether the sale was saved and whether the receipt printed. Reprints are marked COPY and never create a new sale.

Shifts and cashing up

• Open a shift before selling and count the float in the drawer.
• At the end of the day, close the shift with a blind count: type what you count for each payment method, then the till shows what was expected and any difference.
• Sync any sales still on the tablet before closing so the figures are complete.
• Print X report (supervisors) prints the figures so far during the shift. After closing, Print Z report prints the final cash up with counted amounts and differences.
• Supervisors also see a Today card on the home screen: takings, number of sales, average sale, refunds, top items and takings by payment method.

Refunds

• Find the sale in Sales & reprints, choose what is coming back and give a reason.
• Refund in cash (the drawer opens) or on the card terminal with its refund reference. Refunds need a supervisor.
• Promotion items: free units come back first. If the customer keeps too few to qualify, they no longer get the free ones (return 1 of a "buy 2 get 1 free" and nothing is refunded).
• If part of the sale was paid with loyalty points, that share is not refunded in money.
• Mobile money refunds are made in your Paynow account, then recorded on the till as cash.

Working offline

When the internet drops, the till keeps selling for cash (USD and ZiG) and card on the terminal for up to 24 hours after the person last signed in online on that tablet. EcoCash and OneMoney need a connection because Paynow must confirm them. Refunds, sales on account and bigger discounts also wait for the connection.

Promotions still apply offline. Adding customers and paying with loyalty points need the connection.

• Offline sales are saved on the tablet and sent to Nhimbe automatically when the connection returns. Sync shows them and has a Retry button.
• Nhimbe checks every offline sale. Anything it cannot post straight away, such as an item that ran out of stock, goes to the supervisor's review queue. The customer has already paid, so no sale is ever dropped.
• Offline receipts say "Saved offline, pending sync". Fiscalised businesses can reprint the fiscal receipt after syncing.

Power cuts and recovery

• A sale is saved in one step: after a power cut it is either fully saved or not saved at all, with the cart still there.
• The open cart comes back when the tablet restarts.
• If the tablet stopped while sending a sale, it checks with Nhimbe first and never records it twice.
• A printer problem never loses a sale: printing happens after the sale is saved.
• This tablet, Download backup saves anything not yet in Nhimbe as a file.

Sales that have not synced are lost if the tablet is lost, reset or the app is uninstalled. Let the tablet sync before servicing it, and keep it charged.

Keeping your till secure

• Give every person their own account; never share passwords or PINs.
• Tablets must be registered by a supervisor. Block a lost tablet in Tablets and it can no longer sign anyone in or send sales.
• Switching someone off, or resetting their PIN, also ends their offline access on every tablet.
• Too many wrong passwords or PINs lock the account for a few minutes.
• Cashiers cannot open your accounts, cost prices or past invoices; the till shows them only what they need to sell.
• Turn on two step sign in for supervisors and administrators in your workspace settings.

Troubleshooting

What you need

• An Android tablet with Android 7.0 or newer (10 inches, landscape, is ideal). Phones and PCs work too, in Chrome.
• An internet connection for setting up, first sign ins, mobile money and syncing.
• Optional: a 58 mm or 80 mm thermal receipt printer (Bluetooth, USB or network), a cash drawer that plugs into the printer, a USB or Bluetooth barcode reader, and a scale with a USB serial or Bluetooth serial connection.

Printers, drawers, scales and barcode readers differ between models. Talk to Nhimbe support before buying so we can confirm yours will work.