POS (Point of Sale)

The POS screen is the workstation for waiters and admins to punch in orders right in the admin panel. An order is assembled from menu tiles in a few taps, bound to a table, and instantly lands in the kitchen and the shared orders feed.

Open: Admin panel → POS (admin.cenaly.ru). The screen is optimized for tablets — menu tiles on the left, the current order ticket on the right (on a phone — "Menu" and "Order" tabs).

Who can use the POS#

There is no fixed list of "POS roles" any more: access is granted by the POS section inside a job role. Roles are built with the role constructor on the Staff page — 21 built-in presets plus as many custom roles as you need.

The POS section is granted by default to: Owner, Manager, Waiter, Shift administrator, Cashier, Sales assistant, Bartender, Receptionist and Pickup point operator. Cook and Courier do not have it — they work on the Kitchen (KDS) and Courier screens. Any role can be given or denied the section.

Besides access itself, every role has its own POS permissions:

If the order is created by a waiter, it is automatically bound to that waiter — visible in the order and in reports.

Creating an order#

1. Pick a location (if you have several) — at the top of the screen.
2. Bind a table (for dine-in orders): "Scan QR" — point the camera at the table's QR code, or "Pick table" — choose from your client codes. If the QR belongs to another location, the POS switches to it automatically.
3. Add dishes: tap the tiles. Search and category filters are available. If a dish has variants and add-ons, the options picker opens.
4. Set the order type: Dining area, Pickup or Delivery.
5. Add an order note if needed.
6. Send — the order appears in Orders, on the Kitchen (KDS) screen and on the orders monitor.

Quantities are changed with "+/−" right in the ticket; an item can be removed before sending.

Tables and open orders#

• The POS shows open orders on the selected table — you can continue an existing order (add a course) or start a new one.
• "Unlink table" removes the binding when the order has no table.
• The table list comes from Client codes — every table QR code acts as a "table" for the POS. See Floor Plan for arranging tables.

Payment at the till#

Once the order is assembled, the cashier moves to the payment screen inside the ticket: cash (with change calculation), card through a terminal, and online providers where connected (see Online payment). A payment can be split across several methods. An open cash shift is required to take payment.

Split bill. The bill is split at the till in two ways: by items (the guest marks their dishes) and equally (the total divided by the number of guests). Each part is closed with its own payment method; the order counts as paid once all parts are closed. The guest cannot split the bill on their side.

Corporate account. A company employee pays for lunch from a corporate balance: the cashier enters the phone number and account code, the system checks the daily allowance and deducts the amount. If the order is cancelled, the deduction is reversed automatically. See Corporate accounts.

Gift cards. A card is accepted right at the till: the cashier picks the “Gift card” tender and types or scans the code — the till shows the balance and takes the amount needed. The server caps the amount against the live balance, so you cannot spend more than the card holds and a double tap cannot charge it twice. The part covered by the card becomes its own line on the receipt and the remainder is closed by any other method; the card works alongside bill splitting, corporate accounts and loyalty. The same card applies to an order once — to cover a remainder, use a second card or a regular tender.

Selling a certificate. The “Sell a certificate” action issues a card for the chosen value: the guest pays as usual, the code is printed on the receipt and e-mailed to the recipient when an address is given. Selling a certificate is not revenue but a liability of the venue: the “issued / redeemed / outstanding” summary lives in Finance. In Russia the sale is fiscalised as a prepayment, and redemption enters the goods receipt as offsetting a prepayment — redemption is never rung up as a second sale.

“On account” (deferred payment). The familiar café tab is built into the till: the “On account” tender closes an order without money and records the amount against a guest — searched by phone or name, and a new guest can be created right in the payment window. When a credit limit is set for the location, going over it is blocked: a member of staff with approval rights, or a manager entering a PIN, can let it through, and that approval lands in the risky-operations log. The order gets an “On account” badge in the orders panel and the receipt journal, and the guest's balance is visible in Customers and in Needs attention. Repayment goes through the same window — the “Take a debt payment” action: cash or card, partial amounts allowed. In Russia the sale on account is fiscalised as “transfer on credit”, and the repayment as a “credit payment” receipt.

Loyalty. The "Loyalty" panel looks the guest up by phone, shows the stamp and point balances and applies a reward or a redemption as an ordinary discount — see Loyalty program.

Pre-check (the guest bill)#

Before payment the waiter brings the guest a pre-check — a bill with items, service charge and total. It is a non-fiscal document, and it says so on the paper. The "🧾 Pre-check" button is not limited to the dining room — it is available at the bar and at the counter too.

Where the paper comes out, in order:

1. the receipt printer through Cenaly Hardware Bridge;
2. the fiscal register, as a service (non-fiscal) document. This is the main path for a venue that never bought a separate receipt printer: a guest bill is not a fiscal document, and printing it through the till registers nothing. On paper it comes out marked "not a fiscal document" and laid out to the real width of the till's paper;
3. the browser — if there is nothing to print with, or the till cannot print free text.

From a waiter's tablet or phone with no bridge of its own, the bill prints on the till's hardware through the cloud relay — all it needs is the order's location.

The outcome is reported honestly rather than as "printed / not printed": five states — printed by the receipt printer, printed by the fiscal till (not a fiscal receipt), printer offline so the bill is not printed yet, printed in the browser, not printed at all.

Changing the order after the pre-check has printed is worth keeping an eye on: the guest has already seen the total. Such operations land in the risky-operations log, see Loss control.

Upsell prompter#

After an item is rung up, "Suggest with this" chips appear above the ticket — what is most often bought together with that dish.

Sources of the suggestion, in priority order:

1. manual pairings set by the owner on the dish card — you know your menu better than any statistic;
2. "frequently bought together" — statistics from your own orders.

There is no AI involved: everything is computed from order facts. Dishes on the "86" stop list or outside their schedule never appear — suggesting what you don't have is the fastest way to teach a cashier to ignore suggestions. The chip price is the price "right now", happy hour included.

The toggle is ⚙ → POS appearance → "Upsell hints" (on by default).

Items sold by weight#

For dishes sold by weight (canteen, deli, salad bar), the dish card has a price by weight option: the guest sees a price per kilogram and the final amount is computed from what is weighed at the pass.

If scales are connected to the till through the hardware bridge, the weight is filled into the line automatically — no typing needed.

Hall panel#

The 🗺 button opens the Hall panel — the host's eight tabs, in this order: "Now", "Waitlist", "Scheme", "Reservations", "Calls", "Day" (who is on shift right now: planned vs actual timesheet, clock-in and clock-out by PIN), "Tasks" and "Analytics".

Next to the hall panel there is the hall monitor — a full-screen floor scheme for a TV or tablet in the dining room: pan-zoom, live badges with the open order total and a timer since seating, and for a hotel the guest, nights and folio balance. It opens with the 📺 button on the Floor Plan (see Floor Plan).

Printing#

Sale and refund receipts, the pre-check and X/Z reports print through Cenaly Hardware Bridge; when the bridge is unavailable, through the browser. Kitchen tickets per station and item stickers go only through the bridge.

The exception is a venue whose only hardware is a fiscal register. The bridge will not push our documents through it: the guest receipt is printed by the till itself as a fiscal document, while our slip would look like a receipt without being one. The browser fallback does not kick in here — the POS explains that "the till prints the receipt itself". Only a test print and the pre-check are allowed through the register.

The POS header shows a print queue indicator: if the printer is offline the job is not lost, but there is physically no paper yet. You can also print to a printer attached to another PC — over the cloud, with no VPN: the POS sends the job to the location's bridge, not only to the bridge on its own computer. In full — Kitchen and front-of-house printing.

Reprinting an issued receipt is always written to the risky-operations log; it asks for a manager PIN only for roles where "reprint under PIN" is enabled.

If the fiscal till refuses, the cashier sees a reason and the steps to take instead of the raw driver text: the shift has been open for more than 24 hours and needs a Z report, the till is not in the right mode, wrong operator password, an unclosed receipt is hanging, out of paper, fiscal memory full, the bridge is offline, the till could not reach the tax server. The message does not disappear after a couple of seconds — the sale is stuck and it has to be read.

Control of risky operations#

Manual discounts, cancellations, voids of items already sent to the kitchen, refunds, opening the drawer without a sale and reprints are logged against the current cashier (quick PIN switching counts). Some operations can be gated behind a supervisor's PIN approval.

If a bridge camera is connected to the location, a short video clip is attached to the event. Rules, thresholds and the owner digest — Loss control.

What you need to get started#

• Any computer or tablet with a browser. The POS is a page in the admin panel; you do not need to buy dedicated hardware. The layout is built for a tablet, and on a phone it is compact.
• An open cash shift. Until a shift is open, payment is blocked — see Cash shift.
• An employee role and PIN. The real permission layer on the POS is role plus PIN, not a cosmetic narrowing of the interface: deleting items, discounts, refunds and reprints above the threshold require a manager's confirmation.
• A menu with prices — the POS tiles come from the same catalog as the guest storefront.
• The bridge on the same computer — if you need receipt printing, a fiscal printer, scales, a scanner, a customer display or a bank terminal: Cenaly Hardware Bridge.
• A service mode — hall, bar or counter; the default comes from the venue type, and the toggle sits in the ticket header (Bar mode).

Limitations#

• The receipt registry runs on the AWS contour. On the Russian brand (cenaly.ru) functions built on the analytics databases are unavailable — taking payments is unaffected, but receipt history is not built there.
• Offline covers the POS and printing, and nothing else. The kitchen display, the bank terminal and syncing between devices over the local network do not work without the internet — If the internet goes down.
• The bridge only serves its own computer. A browser cannot reach a bridge on a neighbouring PC: either install the bridge on every POS device, or print through the cloud to a "ported" printer on another PC.
• PIN thresholds cover POS operations only. Risky inventory actions (write-offs, adjustments above an amount) are not yet behind a separate threshold.
• Changing a price right in the pre-bill is planned but the button does not exist yet.
• POS voice commands are in beta: recognition quality depends on the language, and accuracy in production has not been measured.
• The "on account" ledger is last-write-wins (concurrent edits are not locked), and one gift card applies to an order once.
• Cashier biometrics are deliberately postponed.

Troubleshooting#

The payment button is inactive. No cash shift is open. Open one with a float — Cash shift.

An item is missing from the tiles. Check the schedule and the 86 list: the dish may be outside its availability window or taken off as "86". The second place to look is the item's visibility and price at this location.

The receipt does not print. It is not the POS: check that the bridge on this computer is "connected" and a printer is selected — Cenaly Hardware Bridge, Printing.

The POS asks for a manager PIN. By design: deleting items, discounts, refunds and reprints above the threshold are confirmed by a manager and written to the risk log.

An order paid with a corporate account will not merge with another bill. That is a deliberate restriction — an order paid from an organization's account cannot be merged (Corporate accounts).

Loyalty points were not credited for a POS sale. Crediting requires the guest's phone number on the receipt: without it the guest is not identified and loyalty is not counted.

Related#

• Orders — order lifecycle, statuses, orders monitor
• Hall panel — waitlist, seating, calls and the heat map
• Kitchen and front-of-house printing — printers, queue and code pages
• Loss control — the risky-operations log and the rules
• Loyalty program — stamps, points and the regular-guest discount
• Corporate accounts — paying for lunches from a company account
• Kitchen (KDS) — the kitchen screen receiving POS orders
• Floor plan & reservations — table layout and QR binding
• Staff & shifts — waiter roles and order binding

FAQ#

Do I need special hardware?#

No. The POS runs in a browser on any tablet, phone or computer. Just sign in to the admin panel with your staff account.

Can guests order by themselves, without the POS?#

Yes — guests scan the table QR and order via the QR menu. The POS is for orders taken by staff (by phone, at the counter, tableside).

What happens after the order is sent?#

The order gets the "New" status and shows up on every work screen: Orders, Kitchen (KDS), orders monitor. The kitchen then takes it — see Kitchen (KDS).

Is the order bound to a waiter?#

Yes. An order created by a waiter is bound automatically. A waiter can also be assigned to tables in the "Waiters" mode of the Floor Plan page.