Getting Started

1.1 Accessing POS

1. Log in to SikaBooks
2. Select your business
3. Click POS in the module switcher

1.2 Dashboard Overview

The POS dashboard gives you a real-time snapshot of your sales performance:

• Today's KPIs — Total sales, transaction count, average sale value, net sales (after returns)
• Returns & Refunds — Today's return count and refund total
• Week & Month Totals — Running totals for the current week and month
• Operational Metrics — Active registers, open shifts, active POS users, pending returns
• 14-Day Sales Trend — Daily sales chart with totals
• Payment Method Breakdown — How customers are paying today (cash, card, mobile money, etc.)
• Top 10 Products — Best sellers this month by quantity and revenue
• Credit Sales — Outstanding balance and overdue amount
• Hourly Sales Pattern — Sales distribution across the day (06:00–22:00)
• Recent Shifts — Latest shift activity

1.3 Navigation

The live POS workspace is organised like this:

• Dashboard — Sales overview and KPIs
• Registers — Register list, shift management, X-report
• Sales — Sales history and the sell screen
• Returns — Return list and approval flow
• Customers — Customer profiles and credit follow-up
• Credit Sales — Outstanding balances and payment collection
• Reports — 10 built-in reports
• Promotion Performance — immutable campaign savings and return information, separated by sale currency
• Administration — POS users, POS settings, tax groups, tax rates, user manual

Automatic Retail Promotions

Campaign setup lives in Inventory → Promotions, not in POS pricing or fixed combos. Only an enabled retail pilot applies offers. Restaurant and Pharmacy checkout, services, fixed combos and fractional quantities are excluded; participating goods must use count-based sales units.

Cashiers must scan every physical item leaving the store, including free gifts. Buy 3 / get 1 requires four units in the basket. The gift is not added automatically. Same-product, fixed-gift and mix-and-match offers use the server’s current location prices. Conflicting offers select the best saving without stacking on the same products. Automatic promotion savings are distinct from any authorized manual discount.

Treat basket hints as guidance. Review the current server quote before payment; prices, stock, campaign dates and published versions are rechecked at checkout. A promotion preview or parked basket is not an entitlement to a stale saving. Ask a manager to review changed quotes instead of manually recreating an offer.

If checkout says the quote changed, no payment was recorded. Review the revised unit prices, offer savings and total, then add tender again and explicitly complete the sale. The old tender is cleared. When another cashier changes a recalled cart, reopen its latest version rather than overwriting their changes.

Receipts record the offer and savings at sale time. Partial and full returns refund the original prorated amount actually paid for the returned units; they do not re-evaluate today’s campaigns. Promotional and ordinary units of the same SKU may have different paid values, so select the correct original sale lines. Never promise a full list-price refund for a discounted qualifying unit or assume the gift is a standalone zero-value return.

On a promotional receipt, Listed price is the original unit price. Allocated saving is that line's share of the offer discount, and Item total is the recorded line total after savings and any tax. This is not a payment confirmation: credit receipts show the actual deposit and outstanding balance separately. For cashier-choice offers, the selected gift is named above the items; automatic offers show the free quantity. The totals show the original items amount, promotion savings, any other discount, net subtotal, tax and final amount when the saved facts reconcile. Inclusive prices are labelled explicitly. Older incomplete receipts show savings as already included rather than inventing an original subtotal. Customer receipts omit internal offer-version identifiers; management sale details retain them. New online tax-exclusive POS calculations round fractional tax cents half up per component and line. Offline sales retain the calculation contract saved in their device snapshot; synchronization never silently reprices a paid sale. Reprints and returns always retain the completed sale's stored amounts, even if today's prices or tax calculation have changed.

Select the open Refund register that will issue the refund. Pending approval pays nothing and restores no stock; approval confirms the current drawer, including when the original sale shift has closed. Serialized returns require the exact original serials, one per line or comma-separated; pending requests reserve those serials. A supervisor must have access to that location and verify their PIN after the confirmation dialog. The refund limit and drawer cash include refunded tax.

Users with POS report permission can open Promotion Performance from Reports. Mobile activity appears as labelled cards. Review figures in their original currency; do not add different currencies together. Completed returns are counted on their approval/payment day, not their request day; legacy rows use their recorded date. A period can therefore contain a refund against an earlier sale. Deployment operations must approve pilot rollout and tax/accounting treatment before campaigns are activated.

1.4 Choose Your Learning Path

Use the path that matches today's work. These learning paths explain tasks; selecting a path does not grant permissions.

The business must have POS enabled and your account must have POS workspace access plus the permission for each action. A POS role does not open Accounting or Inventory screens merely because sales use those modules in the background. If a link is unavailable or returns 403, ask the owner to review your role; a supervisor PIN is not a substitute for workspace authorization.

For restaurant table service, use the Restaurant manual alongside this guide. Its unpaid bills and kitchen preparation copies are not retail payment receipts.