Selling when the venue signal drops
What happens to till sales at an event when the connection drops, how they are resent without duplicates, and the limits to plan around before doors open.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Events businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Venue Wi-Fi is fine at the walk-through on a quiet Tuesday. On the night, with thousands of people in a marquee or a stadium concourse all reaching for their phones, the signal at the bar or the merchandise stand can vanish for minutes at a time. The queue does not stop because the network did.
Anyone selling at events needs to know, before the gates open, exactly what the till does when the connection drops and what it cannot do. This article sets out how Achekam's till behaves, the limits you have to plan around, and a checklist for the day.
What happens to a sale when the connection drops
If the connection drops while the till is open, the cashier can keep selling. Each sale is kept in the browser on that device. The sales survive a page reload, and when the connection comes back, the till sends them to the server.
Once a sale reaches the server, it is treated like any other: it posts to the books, takes the stock off at the till's location and gets its receipt number from the server. Nothing about an offline sale is second-class once it has been sent.
Picture the main bar during the headline act. The signal drops for a quarter of an hour. The cashier carries on ringing up cash sales, and each is held in the browser. When the signal returns, the held sales go to the server one after another, take their receipt numbers and post to the books. The cashier did not have to stop, re-enter anything or keep a paper list.
A resent sale is never recorded twice
A patchy connection creates a particular risk: a sale that half-sends, then sends again. The till is built for that. A resent sale is never recorded twice, so a burst of reconnections at the end of a set does not double the night's takings.
That matters at cash-up. The figures you count against are the real sales, once each.
Limits to plan around
The till's offline handling is useful, but it has firm edges, and an events team should know them in advance.
The till page needs a connection to open. The page cannot be opened without a connection. Sales made while offline are kept, but if the browser is closed or the device restarts while the venue is offline, the till cannot be reopened until the signal returns. Open every till before doors, while the connection is good, and tell cashiers not to close the tab.
The offline button only simulates being offline. The till has an offline button, but it only simulates being offline; it does not detect a real loss of signal. It is handy for showing new cashiers what offline selling looks like. It is not a switch you need to press on the night.
Some payments need the connection. A QR payment through a payment gateway counts only after the server has confirmed it with the gateway, so it cannot be completed while the till cannot reach the server. Flutterwave, one of the gateways a till can offer, asks the same of merchants: its guide to transaction verification lists what to check (reference, status, currency and amount) before giving value to the customer. Because the server refuses any sale that is not paid in full, plan for cash and card to carry the load during an outage. Card payments are taken on the bank's own terminal and recorded at the till from its slip, since the till is not connected to the card machine, so the terminal's own connection matters too.
Cash-up waits for unsent sales
At cash-up, the cashier counts the drawer by notes and coins, and the server works out the expected cash, records any difference and posts it to cash over and short. But a till with unsent sales cannot be cashed up.
In practice, that means the end of the night needs a connection. If the bar's till still holds unsent sales when the last song finishes, someone has to take that device somewhere with a signal, let the sales go through and then cash up. Plan for it: know where on site the connection is reliable, and agree that no till is cashed up until it has sent everything.
Several tills, one set of numbers
Large events run several tills at once, each opened at one of the business's stock locations. The server hands out receipt numbers, so no two tills ever issue the same one, even when sales from different tills arrive in a rush after an outage. For setting up those tills, floats and locations, see pop-up tills and floats for an event.
A venue checklist
Before the event:
- Make sure the business has the Point of Sale add-on and that every cashier can sign in, since the cashier at a till is the signed-in user.
- Visit the venue and find where the connection is reliable and where it is not.
- Agree the payment methods per stand, with cash and card as the backup when the signal fails.
- Practise with the offline button so cashiers know what offline selling looks like.
On the day:
- Open every till before doors, while the connection is good.
- Tell cashiers not to close the browser or restart the device.
- During an outage, keep selling for cash and card; pause QR payments.
- After the event, move any device with unsent sales to a good signal, let it send, then cash up.
The night before
Walk the site with the person who will run the tills, test each selling point's signal and write the plan for an outage on one page for every cashier. If you take deposits for stands or tables before the event, those belong on invoices rather than the till; see why the till needs full payment.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
