Taking payment at the till in Nigeria
The ways a Nigerian shop can be paid at Achekam's till (cash, Paystack or Flutterwave QR, transfer, card) and how each one is recorded and refunded.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Running a business businesses in Nigeria
A Nigerian customer at your counter might pay in notes, by transfer from a banking app, with a card on a terminal, or by scanning a code. By closing time, a busy shop has taken all four, and somebody has to make each one add up: the drawer, the bank alert, the terminal slips and the gateway dashboard.
The till in Achekam treats each method differently, because each one is proven differently. This article goes through them one by one, for a business that has the Point of Sale add-on (without it, the till is neither shown nor accepted by the server).
One rule sits over all of them. The server refuses a till sale that has not been paid in full, so a sale is either settled at the counter or it does not happen. A customer who can pay only part of the total at the counter cannot be served on a part payment.
Cash and the naira cash-up
For a cash sale, the cashier enters what the customer handed over and the till records the change given. Nothing more is needed at the moment of sale.
The proof comes at the end of the shift. The cashier counts the drawer by naira notes and coins, and the server, not the cashier, works out how much cash should be there. Any difference is recorded and posted to a cash over and short account, so a shortage reaches the books instead of being quietly topped up from someone's pocket.
One practical point: a till holding sales that have not yet reached the server cannot be cashed up. If the connection was poor during the afternoon, let the till finish sending before the count starts. For how to investigate a difference once it appears, see cash-up differences at the till.
Paystack or Flutterwave by QR code
A naira till can offer Paystack and Flutterwave, the two gateways Achekam supports for naira at the till, provided the business has set the gateway up with its own merchant keys and switched it on. The customer scans a QR code with their phone and pays on the gateway's pay page.
What matters is when the sale counts. The till does not accept the customer's word, or a screenshot of a success screen. The payment counts only after Achekam's server has confirmed it with the gateway. A cashier who is tempted to wave a customer through because "it has gone" should wait for the till to say so.
If your business also takes Paystack or Flutterwave on invoices, the same merchant accounts serve both. How invoice payments are confirmed and booked is covered in collecting naira invoice payments online.
Bank transfer at the counter with the bank's reference
Many Nigerian customers prefer to transfer from their banking app while standing at the counter. For this method, the till shows the business's bank details and a reference for the customer to use.
The sale is then refused until the cashier records the bank's own reference for that transfer. This is the control that stops the fake alert: the cashier must see the money land in the business's account, from a phone or screen the business controls, and copy the reference from there. A reference read off the customer's phone proves only that the customer typed something.
Agree which staff member can see incoming transfers on a busy day. If only the owner gets bank alerts, the cashier cannot finish a transfer sale without them.
Card payments from the terminal slip
The till is not connected to any card machine. A card payment is processed on your bank's POS terminal in the usual way, and the cashier then records it at the till from the terminal's slip.
Two habits keep this honest:
- Ring up the sale on the till first, then take the card on the terminal for exactly that amount, so the two cannot drift apart.
- Keep the terminal slips with the shift's paperwork. At the end of the day, the terminal's own settlement report should agree with the card total the till recorded.
Card rules in Nigeria are set by the Central Bank of Nigeria, which describes its oversight of the payment system, including card and POS rules, on its payments system supervision page.
Refunds sent back through Paystack and Flutterwave
Refunds at the till are a supervisor's or manager's job: they can refund all or part of a sale with a reason, as a separate document linked to the original sale, and the goods go back into stock.
How the money returns depends on how it came in. A sale paid through Paystack or Flutterwave can be refunded through that provider's own system from the till, and the refund counts as completed only when the provider confirms it. A bank transfer refund is different: somebody makes the transfer from the business's bank, and the cashier records it. Cash refunds come out of the drawer and show in that shift's cash-up.
Where each method lands in the ledger
Every till sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal straight away. Revenue, output VAT and cost of sales (against inventory, at the product's cost price) are recorded together, and each payment method goes to its own account:
| Method | Where the money is recorded |
|---|---|
| Cash | The cash account (1050) |
| Card, from the slip | The card account (1060) |
| Transfer at the counter | The bank account (1000) |
| Paystack or Flutterwave | A clearing account for that gateway |
Splitting methods this way is what makes reconciliation possible. The bank account should agree with your statement, each gateway's clearing account should empty as the gateway pays out, and the card account should clear as the acquiring bank settles.
One limit to know: the ledger screens currently label every amount as rand, even in a Nigerian workspace. The naira figures you took are what is recorded; only the label is wrong, so relabel exported reports before they go to a bank or investor.
A quick reference for new cashiers
- Cash: count the change, and never cash up with unsent sales.
- QR: wait for the till to confirm the payment.
- Transfer: copy the reference from the business's bank, never the customer's phone.
- Card: same amount on the terminal as on the till, and keep the slip.
- Refunds: call a supervisor.
Front-desk businesses that rely mostly on QR codes will find a similar routine in QR payments at the front desk. Print the five lines above, stick them beside the till, and walk each new cashier through one sale of each kind before their first shift.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
