Keeping your till running through load-shedding and outages
Load-shedding and network outages are part of trading in Zimbabwe. The shops that keep selling through them planned for it: power for the counter, a till that does not need the internet to ring up a sale, and a fall-back for the payments that do.
Power for the counter
- Run the till on a laptop or an Android tablet, which carry their own battery, or put a desktop PC on a UPS.
- Put the receipt printer and the router on the same UPS. A till that works with a printer that does not is still a queue.
- Size the UPS for your longest normal outage, or charge it from solar. Thermal receipt printers draw little power; heaters and kettles on the same circuit do not.
A till that does not need the internet
An online-only till stops the moment the line drops. An offline-first till saves each sale on the device first and sends it up when the connection is back, so the counter does not notice. Ask any supplier how long their till keeps selling offline, and what happens to the sales if the device is switched off before it reconnects.
Payments that need the network
Cash works offline. Card machines and mobile money need a signal. Keep a second data line on a different network for the card machine and the till, and have a way to take mobile money by reference when the usual route is down.
Fiscalisation when FDMS is unreachable
Your fiscal device should keep signing receipts while ZIMRA's FDMS cannot be reached and submit them in order when it can. The customer still gets a fiscal receipt; it is filed a little later.
Stock across branches
When each branch keeps selling offline, stock is only right again once every till has reconnected. Stock taken off the branch it was sold from, and transfers recorded at both ends, mean the numbers agree once the sync is done.
Syncro POS
Syncro POS keeps selling for up to 30 days without the internet, on Windows, Android or a laptop, and Syncro Fiscal queues ZIMRA receipts until FDMS is back.