Offline Mode

This standard governs conduct at the point of sale when the connection is lost. It applies to cashiers, who ring and hold carts during an outage, and to managers, who direct any exception and reconcile the drawer afterward. The governing fact is plain: the register does not sell offline. Every sale completion: the sale itself, every card path, every gift card tender, and every coupon validation: requires a connection. Cash cannot complete either, because the sale record, the accounting entry, the inventory movement, and the duplicate-submission protection are all recorded by the system at completion. Staff shall not invent a workflow the system does not have.

The offline indicator

The register always shows its connectivity state: quiet when online, an unmistakable banner when offline. The banner states the whole rule: the cart is saved locally; sales cannot complete until the connection returns; there is no offline queue. Staff shall trust it literally. While the banner is shown

• Items may still be rung into the cart. The cart is saved locally and survives a refresh.
• No tender may be taken: card payments are impossible, cash cannot complete, gift card balances cannot be checked, and coupons cannot be validated.
• Customer lookup for records not already shown will not resolve.

The cashier shall tell the customer plainly and early: the system is down, everything can be rung up, but payment cannot be taken until the connection returns.

Procedure during an outage

1. Keep ringing. Build the cart normally: items, quantities, and discounts the cashier can state with confidence. The cart is saved locally.
2. Do not take money. Not cash, not card, and not payment held against a promise to ring it later. An unrecorded cash tender is the most dangerous event at a register: the customer believes they paid, the drawer holds money with no sale attached, and reconciliation becomes a matter of memory. If the customer must leave, hold the cart and take their name and number: but not their money.
3. Keep waiting carts separate by customer name. Do not start a second outage cart in confusion with the first.
4. Watch the indicator, not hope. When the banner clears, the connection is back. Tender the waiting carts oldest first, verify each total before tendering: the cart holds ring-time prices, which may have changed while waiting: and confirm each sale completes normally before starting the next.
5. Reconcile before close. Verify that outage carts tendered after reconnecting appear in the day's transaction log. Do not close a shift with carts still waiting; an untendered cart is not a sale, and the drawer shall hold no money for one.

What the register does not do

There is no queued-transaction store, so there is no first-in-first-out synchronization when the connection returns; there is nothing queued to synchronize. There is no stored card capture for later authorization, so there is no scenario in which a card declines after the customer has left. Any person who states that the register queues offline sales is describing a different system. Providing a true offline mode is a building decision for the Company, not a cashier decision; until it exists, the procedure above is the whole of offline operation. Staff shall not improvise a paper-based substitute system without a manager's explicit direction.

The interrupted card authorization

A customer whose card was mid-authorization when the connection dropped may have a pending charge recorded by the payment provider without a completed sale. When the connection returns, staff shall not re-tender blindly. Check the pending-charge state first: still waiting, or completed: as described in Troubleshooting (POS Troubleshooting). This is the one outage scenario in which money may have moved without a sale.

Controls

• No money shall be taken while the banner is shown, for any tender type.
• If cash was handed over as the connection dropped, the cashier shall hand it back, explain, and hold the cart. The sale shall not be completed.
• If the browser closes or crashes during an outage, reopen the register page; the locally saved cart should restore. If it does not, the ring-up is lost and shall be rung again, which is why staff shall keep each customer's physical goods grouped separately during an outage.
• If the connection flaps: up, down, up: each tender attempt needs a live connection at the moment of completion. A sale that appears to complete during a flap shall be verified in the transaction log before the customer leaves.

Records

Carts rung during an outage are saved locally on the register only; they create no sale, payment, or inventory record until tendered after reconnecting. Sales completed after reconnecting create the normal sale, payment, and receipt records described in Payment and Receipt, and appear in the day's transaction log under Reporting and Quick Access.

Escalation and review

Managers review outage carts, any money offered during an outage, and any interrupted card authorization before the shift closes. A connection or register fault that the store cannot resolve shall be reported to support@aapawz.com. Legal process concerning a sale record shall be directed to legal@aapawz.com.