Taking payments, cash and card

A customer puts three things on the counter. What happens next? In this lesson you see how checking out works, and who does what.

Scanning and adding up

You scan the items one by one. For each barcode the register looks up the name and the price and lists them, just like on a receipt. The total is at the bottom.

Does something have no barcode, like a scarf from a bin? Then you add it by hand, with a name and a price.

Cash

If the customer pays cash, you enter how much the customer hands you. The register works out how much change to give. The money goes in your cash drawer.

Card

The card terminal is a separate device from your bank or payment company. The customer pays on it with a card or phone. The money goes from the customer's account to yours, through the card terminal.

So your register doesn't take the payment itself. The register only notes that it was paid by card, and how much. You enter the amount on the card terminal, the customer pays, and then you choose Card on the register.

After paying

When you choose the payment, a few things happen at once:

• the receipt comes out of the receipt printer,
• the items are sold and off your stock,
• the sale counts toward today's revenue.

That's why it pays to ring up every sale on the register, even when it's busy. What's not in the register is missing from your revenue and your stock later.