All Insights

📐 Room Calculator

Inside any inventory product, scroll to Room Calculator, enter Length × Width in metres (or total m² directly), pick a waste %, and it tells you boxes needed and whether stock is enough.

• 10% — straight lay, simple rectangle
• 15% — diagonal / herringbone, rooms with pillars or islands
• 20% — complex layouts, large-format tiles, feature patterns

🎨 Batch & Shade Codes

Tile from different production runs can have slightly different shade or size. The batch code on each box identifies the run — always supply tiles for one job from the same batch.

• The dashboard tracks batches per SKU and warns when stock crosses batches.
• Quote PDFs include the batch code so installers know what to look for.
• Always check batch + shade on the boxes before opening — replacements need the same code.

📦 Inventory Tools

• Search by name or SKU; filter by category, branch, or stock status.
• Photos — click a product to upload multiple images. They show in quotes, on the public scan page, and in the POS.
• Coverage — set m² per box and units per box on each product so the Room Calculator works.
• Cross-branch stock — a product card shows on-hand at every branch, not just the selected one.
• Export CSV — top-right of the inventory page.

🔳 QR Codes & Price Check

• Price Check tab → tap any product → "Print QR Label" for showroom displays.
• Customers scan the QR with their phone — opens a public page with product info + photos. No login.
• The staff scanner (/scan/) is a phone-optimised version with stock info, internal pricing, and quick "add to quote" button.

📄 Estimates & Quotes

1. Estimates tab → + New Quote → pick customer → add line items (search or scan) → set qty & price.
2. Choose PDF template: Jericho (branded) · Classic (clean B&W) · Premium (with product photos).
3. Click Preview to see the PDF. Edit if needed, then Save.
4. Send by email (uses your SMTP) or WhatsApp (attaches the PDF as a document).
5. Lead Tracker tab — every estimate appears here. Mark Hot/Mild/Cold, assign salesperson, set bounty for owner.

📱 WhatsApp Slips & Sending

• From the POS after a sale: tap 📱 WhatsApp slip, search a customer or type a number, hit send. Free if customer messaged you within 24h, otherwise sends as a utility template (~R0.12).
• From a quote: open the quote → Send → WhatsApp → pick customer. Attaches the quote PDF.
• From the WA gateway UI (whatsapp-gw.tail95a3b4.ts.net): full messenger with conversation history, broadcast, contacts.

📊 Reports & Email Schedules

• Reports tab → pick a report type and date range → preview → email or download PDF.
• Daily Sales includes both Accrual (revenue earned) and Cash (money received) views, plus POS data.
• Settings → Email schedules — set up auto-send at any time, any days. One row per branch.
• Each schedule fires for one branch. To send multiple branches, tick the relevant ones in the same card — saves as two rows automatically.

👤 Users, Roles & Branches

• Superuser (you) — everything, plus user management and infra settings.
• Admin / Owner — full dashboard, all branches.
• Supervisor — own branch only, no user management, can void sales.
• Cashier / Staff — own branch only, modules you tick in user settings, voids need a manager PIN.

Settings → Users → Edit user → tick the modules they should see. The branch dropdown is locked to their assigned branch automatically.

📱 Phone as a Wireless Scanner

Any phone running the Scanner PWA (/scan/) can be paired to an open till and every QR/barcode it scans lands in the till's cart in real-time. Great for stocktake-style rings, customer-queue overflow, or a backup when a hardware scanner dies.

1. On the till tablet, tap the 📱 icon in the top bar.
2. A 6-digit code + QR appear. The code is good for 60 seconds.
3. On the phone, open /scan/ → Till tab → enter the code (or scan the QR from the camera tab) → optionally name the phone ("Mary's phone") → Pair to till.
4. Done. Switch the phone to the Scan QR tab and every scan goes straight to the till. The till's top bar shows a green ✓ chip with the phone's name.

What's built-in to keep it bulletproof:

• Idempotent scans — phone retries on flaky network won't double-add an item.
• 800ms dedup — phones double-trigger barcodes constantly; the second hit is silently ignored.
• Offline queue — phone offline mid-shift? Scans are stored locally and replayed when network returns.
• SSE reconnect — if the till's WiFi blips, scans are buffered server-side for 30s and replayed on reconnect.
• Session lasts 4 hours, then auto-expires. New pair on the same till revokes the old one.
• Brute-force protection — max 5 pair attempts per IP per minute.
• Audit log — every scan stored with device, label, sku, result. Admin can review.

The phone scanner page (/scan/) is still publicly accessible without a login — it just defaults to product-lookup mode until paired.

💳 Credit Limit Control (account sales)

When an account customer has a credit_limit set in QuickBooks (it syncs into the dashboard automatically), the POS keeps an eye on their outstanding balance and either warns or blocks an over-limit sale.

When a customer is selected at the till, a chip under their name shows the live status:

• 🟢 CREDIT OK — projected balance is under the warn threshold (default 80% of limit)
• 🟡 NEAR LIMIT — projected balance is ≥ warn threshold but still under the limit
• 🔴 OVER LIMIT — adding this cart would push them over their limit

Behaviour at checkout (POS Settings → Credit check mode):

• off — chip still shows, but no prompt; cashier can charge freely
• warn (default) — confirm dialog with the over-by amount; cashier can override on the spot
• block_with_pin — sale rejected unless a manager enters a 4-6 digit PIN; same PIN as voids/refunds

The chip stays hidden for walk-ins (no account) and for customers without a credit_limit set in QB.

📋 B2B Tax Invoice (SARS, sales ≥ R5000)

SARS requires that any sale of R5000 or more (incl VAT) be issued as a full Tax Invoice. The slip must show the buyer's name and address, and the buyer's VAT registration number if they're registered — otherwise the buyer can't reclaim the VAT.

The till handles this automatically:

1. When the cart total crosses R5000, a navy banner appears above the charge buttons: "Tax Invoice required".
2. Walk-in customer over R5000: tap Cash, Card or any payment method. Before the payment modal opens, a Buyer details dialog asks for:
   • Buyer name (required — "Walk-in Customer" not accepted)
   • VAT reg # (optional, but recommended — if the buyer is registered)
   • Address (street, suburb, city, postal)
3. Account customer over R5000: if the customer record already has VAT + address, the till uses those automatically (no extra prompt). Otherwise it asks like a walk-in.
4. Slip prints/sends with a navy "TAX INVOICE" banner instead of "RECEIPT", and a BILL TO block showing the buyer's details.
5. The QB transaction is unchanged — same SalesReceipt or Invoice as a normal sale, just the customer details are recorded.

The buyer details are frozen on the sale row — editing the customer record later doesn't change historic invoices. The Sales History detail view shows them under the line items.

↩️ Returns & Refunds

1. POS sidebar → Sales History → find the original sale (search by sale # or customer).
2. Click the sale to open it → Process return (yellow button, only shows for paid, non-refund sales).
3. Set the qty to refund on each line. The "Already refunded" column shows what's been returned before (partial returns are fine — yellow row = partial, red = fully refunded).
4. Pick the refund method:
   • Cash — give money back from the drawer. Best for small cash sales.
   • Card — refund to the customer's card on the terminal. Process the card refund separately on the speedpoint, then tick Card here so QB reflects it.
   • Account — customer is on account; the return becomes a Credit Memo against their A/R balance (shows on their next statement).
   • Credit note — issue a paper voucher to spend in-store next time. Does not push to QB (customer redeems it later).
5. Add a short reason (optional but helpful for the audit log) → Confirm refund.

What happens behind the scenes:

• A new sale row is created tagged -R1 (e.g. PAR-2026-05-0007-R1) with negative amounts.
• Stock is added back to the branch's inventory automatically.
• For cash/card refunds → a negative SalesReceipt goes to QB (reduces the deposit account).
• For account refunds → a CreditMemo goes to QB (reduces their outstanding balance).
• The original sale stays in QB unchanged — refunds are always separate reversing transactions for a clean audit trail.

Voids vs refunds — if you void a sale (instead of processing a return) and it's already in QuickBooks, the system now auto-creates the reversing entry too. No manual QB cleanup needed. The void status shows in the sale's detail view as "Void → QB: posted / queued / failed".

🖨 Thermal Printer Setup

1. Plug the thermal printer to a network port or USB.
2. POS → ⚙ Settings → Thermal Printer URL.
3. For network: enter 192.168.0.50:9100 (replace with printer IP).
4. For USB: select the device path from the dropdown.
5. Tap Test print — a sample slip should come out.

If nothing prints, check: power, paper, LED status (red = error), and that the printer IP is reachable from the till device.

🔄 QuickBooks Sync & Data

• QuickBooks Web Connector (QBWC) on your QB Desktop PC pulls data every 15 minutes.
• Settings → Sync tab shows the last sync time and per-branch status.
• Click Force Sync to trigger an immediate pull.
• If sync stops: check the QB Desktop PC is on, QBWC is open (system tray), and QuickBooks is logged in.