A Till That Keeps Working When the Internet Does Not
Fast checkout, offline resilience, stock shared with the warehouse, electronic invoicing and one view of revenue across every shop, counter and outlet.
The requirements for a point of sale system are unusually blunt. It has to be fast, because a queue forms behind every second of delay. It has to keep working when the connection drops, because in Vietnam it will. And the money it takes has to reach the accounts without anyone transcribing a Z report at the end of the day.
Most shops meet the first requirement and fail the third. The till works beautifully and then exists in its own world, so the stock figure in the shop and the stock figure in the warehouse are two different numbers, and the daily revenue is typed into accounting the next morning by somebody who is also doing three other things.
iGlobal deploys point of sale as a front end to the same database as inventory and accounting. A sale decrements the stock the warehouse is looking at, posts to the accounts at the moment of payment, and issues the electronic invoice immediately. The shop is fast and the back office is already done.
What a disconnected till really costs
The first cost is stock. When the shop and the warehouse keep separate counts, replenishment is guesswork. Items sell out in one outlet while sitting in another, and nobody can see it because seeing it would require comparing two systems that were never designed to be compared.
The second is the daily close. A shift that ends with counting cash against a printed report, then typing the total into accounting, introduces two chances to be wrong and a delay of at least a day. Multiply by the number of outlets and the finance team spends its mornings on transcription.
The third is that nobody knows which products actually make money. Without margin visible at the line level per outlet, promotions are run on instinct and the best-selling item is assumed to be the most profitable, which it very often is not.
- Shop stock and warehouse stock maintained as separate numbers
- Daily revenue retyped into accounting the following morning
- No margin visibility per product or per outlet
- Checkout stopping completely when the connection drops
What the POS system covers
Checkout built for speed
Barcode scanning, keyboard shortcuts, favourite product grids and split payment, designed so a trained cashier never waits for the screen.
Offline mode that actually sells
The till continues taking orders and payments with no connection and synchronises when the link returns. Nothing is lost and no customer is told to wait for the internet.
Electronic invoice at the counter
Invoices issued through your registered provider at the moment of payment, printed or sent by email, with the reference stored against the sale.
Shared stock with the warehouse
One inventory across shops and warehouses, with transfer requests raised from the shop and replenishment rules per outlet.
Customers, loyalty and promotions
Member identification at the till, points and vouchers, and promotion rules that apply automatically rather than being remembered by the cashier.
Revenue and margin across outlets
Sales by hour, by cashier, by product and by shop, with margin at line level, available while the day is still running rather than next month.
How we deliver it
-
1
Outlet and hardware survey 1 week
We look at the counters, the existing printers, scanners and cash drawers, and the network at each site. Reusing working hardware is usually possible and always cheaper.
-
2
Configuration and product data 2 to 3 weeks
Product catalogue, barcodes, pricing and promotion rules, tax settings and the e-invoice connection, tested with real transactions before a customer ever sees it.
-
3
Pilot in one outlet 2 weeks
One shop runs live, including a deliberate test of offline mode by disconnecting the network during trading hours, because that is the failure everybody worries about and nobody rehearses.
-
4
Rollout to all outlets 1 to 4 weeks
Remaining shops brought live in waves with cashier training at each counter, and the daily close process handed to the shop managers.
Who this is for
- Retail chains with several outlets needing one stock view
- Restaurants, coffee shops and food service with counter and table orders
- Distributors running a trade counter alongside the warehouse
- Shops currently retyping daily revenue into accounting
Why iGlobal
Offline is tested, not promised
During the pilot we disconnect the network while the shop is trading. A capability nobody has exercised is a claim rather than a feature.
The till is not a separate system
Stock, accounting and the customer record are the same database the rest of the company uses, so there is no nightly reconciliation and no two versions of the sales figure.
Usually your existing hardware works
Receipt printers, drawers and scanners that already function are kept. We would rather spend the budget on the network at a weak site than on replacing equipment that works.
The best balance of cost, quality, and service
No licence charge per till, so opening another counter at peak season is a hardware decision, and no revenue share on what you sell.
Three ways to do this, compared
| What you are comparing | By hand, on spreadsheets | Off-the-shelf software | With iGlobal |
|---|---|---|---|
| The internet drops during a busy hour | A paper pad, and a recount that never quite balances | The till stops working, but the queue does not stop growing | Selling continues offline and syncs when the line returns |
| Checking stock at the counter | Walk to the shelf and look | A figure refreshed overnight, wrong again by lunchtime | The same stock figure the warehouse is looking at |
| Counting the cash at end of shift | Counted twice, and there is still a difference | A total, with no way to see where the gap came from | Expected against counted, per shift and per cashier |
| Cost across three years | Hidden inside salaries, so it never appears in a budget | A predictable licence per user, plus the work it cannot do | Quoted per phase and reviewed with you before each one starts |
| Who holds your data | Scattered across files, inboxes and personal phones | On the vendor platform, exported on the vendor's terms | Your own database, exportable in full whenever you ask |
| When something breaks | The person who built the file, if they still work here | A ticket queue, often in another language and time zone | A named engineer in Hanoi you can reach the same working day |
The two middle columns describe approaches that genuinely work for some companies. Where they win, they win, and we have tried to say so.
What changes after go live
The change the finance team feels immediately is that the daily close disappears as a task. Revenue is already in the accounts when the shop locks its door, so the morning that used to go on transcription goes on something else.
The change the buyer feels is that replenishment becomes informed. With one stock figure across outlets and warehouse, slow-moving items in one shop can be moved to where they sell instead of being discounted at the end of the season, and the reorder suggestion reflects actual sell-through.
The change that takes longest and matters most is margin awareness. When gross margin is visible by product and by outlet, the promotion calendar stops being built around what is popular and starts being built around what is popular and profitable. Those two lists overlap less than most retailers expect.
- Daily revenue in the accounts the moment the shop closes
- One stock figure shared by every outlet and the warehouse
- Checkout that keeps running through a connection failure
- Margin visible by product and by outlet, not just revenue
Frequently asked questions
What happens to sales made while the internet is down?
They are stored on the till and synchronised automatically when the connection returns, including stock movements and accounting entries. Electronic invoices queue and are issued on reconnection, which is the normal and accepted handling. We test this during the pilot rather than discovering it on a busy Saturday.
Can it run restaurant table service as well as retail?
Yes. Table layout, order sent to the kitchen printer or screen, splitting a bill between guests and merging tables are all supported. A coffee shop with a counter and a dining can run both modes on the same database with different configurations per till.
How do we stop cashiers giving unauthorised discounts?
Discount limits are set by role, with anything above the limit requiring a supervisor code that is recorded against the transaction. The report of overrides by cashier is usually more effective than the limit itself, because the behaviour changes once people know the number is visible.
Can we see all outlets in one report?
Yes, and in real time rather than consolidated overnight. Revenue by outlet, by hour and by product, with comparison against the same day last week, is a standard screen. For chains this usually becomes the most-opened page in the system within a month.
What hardware do we need at a new outlet?
A tablet or a basic computer, a receipt printer, a barcode scanner and a cash drawer is enough for most shops. We will specify it against the expected transaction volume, and because there is no per-till licence the hardware is the whole cost of adding a counter.
Related solutions
Talk to a senior consultant, not a call centre
Tell us what you are trying to fix and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right team for it.