POS Troubleshooting

This standard governs how register failures are handled at the point of sale. It applies to cashiers, who work each failure in the order stated, and to managers, who take over payments whose status cannot be verified and faults the store cannot fix. The rule for every failure is the same: protect the sale record first, fix the problem second. A sale recorded correctly can survive any hardware failure; a sale never recorded properly cannot be reconstructed from memory.

The two-minute rule

If any failure is not resolved in two minutes with a line forming, stop troubleshooting and tender around the problem: another tender type, another register, or a held cart. The line is the priority; the broken item is fixed between customers. The workarounds in this standard: manual card entry, payment link, cash: exist so a failure is never the customer's problem for longer than it has to be.

Card reader not connecting

The register reports the reader not found, or the reader's light is dark. Work the chain from the device inward

1. Check power. Wireless units fail silently; check the charge light.
2. Check pairing. Bluetooth readers drop pairing; USB cables get kicked loose. Re-pair or reseat, then check the register's reader status.
3. If the register sees the reader but cards still fail, clean the chip slot. A dirty slot misreads good cards and produces declines that look like customer problems.
4. If nothing works, switch tenders, not registers: cash, gift card, store credit, payment link, and manager-approved manual card entry all complete the sale without the reader. Record the dead reader for repair and take the backup reader.

Receipt printer offline

The sale is complete; only the paper is missing. Check paper, check for a jam: open the cover and remove the torn fragment, because the small piece left behind causes the next jam: and check power and cable. While the printer is down, offer email or text receipts from the sale record under Receipt. Never re-ring a sale because the receipt did not print; reprint from the completed sale. Re-ringing creates a second sale, a second charge, and a reconciliation problem. Faded print that a fresh roll does not fix means the thermal head is failing; flag it for replacement.

Transaction stuck: the screen froze mid-sale

Determine what actually happened before touching anything. The register protects against double submission of the same attempt: one attempt carries one submission key, and completed results are remembered for 24 hours. That protection covers the same submission completing twice, such as a double click. It does not cover a new tender attempt after a freeze, which carries a new key. Therefore

1. Check the payment's status first. A payment with a succeeded status and an authorization code is a completed charge even if the screen is frozen; restart the register application and the completed sale will be present.
2. If the payment did not complete: no authorization code, status uncertain: do not assume it failed and re-tender. Check whether the customer's bank shows a pending charge; if so, treat it as paid and reconcile rather than charging twice.
3. When in doubt, call a manager before tendering a second time. A double charge is fixable by refund, but it is always the register operator's fault in the customer's eyes.

Card payment stuck in "waiting"

For keyed, link, and on-file card payments, the pending charge moves through waiting for payment, completing, and completed, with failed, expired, and cancelled as end states. If a payment shows as waiting, give it time: the provider's confirmation and the register's own confirmation can arrive in either order, and the single-completion control means exactly one of them finishes it. If it settles to failed, read the recorded error: decline reason or amount mismatch: and act on what it says. If it sits waiting past its expiry, it is expired; the money was never confirmed, and re-tendering is safe. Staff shall never tender a second card payment while the first is still waiting or completing.

Card charging unavailable

When the register states that card charging is unavailable, this is not a retry situation; there is no key to find. Switch tenders: cash, check, gift card, or a manual card record still work: and report it. Manual card entry, with manager approval, is the bridge: the card was charged on a separate terminal and the tender is recorded, as described in Payment.

Amount mismatch on a card payment

If the provider confirms a different amount than the pending charge, the payment is deliberately not recorded against the sale: the money moved with the provider, but the books refuse to attach a mismatched amount to the sale. Do not re-tender and do not void blindly. Call a manager: the provider payment must be located and either matched or refunded through the provider, and the sale completed against the correct amount.

Offline banner will not clear

The register never queues sales, so there is no synchronization to wait for; "waiting for the return of queued sales" is not a state that resolves itself. Confirm the connection is genuinely back by the indicator. If the banner stays up, the register still has no connection and no sale can complete until it does, under Offline Mode. Do not close the shift with customers waiting on held carts; an untendered cart is not a sale. If the indicator flaps, verify each tendered sale in the transaction log before the customer leaves.

Manager override rejected

A rejected override is almost never a system error; it is the system working as designed. The usual causes are that the account's role does not carry override authority for the action, the staff record is inactive, or the PIN was mistyped. It does not mean "try another manager's credentials until one works"; the audit log records every attempt. If the override is genuinely needed and no credential is accepted, the action waits. An override that cannot be obtained means the action needs more authority than is present, which is what overrides are for.

Looking up online orders

When a customer references a website order at the register, for a return or a pickup, use the sale and order search in the administrative screens. Do not type the order identifier into other search boxes. Online orders store their identifiers and money amounts in a different format from register sales, so hand-typed lookups can fail in confusing ways. If a lookup fails, re-check what was typed, then use the administrative search rather than guessing at the format.

Controls

• No second tender shall be attempted until the first payment's status has been verified.
• No sale shall be re-rung to solve a printer, reader, or screen failure.
• Rejected override attempts shall not be followed by attempts with other managers' credentials.

Records

Each failure that touches money leaves its record in the ordinary course: payment status, processor transaction identifier, and authorization code on the payment record; pending-charge state and recorded errors on the pending charge; void, refund, and override entries in the transaction log. Troubleshooting shall not delete or alter these records; corrections are made by new entries.

Escalation and review

Managers review unverified payments, amount mismatches, and repeated device failures. A fault that the store cannot resolve shall be reported to support@aapawz.com, identifying the register, the device or function affected, and the sale involved. Legal process concerning a sale or payment record shall be directed to legal@aapawz.com.