Assigning staff and printers
Multiple Terminals is an add-on. See What's included, and what's an add-on.
Terminals as well as machines
Two related things, and it's worth separating them:
- A machine is a physical device that registered itself. See Registering terminals.
- A terminal is a configured POS position, with a type and a printer.
Under POS Terminals, each terminal has:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Terminal Name | The position — "Counter 1", "Bar". |
| Type | Food, Beverage or General. |
| Printer | Which printer this terminal's receipts print to. |
| Active | Whether it's in service. |
| Default | The one used when nothing else is specified. |
Terminal types
Food, Beverage or General — a classification for how the position is used.
Most single-counter restaurants use General for everything. The split earns its place where a bar and a food counter genuinely operate as separate businesses under one roof, and you want them distinguishable in reporting.
Printers per terminal
Each terminal points at a printer, and this is the setting that stops a receipt printing at the wrong end of the room.
Set it up from either direction:
- On the terminal, choose its printer.
- On the printer, under Settings › Printers, use Select Pos Terminal to say which terminal it serves.
A terminal with No Printer can still take orders — nothing prints from it. That's a legitimate setup for a waiter's handheld, where the food goes to the kitchen printer and the receipt prints at the counter.
Kitchen printers are assigned separately, by kitchen rather than by terminal. See Kitchen tickets.
Who works which till
Staff aren't locked to a terminal. Anyone with POS permission signs in on any approved device, and the order is recorded against both the person and the device.
That's usually the right model — it means a cashier can move to a free till at a busy moment without anyone reconfiguring anything.
What you get in reporting is two independent cuts:
- By staff member — who sold what.
- By terminal — which position sold what.
Both are useful, and they answer different questions. A slow till is a layout problem; a slow cashier is a training one.
Combining with the cash register
The natural pairing: one drawer per terminal, one session per shift per terminal.
Each till opens its own session with its own float, gets counted on its own, and is approved on its own. A difference is then attributable to one drawer and one cashier rather than to "the restaurant".
See Cash register and shift handover.
A sensible layout
For a restaurant with a bar and a counter:
| Terminal | Type | Printer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Counter 1 | General | Front receipt printer | Default |
| Counter 2 | General | Front receipt printer | Second till for rushes |
| Bar | Beverage | Bar receipt printer | Own drawer |
| Waiter tablet | General | None | Sends to kitchen, no receipts |
Kitchen tickets route by kitchen regardless of which terminal took the order — so the grill sees the food whether it was rung in at the bar or the counter.
Good to know
- Terminals are per branch.
- Setting a terminal inactive takes it out of service and keeps its history.
- The default terminal is what's used when nothing else is specified. Make it your busiest position.
- If receipts print in the wrong place, check the terminal's printer before suspecting the printer itself. See Receipts and printers.