Claim your first till

Why the machine asks

The first time somebody opens the point of sale on a machine, it asks what that machine is. It is one screen and it takes under a minute, and the answers decide three things that matter later: which bill-number series this machine takes numbers from, which screen opens when somebody signs in on it, and what you see in device settings when a tablet needs removing.

Before this existed the product knew all of that and never asked. A machine minted itself an identifier, guessed its own job from whichever screen it happened to open first, and showed up in your settings as a thirty-six-character code — on the one screen whose entire job is telling you which machine is which.

What you are asked

A name. Something you would say out loud: "Front counter", "Kitchen screen", "Riya's tablet". This is the field that pays for itself. When a device has to be removed, or a register is stuck on a machine nobody can find, the name is how you find it.

What it does. Four answers, and they are genuinely different machines:

• Till — takes orders and bills. It reserves bill numbers in advance so it keeps billing when the connection drops.
• Kitchen display — shows tickets to the kitchen. It never bills.
• Captain handheld — takes orders at the table. Bills go through the till, not through it.
• Back office — reports, menu and settings. It opens the dashboard.

Which register, for a till. The bill series this machine uses. Leave it on whichever is active if you only have one.

Which station, for a kitchen display. The board opens filtered to it.

How this machine prints. Not set up, the browser's print window, or a printer bridge. This is a property of the machine at the counter, so it is asked here rather than in your account settings.

What the preflight underneath is telling you

Below the form is a short list of what this role actually depends on — a register, bill numbers, an open session, a floor plan, a station, ticket routing, whichever apply. Each reads Ready, Not ready, or Not checked, with a link to the screen that fixes it.

It does not stop you finishing. A kitchen setting up at eleven at night has to be able to save, and everything on that list is fixable tomorrow morning.

One thing does stop you, and only one: saving a till on an account with no active register at all. That machine could never be issued a bill number, so nothing is written and the screen says so plainly rather than letting you find out at the first sale.

Skipping is a real option

There is a way past this screen, and it works. A manager opening the point of sale on a laptop they will never claim needs to get to the floor, not into a loop, so skipping is remembered for a while and the till carries on.

Skip when the machine is borrowed or temporary. Set it up when the machine is going to live at a counter.

It needs a connection

A claim is a row on your account, not a fact about the machine, so it cannot be queued for later — a device insisting it was a till while the account had never heard of it would be worse than nothing. With the connection down, the screen says so, and skipping still works.

Afterwards

Change any of it later from device settings in the back office — the name, what the machine does, its defaults — or open the setup screen again on the machine itself. If a device is removed from the account, it asks these questions again the next time somebody opens the point of sale on it, and says why.