Taking payments in store with TakePOS and Dolibarr

Why a separate till costs you time every evening

A shop that takes payments with one tool and manages with another ends up with two versions of reality. In the evening, someone reads the till total, compares it with sales, then corrects stock quantities by hand. One typing error, one item sold without being deducted, and the gap carries on until the inventory. TakePOS is the point-of-sale module supplied with Dolibarr. It synchronises nothing, because there is nothing to synchronise: the sale goes straight into the same database as your customers, products, invoices and bank. Each receipt creates a real business document. Stock moves at the moment of payment, not afterwards. The manager who opens Dolibarr at the end of the day sees the same figures as the sales assistant at the counter, with no recount.

Activating TakePOS and preparing the catalogue

TakePOS is activated like any other module, from the Dolibarr module list. Before the first sale, the work is mostly about data. Each product sold in store needs a clear reference, a selling price and a category, because the till screen relies on categories to display its buttons. A clothing shop, for example, will create one category per department, then file the items in it. Also fill in the barcodes: a scanner saves real time at the till, and our article on barcodes and labels covers this preparation in detail. Finally, decide which warehouse the till deducts from. This decision determines how reliable your stock is, so make it before opening, not after the first gaps appear.

• Activate the point-of-sale module from the module list.
• Sort products into categories to build the buttons of the till screen.
• Enter the selling price and barcode for each item.
• Choose the warehouse that sales will deduct from.
• Create a generic customer for counter sales without identification.

Taking payments: receipts, payment methods and customers

At the till, the sales assistant selects products by clicking or with the scanner, then chooses the payment method: cash, card, cheque or another method you have defined. The receipt is printed or displayed, and the sale is recorded as an invoice in Dolibarr. For a passing customer, you use the generic customer. For a loyal customer, you select their record: their purchase history grows and you can then find them in your sales follow-up. The till payment methods match those in Dolibarr, so payments arrive already linked to the right accounts. There is no file to export from the till and re-import elsewhere. The invoice exists, the payment exists, and the stock is already up to date.

Stock: one source of truth between shop and back room

The main benefit shows in stock. When the shop sells the last unit of an item, the available quantity drops to zero for everyone: the salesperson preparing a quote, the buyer preparing a supplier order, the online shop if you have one. If you work with a back room and a point of sale, nothing stops you from thinking by warehouse, as we explain in the article on multi-warehouse stock. The till draws from the shop warehouse, and transfers from the back room are made through traced stock movements. The concrete result: restocking is decided on real quantities, checked during the day, and not on an inventory rebuilt on Monday morning after a busy weekend.

Closing the till without recounting

The end of the day changes in nature. Instead of rebuilding the sales, you check them. The till closing compares what Dolibarr expects, notably in cash, with what is actually in the drawer. A gap shows up immediately, with the day still fresh in mind, which helps you understand it: a change-giving error, a cancelled receipt, a miscounted opening float. Card payments then appear on the bank side, and reconciliation is done with the same tool as the rest of your cash management. Our article on bank reconciliation shows how to avoid spending hours on it. Your accountant receives consistent documents from a single source, rather than a till summary to match against invoices.

Testing in real conditions before opening

A till is tested at the counter, not only on a screen. Plan half a day with the final equipment: touchscreen or tablet, scanner, receipt printer, cash drawer. Simulate the awkward cases: an item return, a payment split between card and cash, a product without a barcode, a lost connection. Note what slows the sales assistant down and adjust the categories and buttons accordingly. Check permissions too: a sales assistant does not need access to accounting, and an intern must not be able to change a price. If your retail activity has specific needs, see our page on solutions for retail. To see TakePOS running on an instance configured for a case close to yours, ask for a demo: we prepare it with your typical catalogue.