While everything works, the Orders header shows nothing extra. A badge appears only when the connection has a problem:
In every case the till reconnects by itself — there is nothing to check by hand. On a phone only the icon shows; tap it to read the hint.
When the venue loses its internet, the till can keep working: take orders, edit them, mark dishes served and settle tables. All of it is kept on the till's computer and goes to the server by itself once the connection is back — each action exactly once.
A new venue has the mode on from the start. To switch it on or off, go to Settings → Till & printing, part «Without the internet», switch «Tills work without the internet». The same place shows every till of the hall: whether it is ready to work without the internet and what to do on it if not.
The till then checks for itself that it can keep orders safely. Working without internet is on only where all of this holds:
If any of these is missing, the till works as before: without a connection it shows "No connection", and new orders wait for the internet to return.
You can check a till on the till itself: the printer icon in the bottom-right corner opens the «Till» panel — connection, work without the internet, Qreaty Print, receipts, the kitchen and the drawer, each row with the button that fixes it. A dot on the icon means something is worth fixing.
{warning} Agree on a rule for the outage: one table — one till. Tills can't see each other without internet, and two cashiers may take money for the same table. Qreaty notices it once the connection is back (if something changed), but it's simpler not to let it happen.
What works without internet is not a person but a device: the till or a tablet that stays in the hall. That is what gets marked as a "hall device".
How Qreaty knows the venue has lost its connection: when the venue has a print agent, by the agent — it runs on a computer in the hall and loses the link together with the venue's internet. Without an agent, by the hall devices. Nothing heard for 3 minutes during opening hours — the venue counts as "offline". A phone on mobile data cannot hide the outage when there is an agent. Then waiters on mobile data see "Till offline" and guests are asked to order from a waiter. Personal phones without the mark don't count: they may be anywhere.
Works — on a hall device, with the mode on:
Only with a connection:
Prices of orders sent late are calculated by the server. If a dish's price changed while the till was offline, the bill shows the new price and the difference goes to the manager's reconciliation — the order is not refused.
Whatever the till did offline shows on screen right away — the table is busy, the order is on the board, the line is voided. The card of such an order says "not sent", the header says "No connection · 3 waiting", a waiter sees "3 waiting to send".
When the connection returns, the till sends what it holds by itself, one action at a time and in the order they were made. The server recognises repeats, so neither an order nor a settlement can double, even if the till sends something twice. After that other tills, the kitchen and waiters see the changes.
On an iPhone the app sends what it holds only while it is open: iOS doesn't let minimised apps run. If you minimise it with unsent actions, a reminder comes (when notifications are allowed) — open the app once there is a connection.
At the bottom of Orders a "Needs attention" panel appears when the till can't sort something out by itself. Each card has one main action.
| Card | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Dishes were taken off sale while there was no connection — the order was not accepted | While the till was offline a dish was hidden or put on the stop list. | "Send without removed" — the order goes without those dishes; the kitchen gets a cancellation ticket if the ticket was already out. "Accept as is" — the ticket is already in the kitchen and the dish is being made anyway; the button is there for staff with "Settle bills". "Cancel round" — the order isn't needed. |
| Not accepted by the server | The server refused on the merits; the reason is on the card. | "Try again" if the reason is gone, or "Remove". |
| Not sent: an action it depends on was refused | For example, an addition to an order the server refused. | Sort out the card of the main action first, then "Try again" — or "Remove". |
| The server keeps failing to accept this | An error on the server. | Nothing: the till retries by itself, "Try again" tries right away. If it lasts, write to support. |
| N actions of another staff member waiting for their sign-in | Unsent actions of another person are left on this device. | They go once that person signs in again. Or "Take over the queue". |
| The ticket wasn't printed in time | The ticket didn't come out within 3 minutes of the order: the action reached the server late, or the printer or agent wasn't working. It won't print by itself any more. | "Print now", or "Kitchen already knows" if the order was passed on by word of mouth. |
| The receipt wasn't printed in time | A receipt or pre-bill didn't come out within 3 minutes. It won't print by itself any more. | "Print now" if the guest is still waiting, or "Not needed". |
| … is still open on the table | The table was settled offline, but it holds orders the till never saw: from another device or from guests. | Check the table — settle the rest as usual. |
| Offline for a long time | The till has been offline for more than 4 hours, a new business day began, or unsent actions are nearly 30 days old. | "Got it", and see Offline for a long time. |
If a cancellation ticket couldn't be printed, the card says so — tell the kitchen what to drop by word of mouth.
While the till is offline, the world doesn't stand still. Here is what happens and how Qreaty sorts it out when the connection returns:
Reconciliation doesn't get in the way: the cashier sees only what needs action now, the rest the server records for the manager. The app has no separate reconciliation screen yet — if a case needs looking into, write to support.
Without internet the till gives the order its number itself, no waiting for the server. It looks like "1-42": "1" is the till's number in the venue, "42" this till's running number of the order for the day; the count starts over at midnight on the venue's clock. The same number is printed on the ticket and the receipt and shown on the Orders board, the kitchen screen, the archive and reprints. Such an order does not get the venue's usual number of the day ("/docs/en/offline#12", order numbers) — it has one number, the till's.
The till's number is given the first time the till goes online and never changes. If that number was already used that day, ".2" is added. An order that has no number yet shows a dash.
While the till holds unsent actions you can't sign out: after that nobody would send them. The till shows "There are unsent actions" with the list. Press "Stay" and wait for the connection — the "waiting" number reaches zero and signing out works again.
"Discard unsent and sign out" is a last resort, e.g. the till goes in for repair. Only a manager can discard: a cashier or a waiter doesn't have the button and either waits for the connection or calls a manager. The list of what was discarded goes to reconciliation (offline it is kept on the device and sent when the connection appears). Discarded orders and settlements never reach the server.
The session expired and the queue isn't empty. The till doesn't sign out or wipe its data: a "Session expired" bar appears at the top, sending pauses, work goes on. On a personal account sign in with the same account right in the bar; on a shared till press "Reconnect by QR" — a manager scans the code with their phone. After signing in, the unsent actions go by themselves.
{warning} Don't sign out and don't clear site data while the till is offline: unsent orders and settlements live only on this computer (site data).
Unsent actions belong to whoever made them. If a staff member left without waiting for the connection and someone else now works on the device, the till shows the card "N actions of another staff member waiting for their sign-in".
Only a manager can take the queue over: they press "Take over the queue", and the actions go out under the manager's name, marked with whose they were. Only what the first staff member was allowed to do can be taken over. The button needs a connection. "Discard" on someone else's queue is for a manager only too — then the list goes to reconciliation, as on sign-out. A cashier or a waiter doesn't see these buttons: the queue waits until its owner signs in again.
The till works offline for as long as needed, but reminds you:
If there is no connection for long, connect the till to any internet — even a phone sharing its Wi-Fi. What it holds goes out within a minute.
If the venue has orders without internet on and Qreaty sees that the venue is offline, the guest QR menu still opens, but ordering through it is paused: the guest sees "Ordering from the table is paused — please order from a waiter or at the counter". The "Call the waiter" and bill buttons also ask the guest to come to the counter — an offline till wouldn't hear them.
If a guest cancels their not-yet-accepted order meanwhile, the order isn't cancelled by itself: the till may already have accepted it offline and sent it to the kitchen. The guest sees "The order may already be in the kitchen — we've asked staff to cancel it", and staff get a "The guest asks to cancel order #…" call.
As soon as a hall device or a print agent is heard from again, guest ordering works as usual.
The surest way through an outage is not to notice it. An inexpensive 4G router (or an old phone as a hotspot) as a backup line for the till and the printer computer keeps the till, the kitchen printer and guest orders online even when the main provider is down. Many routers switch to the backup line by themselves.
The till keeps the venue's latest data on the computer: the menu, tables, open orders and bills, your permissions. Reload the browser or restart the computer while the internet is down, and the till opens on Orders with that data, the badge saying «No connection». Unsent actions are kept and go out once the connection is back. As soon as the server answers, the data refreshes by itself.
If the till has never been opened on this computer (or the site data was cleared), there is nothing stored — you'll see the «No connection to the server» screen, and the till opens by itself once the connection is back.
{info} The stored data belongs to whoever is signed in. Signing out wipes it, so the next person at the computer won't see it. That is why the till won't let you sign out with unsent actions.
Sometimes an order reaches the server but the answer gets lost on the way back. The till repeats the request by itself, and the server recognises the repeat: a round won't double, a line won't be voided twice, a closed bill won't close a second time.
Without orders without internet, a till that gets no answer says it couldn't send. Press the button again once the connection is back: if the first attempt did get through, the till shows the result instead of creating a copy. This works even after a page reload. With the mode on there is no need to press again — the till keeps the action in its queue and sends it by itself.
A till account works on one computer. Open it on a second one while the first is online, and the second shows «The till is open on another computer» and offers «Move to this computer». After the move the first computer shows «The till was moved to another computer» — it can be moved back the same way.
When a manager re-pairs the till by QR, the paired computer becomes its computer, and Qreaty warns beforehand if the till is currently open somewhere else.
The stored data lives in the browser. Clear the history together with site data, and the till forgets it — offline it will only open on the «No connection» screen. Without internet that also means lost work: orders and settlements the till hasn't sent yet live only there and vanish with the data. The browser won't wipe it on its own: the till asks it to keep the data permanently.