Going live

Everything is set up. This section is how you find out whether it is set up correctly, before a customer is standing in front of you.

Do it on a quiet day, with the real hardware, in the real shop.

#Part 1 — The configuration checklist

Work down it. Each line names the section that covers it.

The company

• Company name matches the VAT certificate exactly — once approved, it is changed only by asking HarakahTec — §1, §3
• VAT number is the real one, fifteen digits beginning with 3 — §3
• CR number is in — §3
• Address is your registered address, under Settings → General settings — §3
• Logo uploaded, and it reads when printed small — §3
• Currency symbol chosen and previewed — §3
• Time zone is Asia/Riyadh — §3
• Current VAT rate is in force, with the right effective date — §3

The books

• The books are open, dated before your first sale — §6
• Chart of accounts reviewed; any of your own accounts do not collide — §6
• Opening balances recorded, if the business existed before — §6
• Payroll posting start month set, if you run payroll — §6

Structure and people

• Business units and branches created, with the right branch types — §4
• Every member of staff has a user, a role and a scope — §5
• Every cashier has a screen-lock PIN — §5
• The Cashier role does not hold Approve on Checkout sales — §5
• Whoever may give a discount past the cashier's limit holds Checkout & sales: Approve — §5, §16

The catalog

• Units set up, and each product's bought-in / sold-in is right — §7, §9
• Categories created, with the right Available at branch types — §8
• Products have prices, and the includes VAT switch is right — §9
• Products have costs — check the stock report's "no cost" warning — §19
• Opening stock is in, with its cost — §18
• Spot-check ten products against what you meant — §10

The till

• Payment methods exist, with the right types — §12
• Delivery platforms' payment methods carry the real commission and delivery charge from your contract — §12
• Price lists set up and restricted to their payment method — §11
• Registers created, one per physical till — §14
• The grid is laid out and tested on the actual screen — §15
• Zero-stock policy chosen — §16
• Cashier discount limits set — §16
• Receipt designed — the VAT number and QR code are always on it — §17
• Closing report switched on and its sections chosen — §17

#Part 2 — The hardware checklist

None of this can be checked from a desk. It has to be done on the real counter, with the real machines, by a person standing there.

Receipt printer

• An English receipt prints whole — nothing clipped at the right edge, the totals aligned, the spacing readable
• Paper width matches what you actually bought (58mm or 80mm)
• An Arabic receipt prints with letters joined and the text running right to left, with the table columns mirrored
• The riyal mark prints as the mark, not a hollow square
• A reprint of the same sale is identical to the first
• Two tills can print to the same printer without jamming each other

Careful: The Arabic receipt is the most likely thing on this list to look wrong. Print one and look at it properly before you rely on it.

Cash drawer

• A cash sale opens the drawer when its receipt first prints
• A card sale does not open it — and neither does a bank transfer or a delivery platform order
• A sale paid part cash, part card does open it — any cash at all is enough
• A reprint from Orders does not open it
• A cash-out and a cash-in are recorded without opening it — agree how the drawer is opened for them on your counter
• There is no no-sale button: the drawer opens only with a sale's receipt
• You know what happens when the printer is offline — on most counters the drawer is wired through the printer, so an offline printer is a drawer that will not open

Customer display

• The second screen shows the sale as it is rung up
• It shows the total, then the change due, and clears for the next sale
• It is in the customer's language
• The customer's name and points are switched off if a queue can read it

Barcode scanner

• A scan adds the product with the cursor anywhere on the sell screen
• A scan does not trigger the on-screen keyboard or leave a stray character
• An unknown barcode says so rather than failing quietly
• Scanning the same item twice makes a quantity of two on one line

A genuine network outage

• Pull the shop's internet at the router — not the till's Wi-Fi — and keep selling. Sales queue; the till says so.
• The till behaves as you expect with no connection: points cannot be spent, and a locked screen cannot be unlocked until the line is back
• Every till sells offline, not only one — try it on each of them
• Restore the line. The queue drains, every sale lands once, and the invoice numbering is unbroken
• Close the shift after a queued sale has synced, and the expected cash includes it

Card terminal

• A settlement slip scans from your real machine at the close
• The card total on the close matches the machine's batch total
• A slip that will not scan can still be entered by hand — unless the shop is set to accept the scanned slip only

The till itself

• Every control is reachable by thumb on the real screen
• The screen lock releases with the real PIN pad
• A full day's use: it does not slow down and nothing needs a reload

#Part 3 — Your first real sale

Do this one deliberately, and follow it all the way through.

1. Open a shift, counting the float.
2. Ring up one item, pay cash, print the receipt.
3. Look at the receipt. Is the company name right? The VAT number? Is there a QR code? Does the total add up?
4. Go to the back office → Sales and POS → Sales Invoices. Is it there?
5. Go to Accounting → Journal Entries. Is there an entry for it?
6. Go to Inventory → Stock Report. Did the quantity go down by one?
7. Close the shift, counting the drawer. Does it balance?

If all seven are right, your setup is sound.

Careful: Step 5 is the one people skip and the one that matters most. If there is no journal entry, the books are not open or the start date is wrong, and every sale from here until you notice will be missing from your accounts. Fix it before the second sale, not after the first month.

#After the first day

• Check the trial balance balances — §22
• Work the cash review queue to empty — every cash-out gets its document, every cash-in its source — §23
• Look at the stock report for anything with no cost — §19

#What to do next

Section 29 turns all of this into a routine you can actually keep.