Layaway

Layaway is a payment plan. The customer pays a deposit, you hold the goods aside, and they pay the rest over time. They take the goods home when the last instalment lands.

Where

Sale Transactions → New Layaway

Plan

Growth and above

Permission

Sales → Layaway

Setting

Pos → Allow Layaway must be on

How to start a layaway

Do this at the till.

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Instant Sale.
2. Add the items the customer is putting away.
3. Turn on the Layaway switch. You will see “Deposit now, pay the balance later.”
4. Choose the Customer. A named customer is required — a walk-in name will not do.
5. Enter the deposit in the payments area. Any amount above zero is accepted.
6. Click Start layaway.

You will see Layaway created. A plan is set up for you on a monthly schedule with the default cancellation fee.

No receipt prints, and that is correct

Nothing has been sold yet — the goods are reserved and the deposit is held. A receipt comes when the plan completes.

How to take an instalment

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Sale Layaways.
2. Find the plan. The list shows Paid, Balance, Next due and Expiry.
3. Open the row menu and click Record payment.
4. Enter the Amount and Method, plus a Reference or Receipt number if you use them.
5. Submit.

When the final instalment clears the balance, the plan completes itself. There is no Complete button — the goods are issued and the sale finalises automatically at that moment.

You cannot overpay

A payment larger than the remaining balance is refused. Take the exact balance on the last instalment.

The goods leave the books at final payment, not at collection

Completion happens when the money lands, so if the customer pays the last instalment and goes home without the goods, your books say sold and your shelf says gone. Hand the goods over the same day, or you will have a discrepancy that no screen explains.

How to extend the expiry

1. On the plan’s row menu, click Extend expiry.
2. Pick a New expiry date — it must be later than the current one — and add Notes.
3. Submit.

Only an active plan can be extended. This also pushes back the date the reserved stock would otherwise be released.

The “New Layaway” menu item does not work

Sale Transactions → New Layaway asks you to pick a sale to attach a plan to, but its list is always empty. Every layaway sale already gets its plan created automatically at the till, so there is never anything for it to offer.

Start layaways from the till switch, as above.

Field	Notes
Total amount	Required
Deposit	Required; cannot exceed the total
Payment schedule	Weekly, fortnightly, monthly (the default) or custom
Next payment due, expiry date
Cancellation fee	10% unless you change it

What is happening behind the counter

The goods are reserved, not sold. Your on-hand count does not drop. Nothing leaves the shelf until the plan is fully paid.

The deposit is not income. It, and every instalment after it, is held as a customer deposit. Your sales figures do not include it.

What each instalment does

Each payment is recorded against the plan, mirrored onto the original sale so the sale’s paid figure stays right, and added to the deposit held for that customer.

When the balance reaches zero the layaway completes on its own. At that moment:

• the stock actually leaves the shelf;
• the deposit becomes revenue, with the tax, and the cost of the goods is recorded;
• the customer earns their loyalty points — all at the end, not on each instalment.

An unextended layaway can lose its goods

The reservation has its own expiry. If it passes without being extended, the goods can be swept back into free stock — while the plan is still active and the customer still expects them held. Extend any plan running longer than expected.

How to cancel a layaway the customer abandoned

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Sale Layaways and find the plan.
2. Open the row menu and click Cancel.
3. Type a Reason if you want one on the record.
4. Check the Cancellation fee (%). It is pre-filled with the plan’s fee — 10% by default. Type 0 to waive it, or raise it.
5. Submit.

The customer is refunded what they paid minus that fee, and the fee becomes shop income. The refund is paid in cash, whatever way they originally paid.

Nothing happens to an abandoned layaway until somebody cancels it

There is no automatic forfeiture. An abandoned plan stays Active forever, the customer’s money stays on your books as a deposit you owe them, and you earn no fee.

The Defaulted status exists but nothing ever sets it, so you cannot filter for abandoned plans that way either. Make reviewing old layaways somebody’s regular job — sort by expiry date and work the list.

What cancelling does

Cancelling:

• frees the reserved goods (nothing to restock — they never left);
• reverses the deposit;
• refunds what the customer paid minus the cancellation fee, which is kept as income. A manager can waive or change the fee on the day;
• cancels the underlying sale, and any linked backorder with it.

Delete is only possible while the plan is active and nothing has been paid. A completed layaway cannot be cancelled, and a cancelled one cannot be reopened.

Things worth knowing

• Unlike pickup later and backorders, the layaway setting is enforced properly — with Pos → Allow Layaway off, layaways genuinely cannot be created.
• The accounting for layaway and pickup later is identical. The only difference is whether the customer pays it all at once.

Related

• Pickup later — paid in full, collected later
• Backorders
• Selling at the till