Pickup later

Pickup later is for “I’ll pay now and collect it tomorrow”. The goods are set aside, the money is taken in full, and the sale is finished off when the customer comes back.

Where

Sale Transactions → Pickup Release Queue

Plan

All plans

Permission

Sales → Sale

Setting

Pos → Allow Pickup Later must be on

How to ring up a sale for collection later

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Instant Sale and add the items.
2. Turn on the Pickup later switch. (This also switches Layaway off — a sale can only be one or the other.)
3. Set the Pickup date. This is required; leaving it blank blocks the sale.
4. Choose the Customer. A named customer is required — a walk-in name will not do.
5. Take the full amount. Unlike a layaway, a part payment will not do.
6. Click Complete.

The sale goes into the pickup queue as Awaiting pickup.

How to hand the goods over

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Pickup Release Queue.
2. Find the row — you can search by sale number or customer name.
3. Open the row menu and click Release.
4. Confirm “Mark this pickup-later sale as picked up?”

You will see Pickup released and the row leaves the queue. This is the moment the goods and the money actually move.

You need a connection to release

The sale itself can be rung up offline, but the release queue cannot load without one — so in practice you cannot find the sale to hand it over while disconnected.

What happens at the till

The sale completes and goes into the pickup queue as awaiting pickup.

Nothing has been sold yet

This is the part that surprises people.

The stock has not left your shelf. It is marked reserved. Your on-hand count does not drop.

The money is not income. It is held as a customer deposit — money you are holding for a customer against goods they have not received. It does not appear in your sales figures for the day.

Both of those happen when the customer collects, not when they pay.

Releasing it

Sale Transactions → Pickup Release Queue lists everything awaiting collection, with the pickup date, the total, what was paid and when the reservation expires.

When the customer arrives, use Release. That is the moment:

• the reservation is freed and the stock actually leaves your shelf;
• the deposit becomes revenue, with the tax, and the cost of the goods is recorded;
• the customer earns their loyalty points;
• if anything is still unpaid, an invoice is raised for it and sent to the customer, exactly as for a credit sale. Nothing is invoiced before release.

Cancelling

You can cancel while it is still awaiting pickup. The reservation is freed — nothing to restock, because nothing ever left — and the deposit is reversed, with a refund if you choose.

Once it has been collected, it cannot be cancelled. Treat it as a good return instead.

Things worth knowing

• Reservations can expire. Each hold has an expiry date, and goods can be swept back into free stock when it passes. Keep an eye on the expiry column in the queue.
• Turning the Pos → Allow Pickup Later setting off hides the queue from the menu, but it does not stop pickup-later sales being created through other means. Treat it as hiding the screen rather than disabling the feature.

Related

• Layaway — deposit now, instalments, collect at the end
• Backorders — when you do not have the stock at all
• Selling at the till
• Credit sales — the invoice raised for an unpaid balance