🧾 The till

Last updated September 21, 2026

The club till: a tablet at the bar or hatch that stewards use to ring up bar, kitchen, shop and green-fee sales, take the money and give a receipt — without ever touching the WordPress admin.

Putting it on a tablet

Create a page, add the shortcode [pvl_pos_till] and publish it. If you run more than one till, name it: [pvl_pos_till till="Kitchen"].
Open that page on the tablet and log in once to a steward account. Stewards share the device — they do not each log in.
Add the page to the tablet’s home screen so it opens full-screen like an app.
The till page ignores your theme entirely — no header, footer, menus or sidebar. The buttons get the whole screen, and nothing the theme does can restyle them halfway through a round. Zoom is switched off too, so a stray double-tap while serving cannot throw the layout.

Serving

Items appear as coloured tiles grouped by category. Tapping one adds it to the basket; the quantity buttons on each line adjust it.
Member attaches a member to the sale — needed for putting it on account, and it applies member prices if you use them.
Other item rings up something that is not on the price list, for a one-off or a donation.
Layout switches how the buttons are arranged: the custom order you set on the price list, straight A to Z, or grouped under category headings. The choice is remembered on that tablet, so one device can differ from another.
Scanning — with a barcode scanner attached, scanning an item drops it straight into the basket. A green flash confirms it; a red one names a code that is not on the price list.
Member account settles what a member owes the club — a subscription, a match fee, anything on their statement. Search for them, see what is outstanding, and take all of it or part of it in cash or by card. It is not a bar sale, so it stays out of the basket and out of the day’s takings.
Search above the buttons finds an item by name or barcode across every category — quicker than scrolling a long price list.
Open price items — an “open drink” or “open food” button — ask for the amount when tapped and still book to their own category, so an odd sale lands in the right column of the takings report rather than under miscellaneous.
Reprint a receipt brings up the last thirty sales on this till. Tap one to see it and print it again. If the customer still has their slip, typing the receipt number goes straight to it.
Take payment moves to cash, card, account or a split of them. For cash, tap what the customer handed over and the change to give is shown in large type.
Split it takes one sale across more than one method — say £5 cash and £5 on the card, or £4 cash with the remaining £6 put on a member’s account. Enter each part, or tap “rest” to drop the outstanding amount into one of them; the till will not let the sale through until the parts add up. Where part of it is cash, the change is worked out on that part alone.
Beside each line, rest drops whatever is outstanding into it and clear puts that one line back to nothing, leaving the others as they are.
Where part of a split is cash, the cash handed over box refers only to that part — hand over a £20 note against a £5 cash part and it gives you £15 back. Hand over too little and it says so rather than staying quiet.
The on account line needs to know whose account, so until a member is attached it waits with a Choose a member button beside it. Picking one there brings you straight back to the payment screen with the amounts as you left them.

The till will not open until a session is

No money can be taken until someone has opened the till and entered the starting float. This is deliberate — without a known starting figure there is nothing to reconcile the drawer against at the end of the day, and cashing up becomes guesswork. A steward can open it from the tablet itself.

Who can open the till page

The address is not a secret, but it is not much use on its own. Opening it requires being signed in and holding the “use the till” permission — anyone else, including a member of the public who guesses the address, gets a locked screen and nothing more. The page is also kept out of the site’s search results, out of the sitemap, and out of any page list your theme prints, so it is not advertised either.

Keeping it secure

Because the tablet stays logged in, set a staff PIN under Settings. It is eight digits, stored hashed, never sent to the browser, and checked on the server for every request that takes money or reads sales — so it is a real control rather than a screen that can be clicked past. Repeated wrong entries lock the till out for a few minutes. Changing the PIN immediately locks every tablet that was unlocked with the old one. Combine it with Guided Access (iPad) or Screen Pinning (Android) for a properly locked-down device.

Common questions

What stops someone finding the till page and using it?: Three things. They have to be signed in; they have to hold the “use the till” permission, which is not given to ordinary members; and if a PIN is set they have to enter it, because it is checked on the server for every sale rather than being a screen that can be clicked past. The page is also kept out of search, sitemaps and theme page lists. If you want it tighter still, shorten how long a tablet stays unlocked.
Why will it not accept our PIN?: It must be exactly eight digits, and obvious ones are refused: runs like 12345678, repeats like 11111111 or 12121212, doubled digits like 11223344, anything that reads the same backwards, and any digit used more than three times. Each of those collapses an eight-digit PIN down to a few thousand guesses, which is no protection at all. Roughly one combination in twenty is refused, so picking another is rarely difficult.
Our PIN is only four digits — do we have to change it?: It carries on working, and nobody is locked out. But four digits is ten thousand combinations against eight digits’ hundred million, so the settings screen will nudge you until you change it. Do it at a quiet moment: changing the PIN locks every tablet immediately and they will each need the new one.
Is eight digits not a lot to type behind a busy bar?: It is typed once per tablet, not once per sale — the till then stays unlocked for as long as you have set, twelve hours by default. It also unlocks the moment the eighth digit goes in, without needing the button.
Someone who has left still has the "use the till" permission.: Remove it from their role, or change the till PIN — changing the PIN locks every tablet immediately, including any they might still have signed in somewhere.
Does each steward need their own login?: No. The device is logged in once to a shared steward account and the PIN controls access. The operator recorded against each sale is whichever account the device is logged in as.
Can I use it on a phone or laptop?: Yes — it is an ordinary web page and works on anything with a browser. The large buttons simply suit a tablet best.
Our theme's menu is showing over the till.: It should not — the till page is given a bare template with no theme chrome at all. If a theme insists on printing its own header regardless, tell us and we will look at it; a club that actually wants their theme around the till can switch the bare template off with the pvl_pos_till_fullscreen filter.
The prices on the tablet are out of date.: Tap “Refresh prices”. The till also reloads itself automatically if it notices the plugin has been updated, so a tablet left on overnight cannot carry on selling at last month’s prices.
Can someone pay half in cash and half by card?: Yes — tap “Split it” on the payment screen and enter how much is coming from each. “Rest” drops whatever is outstanding into that one, and the till will not complete the sale until the parts add up. It stays a single sale with a single receipt, and the cash part alone counts towards the drawer at cash-up.
Can part of a sale go on a member's account?: Yes, on its own or as part of a split — someone paying £4 in cash and putting £6 on their account is a single sale. The account line simply needs to know whose account it is, so if no member is attached yet it offers a “Choose a member” button and returns you to the payment screen once you have picked one.
The on-account line will not let me type in it.: No member is attached to the sale yet. Tap “Choose a member” next to it, or attach one from the basket beforehand. The line stays visible rather than disappearing, precisely so it is clear what is needed.
What if the internet drops out?: The till keeps serving. It holds the price list, the open session and the member list on the tablet, rings sales into a queue and sends them the moment the website answers again. An orange bar across the top says it is offline and how many sales are waiting. See ‘Carrying on when the website is down’ for what does and does not work while it lasts.
How does a steward get back from the till to their own screen?: When the till is opened from the steward dashboard, a “Steward screen” button appears at the top of it. It closes the till screen and returns to the dashboard — the till session itself stays open, the drawer is untouched and the takings carry on as they were. If anything is still in the basket it asks first, so a half-rung round cannot be lost by a stray tap.
The till opens in a new tab when I preview the steward tablet.: It should not any more — inside the preview it opens in the tablet frame, at tablet size, which is the point of previewing. It still opens a new tab in normal use so a steward keeps their dashboard where it was. If it still opens a tab in the preview, there is probably no till page yet, in which case the button falls back to the admin till screen and that is opened properly rather than squeezed into the frame.
Our till tablet has no way out of the till screen.: That is deliberate. A tablet that only ever runs the till is better off with no exit at all, so the button only appears when the till was opened from the steward dashboard. If you want it on a dedicated tablet too, reach the till from the steward screen rather than bookmarking it directly.
What sort of barcode scanner do we need?: Almost any USB or Bluetooth till scanner. They work as “keyboard wedges” — the scanner simply types the barcode and presses Enter, so there is no driver to install and nothing to pair with Pavilion. Plug it in, put the barcode against the item on the price list, and scan.
Scanning does nothing.: Check three things: that scanning is switched on in Settings, that the item has its barcode in the “Barcode / code” box on the price list, and that the till is on the serving screen with nothing else focused. Scanning is deliberately ignored while someone is typing in a search box, so a code cannot end up in the middle of a member search.
Can we scan with the tablet camera instead?: On some devices, yes — switch it on in Settings and a Camera button appears where the browser supports it. It is noticeably slower than a real scanner and the button hides itself where it will not work, so treat it as a convenience rather than a replacement.
Can the till be used from a phone?: It will open on one, but it is not a good way to work and we would not recommend it — the till wants a tablet. Reach it from the steward dashboard or the till page itself. The officers’ app offers cashing up but not serving, deliberately: counting a drawer suits a phone perfectly well, whereas ringing up a round on one does not.
How do I see what the club took across both tills?: Pick “All tills” from the till picker at the top of the Till screen. You get the club’s takings for today and the week, how many tills are open, and a line for each showing what it has taken and what should be in its drawer. Setting up stays per till — opening a session or counting a drawer is always about one particular till, so “All tills” is not offered on those screens.
We have two tills — how does it know which one?: It asks, unless the answer is obvious. With one till configured, or exactly one with a session open, it goes straight there. Otherwise you pick from a list showing which are open and what should be in each drawer. Your choice is kept in the address afterwards, so a tablet bookmarked at its own till never asks again — which is what you want for a fixed till behind the bar.
Where can the till be cashed up from?: Anywhere the person doing it is: the admin Till screen, the steward dashboard, the till itself, or the Money tab of the officers’ app. All four lead to the same count, and all four only appear for someone holding the cash-up permission. The officers’ app also flags a session left open from an earlier day, which is worth catching before the takings land on the wrong date.
Where do I change the list of refund reasons?: Till & Shop, Settings. Each reason is either a write-off or not: a write-off means the goods are gone — spilt, smashed, off — so the stock comes back onto the count and is then written off as wastage. A reason that is not a write-off, such as something handed back unopened, simply puts it back on the shelf. Keeping them a fixed list is what lets the reports answer “how much did we lose to breakages last season”, which is impossible if the reason was typed differently every time.
Can the demonstration site take real payments?: No, and it is not possible to make it. Payment settings cannot be saved there, provider keys are never read even if one were somehow stored, the provider always reports as manual, and any attempt to start a checkout is refused. The payment screens still render so you can see how they look, with a notice saying nothing will be charged.
A member wants to pay their subs at the bar.: Tap “Member account” on the till, find them, and it shows what they owe. Pay all of it — filled in ready — or type a smaller amount for a part payment. The money is spread across what they owe oldest first, part-paying whichever charge it runs out on, and anything over the balance is held as credit on their account rather than being lost.
Does an account payment count as bar takings?: No, and deliberately so. Settling a subscription is a debt being paid, not something sold, and rolling it into the day’s takings would make the bar look far busier than it was. Cash is recorded as a movement into the drawer so the count at the end still expects it; card never touches the drawer at all. It shows on the cash-up as “Payment on a member’s account”.
A customer has come back and wants their receipt.: Tap “Reprint a receipt” on the till. The recent sales are listed, or type the receipt number if they have their slip. Nobody needs to go into the admin screens for this.
Can I reprint a receipt from days ago?: At the till, the list shows the last thirty sales, but typing any receipt number will find it however old it is. Older receipts can also be reprinted from Till & Shop, Sales, where you can filter by date.