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🧭 First Day by Business Type

🏪 First day: retail store

A counter instead of tables: products with barcodes and stock, a scanner and scales, price tags and labels, receipts and the till by country, a storefront for orders — what to switch on the first day and what can wait

Documentation

First day: retail store

A store at the counter runs on the same platform as a cafe or a salon, but the "Retail" business type changes three things: the till works without tables and without a kitchen display, the "Menu" section becomes the "Catalog" 🛍️, and the item card gains barcodes, stock and a retail price for the price tag.

Format How a sale goes at the till What is on from the start
Grocery at the counter Scan → weigh → pay Catalog, till, inventory, labels, finance
Non-food (clothing, electronics, home goods) Scan, "size/colour" variants, an open tab "until they try it on" The same plus collections and product characteristics
Store with an online storefront The same plus the orders that arrive from the storefront The same plus "Commerce" (coupons, shipping, taxes), "Shipments" and "Returns"

By default a store's till mode is "Counter": the order is assembled (scan, weigh) and paid for right away — there are no tables and no open tabs, the receipt is closed on the spot and the till clears the ticket for the next customer by itself. If the store does need an open tab "until the fitting room", switch the "POS mode" segment on the location card to "Bar" (a counter with open tabs) or "Floor" — that is the location default, while the mode switch on the cashier's own device is hidden for a store by default (it is enabled in the till appearance settings).

The format is a set of defaults, not a cage: any section can be switched on or off in the app store. The "Shipments" and "Returns" sections exist only for a store and an online store — food venues do not have them at all. "Staff", "Devices", "Kitchen display", "Tables" and "Couriers", on the other hand, are off by default for a store: staff is switched on with a toggle once you have employees with their own logins.

What you need to get started#

  • Any computer or tablet for the till. The till is the /pos web page in an ordinary browser; it installs "as an app" (PWA) and keeps ringing up sales when the connection drops.
  • A barcode scanner. Any USB or Bluetooth scanner in "keyboard" (wedge) mode will do: it simply types the code into the active field, and both the till and the item card understand it.
  • A receipt printer — through the bridge. Receipts, price tags and labels are printed through Cenaly Hardware Bridge — a Windows or Linux service on the same computer as the till. The bridge finds USB/LAN/Bluetooth devices on its own. A cash drawer is connected to the receipt printer. Without the bridge the till still works — just without paper.
  • Scales — a must for groceries and unnecessary for everyone else: they connect through the same bridge, the till opens a weighing dialog and computes the amount from the actual weight.
  • A label printer — if you print labels from a roll rather than on A4 sheets.
  • A fiscal printer — where the country's law requires it, through the same bridge. What is supported today is in Fiscalisation: Georgia and Bulgaria (Daisy eXpert SX), Poland (POSNET Thermal), Russia (ATOL, Mercury, SHTRIH-M, Pirit) plus the cloud 54-FZ till on cenaly.ru; for the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the UAE — a tax invoice instead of a fiscal receipt.
  • A customer display — a second screen for the till, optional.

You need the internet, but losing the connection does not stop the till — see If the internet goes down.

The common frame of the first day#

The common steps (sign-up, location, business type, languages, subscription, help) are described in the hub First day: choose your business type — here we only cover what is specific to a store.

  1. Check the location's business type. "Retail" must be set in the location settings: the till mode, the section labels and the set of fields on the item card all depend on it.
  2. Load the catalog by import, not by hand. Two paths in "Catalog" → "Import": a plain CSV in a Shopify-compatible schema (one row = one variant, a repeat upload is idempotent — you can re-upload stock only) and an AI import from Excel, Word, PDF, price-list photos or a website link. The AI shows a plan for confirmation: what will be created, where the duplicates are, which categories to add. In detail — AI catalog import; moving from another system — Migrate to us.
  3. Test the barcodes with a scanner. Scan a few products at the till and in the inventory card: the code must find the product. An item can have several barcodes, and the import has a toggle "pull the name and brand by barcode" from the global barcode catalog.
  4. Open a cash shift and ring up a test receipt — Cash shift and Z-report. Until a shift is open, payment at the till is blocked.

⚠️ If you chose the light mode at sign-up, some sections are switched off on top of that — by design, so the sidebar does not overwhelm you in the first hour. Exactly what the light mode hid is listed on the "Currently off" screen in the app store, and it is switched back on there with a toggle.

Checklist: grocery store at the counter#

The goal of day one is to ring up receipts by barcode and by weight without doing arithmetic in your head.

  1. A catalog with barcodes — import as above; the inventory card holds the barcodes (several are allowed), the unit of measure and the purchase price.
  2. Weighed goods. Set a PLU and a weight unit (kg/g/l/ml) on the item card — at the till such an item opens the weighing dialog and computes the amount from the actual weight. Scales connect through the bridge.
  3. Shelf life and storage mode — fields on the item card; they are also printed on the label together with the date and the barcode.
  4. Price tags and labels — the "Print labels/price tags" operation in "Inventory": an A4 sheet or a thermal printer through the bridge, a template, a set of fields, a barcode or a QR code. Batch printing — by multi-selecting rows in the stock table.
  5. Repricing — the "Repricing" operation computes the retail price as "purchase × markup" with rounding; automatic repricing on goods receipt can be switched on.
  6. Goods receipt — a receipt note by hand, from a photo or PDF of the supplier invoice (the AI recognises the lines and prices and matches them against your catalog) or against a purchase order. The reorder point (minimum stock) and the preferred supplier are set on the item card — Inventory.
  7. The till — POS: scan into the receipt, weighed goods, payment. For a grocery the "Counter" mode is more convenient — pay right away, with no open tab. Risky operations (voiding a line, a discount, a refund, a reprint) are gated by a manager PIN — Loss control.
  8. The fiscal receipt — if it is mandatory in your country, connect a fiscal printer through the bridge (see the table above). Alcohol, tobacco and marked goods are only handled on the Russian contour: on cenaly.ru there is a marking section and EGAIS, on the other brands these modules do not exist and are not loaded.

Devices you need: a PC or tablet, a scanner, a receipt printer and scales through the bridge; a fiscal printer depending on the country. What can honestly wait: recipes and cost of production, stocktaking (the first one is done after a week of trading, not on opening day), the online storefront.

Checklist: non-food store#

The goal of day one is to keep one product in five sizes from becoming five unrelated rows.

  1. Variants instead of duplicated items. The "Colour", "Size" and "Material" axes: every combination is its own SKU with its own price, barcode and stock. In CSV these are the Option1..3 and Variant SKU/Barcode/Price columns, one row = one variant.
  2. Colour swatches — if the same product ships as separate cards (by material, say), the storefront shows them as small circles in the category list: a click swaps the photo, the name and the price of the card.
  3. Product characteristics — the /features dictionary: text, a number with a unit of measure, a single choice or multiple choice, an image per option. There is an AI wizard: it looks at your catalog and proposes a set of characteristics with translations. In detail — Product characteristics.
  4. Labels — 29 standard ones out of the box plus your own, with an icon (it can be generated by AI) and translations: Labels.
  5. Categories and collections — categories are the catalog structure, collections are storefront groups for marketing: Product collections. In a store, collections also work at the till as carriers of schedules and promotions: a collection rule applies to an item and changes its availability and price right in the till grid.
  6. Product photos. Several shots with captions, a "hover photo", AI-generated product shots on a white background and AI card completion with the ✨ button.
  7. The till and refunds — POS and the receipt register: a full or partial refund, an exchange, store credit as a gift card — Receipts, refunds and exchanges.

Devices you need: a PC or tablet, a scanner, a receipt printer; no scales. What can honestly wait: characteristics across the whole catalog at once (start with one category), your own domain, advertising feeds.

Checklist: store with an online storefront#

The location has a storefront right after sign-up — a page on the brand domain with the catalog, prices and order taking. Day one here is about making sure it does not lie.

  1. Switch on storefront publishing and check it on a phone: categories, photos, prices, faceted filters, search. The design is edited in the live visual editor in the "Websites" section (/websites); for locations of the "Retail" type the Store Studio design hub opens there as well.
  2. Fulfilment methods — "Commerce" (/commerce): pickup, a flat rate, free above a threshold, local delivery by radius, zones and carriers. Coupons, tax rules and gift cards live there too: Commerce.
  3. The item's tax class — chosen on the card from the preset of the location's country (64 jurisdictions); the tax table works on the storefront and at checkout, while the till computes taxes its own way.
  4. Payment — hosted payment by a provider for your country, or payment at the counter on collection: Payments.
  5. Shipments — the /shipments queue: the "To ship / In transit / Completed" baskets, bulk label creation (for CDEK, Trackings.GE and Exline), an A4 handover register, and a "returned" mark that puts the goods back into stock.
  6. Customer returns — Returns and exchanges (RMA): request → decision → money (to the original payment method, as store credit, or an exchange).
  7. Your own domain and SEO — once the storefront is filled: Custom domain, SEO and storefront promotion.

Devices you need: nothing beyond the till kit — the storefront lives on the customer's phone. What can honestly wait: product feeds and advertising, the customer account, abandoned carts — they make sense once the catalog is complete and the prices are verified.

What can wait#

None of this stops you from opening tomorrow.

  • Recipes and cost of goods — Inventory. A counter store needs them only if it produces something (baking, salads, repacking).
  • Financial dashboards — Finance. There is nothing to count until sales pile up. ⚠️ Finance, demand forecasting and low-stock alerts run on the AWS contour; on the Russian brand (cenaly.ru) those tabs are empty.
  • A loyalty programme — Loyalty: points are earned on a till sale only if the receipt carries the customer's phone number.
  • Newsletters and advertising feeds — Google Merchant Center, Meta, Yandex Products and others: Google Product Feed, Yandex Products.
  • A website beyond the storefront — Website builder; widgets for an existing site — My website.
  • Staff with roles — Staff and shifts: on day one the owner usually runs the till.

Limitations worth knowing up front#

  • There is no batch tracking with shelf life (FEFO). Shelf life is a field on the item card and a line on the label; "first to expire, first out" write-offs and per-batch warnings are planned but do not work.
  • "Running low" and "expiring" alerts, demand forecasting and automatic purchase orders run only on the AWS contour. On cenaly.ru they are absent.
  • The receipt register is AWS-only. On cenaly.ru a refund against a receipt at the till works, but there is no separate register of sales.
  • There is no mobile stocktaking with a phone scanner — the count sheet is filled in on a computer or on the till tablet.
  • Label printers speaking TSPL and ZPL are implemented from the specification but have not been verified on live hardware — if that is your printer, test printing before buying rolls.
  • There are no stock reservations: two customers can order the last item at the same time. The server will not let them pay for what is gone, but it cannot "hold" an item during checkout.

Troubleshooting#

The scanner does not add the item to the receipt. Check that the scanner works in keyboard (wedge) mode and that the cursor is in the till search field, and that this barcode really is recorded on the inventory card.

The till will not accept payment. No cash shift is open — open one with a float, see Cash shift.

A weighed item is rung up by the piece. The card has no PLU and no weight unit — set them in Inventory.

The printer does not print price tags. Without the bridge printing does not work at all: make sure the bridge on this computer is "connected" — Cenaly Hardware Bridge.

The import did not load all the products. The free plan has an item limit: a bulk import does not fail entirely — it loads as much as fits and explains the remainder in a banner.

The item card has no marking or alcohol fields. They appear only for a location with the country "Russia" on the cenaly.ru brand — on the other brands these modules are not loaded.

FAQ#

Do I have to buy a special till?#

No. The till is a browser page on any computer or tablet. A scanner, scales, a printer and a fiscal printer are added through the bridge and bought as you need them.

Can I run a store and a cafe in one account?#

Yes. The business type is a property of the location, not of the account: one location can be "Retail" and another "Cafe", each with its own sections.

The products are already in Excel — do I re-type them?#

No. A plain CSV is loaded in a Shopify-compatible schema, while Excel, PDF, price-list photos and a website link are parsed by the AI import, which shows a plan for confirmation — AI catalog import.

Does the customer see the exact stock level?#

The storefront shows an availability badge ("only a few left" / "N left"), not the stock table. The server will not let anyone pay for what is gone.

Is an online storefront mandatory?#

No. A store can trade at the counter only: the storefront always exists, but you do not have to publish it.

We have several stores — do we need several accounts?#

No. Locations live in one account, each with its own prices, stock and hardware — see Managing a chain.

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