Milk, bread and a queue

Half seven, and the school run has arrived at Corner Stop (a sample shop). Ten people want milk and bread at once. One parent wants crisps for a lunchbox, another needs eggs for tonight, and a regular from the flats above wants to put it on her tab because she gets paid on Friday. Fathima has one phone, one drawer and no time to look anything up.

This tour shows how a sale works on the phone till in small shop mode and how to set it up so the queue keeps moving.

What is on the till screen?

Everything a quick sale needs, on one screen, top to bottom: the till bar (open since 06:30, with the day menu), a Scan or search box, nine quick keys, the basket with the amount to pay, and two large buttons, Cash and On credit.

Fathima's quick keys:

Step by step

1. Serve the walk-in straight away. The first person in the queue is not a regular. Fathima does not choose a customer; a walk-in sale needs none, so she starts tapping.
2. Tap once per item. Milk 2 pint, tap, tap. Bread loaf for each loaf. Tea 80 bags, once. Each key shows a picture, the name and the price, so there is no hunting through a list while the next parent sighs.
3. Glance at the basket. In the sample, the basket shows Milk 2 pint ×2 at £2.90, Bread loaf ×6 at £8.10 (someone is stocking up for a packed-lunch week) and Tea 80 bags ×1 at £2.60.
4. Read the total out. To pay: £13.60. She reads it out, the customer hands over a twenty, and the change is easy because the total is on the screen, not in her head.
5. Find anything else by scanning or searching. A pack of plasters is not on a key. She scans it, or types "plas" into Scan or search. Quick keys handle the regulars; the search box handles everything else.
6. Finish a walk-in with Cash. Cash closes the sale and the money goes in the drawer. It will appear in tonight's cash sales without Fathima adding anything.
7. Put a regular's shopping on the tab. The neighbour from the flats picks up milk and bread and asks to pay Friday. Fathima taps On credit and picks her name. The amount goes into the credit book against that customer and is checked against the limit Fathima set.
8. Next customer. The basket clears and the till is ready. The till bar still shows the day is open.

Why the layout matters in a rush

At the counter, speed is not about how fast the phone is; it is about how few decisions the person serving has to make. The quick sale screen cuts decisions down:

• No customer for walk-ins. Most sales are anonymous, so the till does not ask.
• Keys for the top sellers. In most corner shops, a few everyday lines make up a big share of the transactions. They get the keys.
• Two finishing buttons. Cash or tab, side by side and the same size, so the wrong one is not tapped by accident.

The tab: why it belongs in the till, not a notebook

Plenty of corner shops still keep a tab book under the counter. It works until the page gets smudged, two people write in it with different handwriting, or someone disputes a figure on Friday. Putting the sale on the tab from the till means every item is recorded at the moment it leaves the shop, the balance is always up to date and the customer's limit is checked before the goods go out. If someone goes over, the till warns that the customer is over their credit limit, and Fathima decides there and then.

How fast is fast enough?

A useful test is to time a three-item sale from the first tap to the change in the customer's hand. If it takes longer than counting the coins, something on the screen is in the way: a key in the wrong place, a product missing from the keys, or a habit of searching for things that should be tapped. Fathima moved bread next to milk after noticing that most school-run baskets held both. Small changes like that save more time over a week than any other trick, and they cost nothing.

Tips

• Review quick keys every season. In summer, cold drinks may deserve a key; in winter, soup or hot chocolate.
• Keep prices on keys matching the shelf. A key showing £1.35 while the shelf says £1.40 causes arguments at the counter. See how to price products.
• Keep tab limits low and clear. £50 for a regular who pays weekly is easier to manage than an open-ended tab.
• Train helpers on two buttons. Cash for walk-ins, On credit only for names on the tab list.

Common mistakes

• Ringing a tab sale through as cash. The drawer ends the day over, and the customer's tab ends it short. Use On credit at the time.
• Too many keys. A screen that needs scrolling is slower than the search box.
• Using one key for two pack sizes. Large and small milk need separate keys or separate barcodes, or the price is wrong for one of them.
• Not clearing an abandoned basket. If someone walks out mid-sale, clear it, or the next customer pays for their crisps.

What to do next

Some things in the queue had barcodes. Scan to sell at the till shows how a plug-in scanner is tested and what happens with a biscuit the till has never seen. For tabs written down without a basket, the corner shop tab, without the notebook shows the amount-only entry.

Choosing a till in the first place? How to choose a POS system lists what a single-counter shop needs, and at night the end-of-day cash up guide shows how the morning's cash sales are counted.