The complete guide.

What NewPOS is, and how to use this guide

NewPOS runs the counter and the back office at the same time. The till takes the money; everything behind it — stock, staff, customers, debts, expenses and profit — updates as a consequence, rather than being typed in again later.

You do not have to set all of it up. A kiosk selling airtime can be running in ten minutes with nothing but products and a price. A pharmacy with three branches, batch numbers and a controlled drug register will use most of this document. Everything below is optional except sections 2 to 4.

How to read it

• A path like this is where to click, as it appears in the left-hand menu once you are signed in.
• A permission.name is the permission a member of staff needs before that screen appears for them at all. If somebody says a page is missing, this is almost always why.
• Anything marked only for some businesses appears only if your business type uses it. You chose that type when you registered, and can change it at Settings → Business type.

Opening your account and paying

NewPOS costs KES 200 per business per month. One price — unlimited branches, staff, products and devices. No contract: pay for a month, stop whenever you like.

Registering

1. Go to newpos.site and press Open your shop.
2. Enter your business name, what you sell, your name, your phone number and a password. The phone number matters: it becomes the owner login and the only number that can reset the password.
3. A code is texted to that number. Enter it to prove the line is yours.
4. Your business is built immediately — head office, staff roles, default settings — and you land on the Billing page.

Paying

There is no free trial. The account exists but nothing opens until the first payment, so the till cannot be set up and quietly used without paying for it.

1. On Billing, check the phone number and choose how many months.
2. Press Send the M-Pesa request. A prompt appears on that phone — enter your M-Pesa PIN.
3. The page waits for up to three minutes and unlocks itself the moment the money lands. Do not pay twice if it is still counting down.

If no prompt arrives, pay manually: paybill 4024151, with the account number shown on the Billing page (it looks like POS00123). It is matched to your business automatically.

Afterwards

Your month runs for 30 days. You are texted before it ends. If it lapses you get a short read-only grace window — your data is never touched, and everything comes straight back when you pay. Paying early adds the month on top of what is left rather than wasting it.

Setting up your business

Straight after your first payment you are offered a short setup page. It asks what kind of business you run and offers to create a starting set of categories for it. Say yes — you can rename or delete any of them in a minute, and it is faster than starting from nothing.

Business settings

Settings · settings.manage

Branches

Branches · branches.manage

Every business starts with one branch called Main Branch, code MAIN. That is your head office. If you only have one shop, you can ignore this section entirely.

Adding a branch

Give it a name, a short code and a type:

• Head office — the main shop. There is normally one.
• Branch — another shop that sells.
• Warehouse — holds stock but does not sell. Useful for a godown you move stock out of.

The code appears in every receipt number from that branch, so WEST-00042 tells you where a sale happened without opening it. Keep codes short.

What is branch-specific

• Stock is always per branch. The same product can have 40 at Main and 2 at West.
• Sales, shifts, expenses and cash belong to the branch they happened at.
• Products, customers, suppliers and staff are shared across the business by default. A product can be pinned to one branch if only that shop sells it.

Move stock between them at Inventory → Transfers. Compare them at Reports → Branch comparison.

Payment accounts: where your money lands

Settings → Payment accounts · settings.manage

This is the most important page in the system, and the one most often left half-done. It decides whose bank the money goes into.

Money from your customers goes to your till, paybill or bank account — never through us. Until you put your number here, the M-Pesa button at the till has nowhere to send a payment to.

The kinds of account

Setting one up

1. Press Add account and pick the kind.
2. Give it a label you will recognise — "Shop till", "KCB account".
3. Enter the number. For a bank, enter both.
4. Tick Active, and Default if this is the one the till should use.
5. Make a KES 1 payment to yourself to prove it before you trust it with a customer.

You can have as many accounts as you like, and set a different default per branch — useful when two shops bank separately.

Staff, roles and permissions

People → Staff · staff.view, staff.manage

Staff sign in with their own phone number and password. Nobody shares a login — not because of a rule, but because the audit trail is worthless if three people are "Peter".

Adding somebody

1. People → Staff → Add staff.
2. Name and phone number. The number is their username, so it must be real and theirs.
3. Role — see the table below. This decides what they can reach.
4. Branch — where they work. Tick All branches only for somebody who genuinely needs to see every shop.
5. Password — set a simple one and have them change it at Profile on first sign-in.
6. Optionally a commission % and a sales target, which feed Staff → Performance.

The roles you start with

These are starting points, not policy. Every one can be edited.

Editing what a role can do

People → Staff → Roles · roles.manage

Open a role and tick the permissions it should have. Changes apply the next time that person loads a page. You can also create your own role — "Senior cashier", "Stock clerk" — rather than bending an existing one.

Every permission, grouped as the editor shows them

Selling

Inventory

Buying

Service

Customers

Money

Insight

Administration

When somebody leaves

Open them at People → Staff and untick Active. Do not delete them — their name stays on every sale they made, and deleting the person would orphan the history. An inactive member of staff cannot sign in.

Also look at Settings → Devices and sign out any device they were using.

Products and categories

Inventory → Products · products.view, products.manage

Categories first

Inventory → Categories. Keep them broad — six to twelve is plenty. Categories drive the buttons at the till and every report that groups by category, so "Drinks" is more useful than "Soda 500ml".

Adding a product

Several barcodes on one product

The same sugar arrives with a different barcode from two suppliers. Add both to the one product rather than creating two products. Scanning either finds the same item, and your stock count stays honest.

Pack sizes

A crate of 24 and a single bottle are one product with two units. Set the pack and its factor on the product, and selling a crate takes 24 off the count. Buying by the crate and selling by the bottle then works without arithmetic.

Importing a price list

Inventory → Products → Import. Download the template, fill it in, upload it. You are shown what will change before anything is written. This is the fastest way to load several hundred products from a supplier's list.

Labels

Open a product and press Labels to print barcode labels with the name and price on them — for shelf edges or for items that arrived without a barcode.

Stock

Inventory · stock.view and friends

Stock levels

Inventory → Stock levels shows what is where. Stock is always per branch. The number the till may sell is available, which is on hand minus anything reserved for a quotation or a layaway.

Low stock

Inventory → Low stock lists anything at or below its reorder level, with a count badge in the menu. Buying → What to order turns the same information into a suggested order, by supplier.

Getting stock in

Three ways, in order of preference:

1. A purchase order (section 9). Correct, and it updates the supplier's balance and your cost price.
2. Opening stock on the product form, when you first load the system.
3. An adjustment, for anything else — found stock, a correction.

Adjustments

Inventory → Adjustments · stock.adjust, stock.approve

Use one to write off breakage, theft or expiry, or to correct a count. Every adjustment needs a reason. If your role can create but not approve them, they queue for somebody who can — which is the point: the person who loses the stock should not be the person who signs it off.

Transfers

Inventory → Transfers · stock.transfer. Raise a transfer at the sending branch; stock sits in transit until the receiving branch confirms it. Goods that vanish between two shops show up as a transfer nobody received.

Stocktake

Inventory → Stocktake · stocktake.manage. Start a stocktake, count, enter what you actually found, and post it. The difference is written as an adjustment with the stocktake as its reason, so the shrinkage is on the record rather than quietly absorbed.

Expiry

Inventory → Expiry tracking — only for products with batch tracking on. Shows what expires within a window you choose, and flags anything already expired. The daily job also raises a notification.

Valuation and movements

• Inventory → Valuation — what your stock is worth at cost, which is the figure the balance sheet uses.
• Inventory → Movements — every in and out for a product, with the reason and who did it. Start here when a count looks wrong.

Suppliers and buying

Buying · purchases.*, suppliers.*

Suppliers

Buying → Suppliers. Name, phone, and an opening balance if you already owe them. Each supplier has a running balance, a ledger and a printable statement — useful when their figure and yours disagree.

Purchase orders

1. Buying → Purchases → New purchase.
2. Pick the supplier and the branch the goods are going to.
3. Add the items, quantities and what you are paying per unit.
4. Save it as a draft while it is still on order.
5. When the goods arrive, open it and Receive. Stock goes up, the supplier's balance goes up, and your average cost is recalculated.
6. Record what you paid them, in part or in full.

What to order

Buying → What to order reads your reorder levels, recent sales rate and supplier, and proposes an order. Treat it as a draft shopping list, not an instruction.

Selling at the till

POS terminal · pos.sell

The basics

• Scan a barcode, or type a name or SKU into the search box.
• Tap a product to add it. Tap again to add another, or type the quantity.
• The running total, tax and change are always on screen.
• Press Pay (or F4) to take the money.

Keyboard shortcuts

F2 focus the scanner · F4 take payment · F9 hold the ticket · Esc close a dialog.

Changing a price

pos.price_change. Tap the price on a line and type a new one. Kenyan selling is a negotiation, so this is normal — but every override is recorded with the reason and the cashier's name, and shows on the audit trail. Grant it to people you trust to haggle.

Discounts

pos.discount. Either on one line or on the whole bill, by amount or by percentage. A reason is kept with it.

Holding a ticket

A customer goes back for bread. Press Hold (F9), serve the next person, then pick the ticket back up from Held. Nothing is lost and the queue keeps moving.

Attaching a customer

Press Customer to search, or add a new one without leaving the till. You must attach a customer to sell on credit — somebody has to be asked for the money later.

Taking payment

Cash, card, bank, M-Pesa, loyalty points, or credit. Split payments are normal: add a cash line and an M-Pesa line and the balance updates as you go. 500 in cash and 300 by M-Pesa on an 800 sale is two lines on one sale, not two sales.

If the total paid is less than the bill and a customer is attached, the rest goes on their account as a debt — and you can agree a payment plan there and then (section 14).

The receipt

Print it, text it, or send it on WhatsApp. The SMS costs from your SMS credit and carries a signed link the customer can open — that link works only for the person holding it, and is not reachable by anyone guessing.

The customer screen

Sell → Customer screen. Pair a second screen, phone or tablet so the customer watches the items and total as you ring them up. Pair it from Display and the code shown there.

Taking M-Pesa

Set up your payment account first (section 5), or none of this will work.

Prompting the phone (STK push)

1. At the payment screen, type the customer's phone number.
2. Press Send payment request.
3. A prompt appears on their phone. They enter their M-Pesa PIN.
4. The till counts down for three minutes and completes itself the moment the money confirms.

When the money arrives late

Sometimes a payment confirms after the till stopped waiting. It is not lost. The payment screen shows an unclaimed payments list — money received against your till that has not been attached to a sale. Press to attach it. The server re-checks it, so the same payment can never be used twice.

Typing a code by hand

For Pochi, Send Money, or any payment made outside the prompt: choose M-Pesa, type the code from the customer's message, and the sale completes. A code that has already paid for something is refused — and the refusal does not say whose sale it was.

Fees

The M-Pesa charge on a payment is recorded as an expense against the sale, so your cash book matches what actually reached your account rather than what the customer paid.

Shifts and the cash drawer

Money → Shifts & tills · shifts.own, shifts.manage

A shift is one person at one till for one stretch of time. It is how you find out, at the end of the day, whether the cash in the drawer matches what was sold.

1. Open the shift and enter the float — the cash you are starting with.
2. Sell as normal.
3. Close the shift and enter the cash you actually counted.
4. The system shows expected against counted, and the variance.

A small variance is life. A consistent one, at the same till, by the same person, is information. Anybody with shifts.manage can see every till; a cashier sees only their own.

Customers

People → Customers · customers.view, customers.manage

Adding one

Name and phone are enough. The phone must be unique — it is how a customer is recognised, texted and reminded. Also available:

• Category — retail, wholesale, staff. Drives which price list applies.
• Credit limit — how much they may owe before the till warns.
• Standing discount — a percentage off, applied automatically.
• Opening balance — what they already owe you today.

The customer page

Everything about them on one screen: what they owe, every sale, the full ledger, how much they have spent, how often they come, what they usually buy, and what they are probably due to buy again.

Statements

Press Statement for a printable list of every charge and payment. This is what you hand a customer who disputes a balance.

Credit, debts and payment plans

People → Debts owed to you and People → Payment plans · credit.manage

Selling on credit

pos.credit. Attach a customer, take whatever they can pay now, and complete the sale. The rest sits on their account. If they are over their credit limit the till says so.

Debts owed to you

Every customer with a balance, oldest debt first, with their phone number and a Remind button that texts them.

Payment plans

A debtors list with no dates cannot tell you who is late. A payment plan adds the dates.

"Pay 100 tomorrow and 900 next week" is how most shop credit is actually agreed. At the till, once there is a balance and a named customer, the payment screen offers to split what is left: how many payments, how often (daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly) and when the first falls due. It shows what each one comes to.

You can also agree a plan afterwards from the sale page, for a debt that was never given a date.

Any payment settles an instalment

Cash, an M-Pesa prompt, a code typed by hand, card, bank, or a payment recorded against the customer — the schedule follows the money automatically. There is nothing special to remember.

Chasing

People → Payment plans lists who is behind, oldest first. From there:

• More time — moves one date. The payments after it keep theirs.
• Write off — stops a payment being owed and being counted as late. It stays on the record with your reason and your name.
• Remind everybody — texts every late customer at once.

The evening before a payment falls due, each customer gets one text. It goes out once.

Returns, refunds and voids

Sell → Returns · pos.refund, pos.void

• Return — the customer brings goods back. Open the sale, choose the lines and quantities, give a reason. Stock goes back on the shelf and the money goes back out, by whichever method you choose.
• Exchange — a return and a new sale in one go.
• Void — cancels a sale that should never have happened, for example rung up twice. It is reversed in full, not deleted, so the receipt number stays used and the books still balance.

Every one of these is on the audit trail with the reason and who did it.

Quotations and invoices

Sell → Quotations · quotes.manage

Price a job before it is a sale. A quotation has a validity date and can reserve the stock so it is not sold from under the customer while they decide — see Inventory → Reserved stock.

When the customer agrees, convert it to a sale or an invoice in one press. Nothing is retyped. Expired quotations that are still holding stock are listed so you can release them.

Offers and price lists

Offers

Sell → Offers · promotions.manage. Automatic discounts that apply themselves at the till: buy two get one, a percentage off a category, a happy hour. Set the dates and let it run. See what each one actually did at Reports → Offer performance — an offer that moved stock at a loss is worth knowing about.

Price lists

People → Price lists · pricing.manage. What a particular customer pays. The most specific price wins: a price on that customer's own list beats their category's list, which beats a standing discount, which beats the shelf price. Quantity breaks are bands on the same list. Offers run afterwards and on top.

Layaway and hire purchase

People → Layaway & HP · layaway.manage — only for some businesses

Two versions of the same arrangement, and the difference matters in the books:

• Layaway — you keep the goods. Stock is reserved, not sold. The deposit is money you are holding, not income, until the customer collects.
• Hire purchase — the goods go home today and the customer owes the balance. It is a credit sale with a schedule on it.

Both carry a schedule of payments with dates and an arrears report.

Cash, expenses and accounts

Cash and balances

Money → Cash & balances · finance.view. Every account you hold money in — the drawer, M-Pesa, the bank, a float — and what is in each. Move money between them when you bank the day's takings, so the system knows the cash left the drawer rather than the shop.

Expenses

Money → Expenses · expenses.manage, expenses.approve. Rent, salaries, transport, airtime, electricity. Give each a category and the account it was paid from. If approval is in use, an expense waits for somebody with the approve permission before it hits the books.

Record them. Profit calculated from sales alone is not profit, and the number it shows you is always flattering.

Accounting

Money → Accounting · accounting.view, accounting.manage

Every sale, purchase, payment and expense is posted to a double-entry ledger as it happens. You do not have to do anything for this to work — it is a consequence of trading, not a separate job.

Reports and insights

Reports · reports.view, reports.profit

Insights

Overview → Insights · insights.view. Plain-language observations generated daily — what changed, what is slipping, what is worth looking at. Read it with the reports, not instead of them.

Extras for your kind of business

What you see depends on the business type you chose. Change it at Settings → Business type.

Restaurant, café or bar

• Sell → Tables — a floor plan. Seat a table, run a tab, add courses, split or move a bill, close it.
• Sell → Kitchen — orders appear on the kitchen screen as they are taken, by station.
• Inventory → Recipes — what each dish is made of, so selling one takes the ingredients off stock.
• Reports → Kitchen times — how long food takes from order to pass.
• Floor plan and stations are set at Tables → Setup.

Salon, barber or spa

• Sell → Appointments — the book, by staff member, with service durations and free slots.
• Reminders go out the day before.
• Commission per staff member is set on the staff record and reported under Staff → Performance.

Boutique or clothing

• Inventory → Styles — one style, many sizes and colours, each with its own stock count, without creating forty products by hand.
• Layaway is usually on for this type.

Electronics or phone shop

• Inventory → Devices / IMEI — every handset tracked by its own IMEI from intake to sale. Intake scans them in; Scan looks one up instantly.
• Sell → Repairs — a job card from booking in to collection: fault, quote, parts used, cost, and whether it has been collected. Parts come off the same stock you sell. The deposit is held, not booked as income, until the job is handed back.
• Warranties are written at the moment of sale against the serial, and looked up later by IMEI, receipt number or customer name.

Pharmacy or chemist

• Batch and expiry tracking on, with a 90-day warning by default.
• Administration → Prescriptions — record what was dispensed, to whom, on whose prescription.
• Administration → Drug register — the controlled drug register, kept as you go rather than written up afterwards.

Hardware or building supplies

• Quotations, deliveries and trade price lists are all on by default.
• Buying → Deliveries — raise a delivery note and mark it delivered.
• Inventory → Reserved stock — what is spoken for but not yet collected.

Wholesale or distribution

• Trade price lists per customer, with quantity breaks.
• Buying → Back orders — take an order you cannot fill today and fill it when stock lands.
• Credit accounts and statements are the normal way of working here.

Butchery or bakery

• Weighed goods with decimal quantities, and scale labels.
• Inventory → Production — record a run: what went in, what came out. Reports → Recipe variance shows where the yield is going.

Services or professional

• Appointments and quotations, with stock tracking off on most items.

Settings, devices, SMS and the audit trail

SMS credit

Administration → SMS credit · sms.manage. Receipts, debt reminders, payment-plan reminders and appointment reminders all cost a small amount per message from a prepaid balance. Top up by M-Pesa from this page. When the balance runs out, texting switches itself off — printing and WhatsApp keep working.

Registration codes, your welcome message and subscription reminders are not charged to you.

Devices

Settings → Devices · devices.manage. Every phone, tablet and computer that has signed in, when it was last used, and a button to sign it out. Use it when a device is lost or a member of staff leaves.

Audit trail

Settings → Audit trail · audit.view. Who did what, and when: price overrides, discounts, voids, refunds, stock adjustments, write-offs, staff changes, settings changes. This is the screen that answers "who authorised this".

Backup

Settings → Backup. Download a copy of your data. Do it before anything big — a stocktake, a price import, a change of business type.

Your own profile

Profile, bottom left. Change your name, your password and your theme. Every member of staff can reach their own.

KRA eTIMS and VAT

Administration → KRA eTIMS · etims.manage

If you are VAT-registered and on eTIMS, enter your credentials here and invoices are transmitted to KRA as they are raised. Your KRA PIN must be filled in under Settings first.

Reports → VAT return works out output and input VAT for a period from the ledger, so the figures agree with your trial balance rather than being assembled separately.

API keys

Administration → API keys · api.manage

For connecting another system — a website, an accounting package, a stock feed. Issue a key, choose what it may do (read products, write sales), and it is shown once. Only a hash is stored, so if it is lost you issue a new one rather than recovering the old.

Keys are scoped to your business. A key cannot see another business's data under any circumstances.

Working offline

The till keeps working when the network drops. Sales are held on the device and go up automatically when the connection returns — you will see a counter of what is waiting.

What works offline: scanning, searching, selling, cash, card and credit, printing, holding tickets.

What does not: M-Pesa prompts (they need Safaricom), SMS, and anything that reads live figures from the server, such as reports.

When something goes wrong

Common questions

A member of staff says a page is missing

It is a permission. Find the screen in this guide, note the permission.name against it, and tick it on their role at People → Staff → Roles.

The M-Pesa prompt never arrives

Check Settings → Payment accounts has an active account with your real number on it. Then check the customer's number is right and their phone has signal. They can always pay the till or paybill directly and read you the code.

A customer paid but the sale did not complete

Open the payment screen and look at unclaimed payments. The money is there. Attach it — do not collect again.

My profit looks wrong

Almost always a missing cost price. Check Inventory → Products for items with a cost of zero. After that, check your expenses are being recorded.

Stock count is wrong

Inventory → Movements for that product shows every in and out with a reason and a name. Work backwards from the last count you trusted.

Somebody forgot their password

They use Forgot your password on the sign-in page. A temporary one is texted to the number on their account. Only that number can reset it, which is why it cannot be done over the phone.

The account is locked and asking for payment

The month has lapsed. Open Administration → Subscription and pay. Nothing has been deleted and everything returns the moment the payment lands.

Still stuck?

Call or WhatsApp 0787 887 887, or email me@newpos.site. Monday to Saturday, 8am to 7pm. Anything that stops a shop selling is treated as urgent whenever it arrives.

Contact page Open your shop