Signing in and locking the register

Every action in RKCoders POS is attributed to the person who did it, which is what makes the audit log and the shift reports worth anything. So the app always starts at the sign-in screen. The blue RK square from pos.rkcoders.com is the brand mark in the window title bar (including on sign-in) and in the POS header next to POS.

Signing in

Type your username, then your PIN or password, and press Enter. On a touch till with no keyboard, tap the field or the finger button beside it. A popup titled Enter username or Enter PIN or password shows a large box and a keyboard. Enter on a physical keyboard does the same as the pad’s Enter: Next on username, then sign in on the PIN. A wrong PIN closes the popup and shows the reason on the sign-in card. A correct sign-in shows a brief tick, then the checkout. Done or a tap outside closes the popup and leaves what you typed. The Windows tablet keyboard stays closed.

The administrator account you created in the setup wizard is your way in the first time. An administrator adds a user for each person who works the till, from the Users screen.

After signing in you land on the checkout, not the back office. Open Management from the POS menu, or tap the RK mark and POS at the top left, when you need the home tiles. If the trial has ended, sign-in stays on the full window. Beside the sign-in card you see Trial ended and Core activation only: Activate now, or paste the key you already have. Add-ons are not on this screen. After an administrator signs in, the Licence screen is where those add-ons live. Anyone who is not an administrator is asked to fetch one.

Choosing your language

The sign-in screen has an English / العربية switch. Picking Arabic flips the whole interface to right-to-left with an Arabic font, and it stays that way until someone changes it.

An administrator can also change the language later in Settings → Appearance, along with the theme. Anyone signed in can change the interface zoom with Ctrl and + or −.

Every dropdown is a search box

Anywhere the app asks you to pick something — a supplier, a category, a tax rate, a printer, a payment type, a filter — you can simply start typing instead of hunting through a list. The list narrows to what matches as you type, the matching letters are highlighted, and the rest of the name is completed for you when only one thing can be meant. Press Enter to take it, ↑ ↓ to move through the list, and Esc to leave the field as it was.

Matching is forgiving. It ignores capitals and accents, treats أ and ا (and ة and ه) as the same letter, and finds a word anywhere in the name, so “dairy” finds Eastern Province Dairy and “احمد” finds أحمد للتجارة. You do not have to remember how a name starts.

Locking the register

Stepping away from the counter? Use Lock on the management home tiles. It clears the screen back to the sign-in prompt without ending the shift or losing the ticket you were building.

Sign out is on the same management page (and in the POS More menu). That ends the session so the next person signs in as themselves. Use Lock for a short step away; use Sign out at the end of a shift or when handing the till to someone else.

The next person unlocks a locked register with the same user’s PIN, or signs in after a sign-out with their own. This is the right way to hand over mid-shift; do not share a login.

PINs and passwords

A user can sign in with either a short numeric PIN or a longer password. PINs are faster on a touch screen, so most cashiers use one. Keep passwords for administrator accounts.

If someone leaves, do not delete their user. Open Users, find them and clear the Active tick instead. That blocks them from signing in while keeping their name attached to all the sales they rang up, which you need for your records.

When the app opens on the Licence screen

If you see the Licence screen instead of the checkout, the core licence or the 14-day trial has expired. Nothing has been deleted; the app is just waiting for a valid key. See Activating your licence for what to do next.