Nine tenders, four splits, no surprises at cash-up
Aura talks to the card machines South African venues actually use, rounds cash the way the law expects, and captures every portion of a split bill as its own payment leg — so the X-report reconciles instead of nearly reconciling.
One tap for the everyday charge
Set your preferred method in Settings and the sheet preselects it. Everything else is one tap away.
Cash
Quick-tender chips — Exact, R200, R500 up to R5000 — with change calculated for you. ZAR 5c rounding applies to the cash portion only, so a mixed card-and-cash bill charges the card to the exact cent. Rounding deltas are tracked separately and reconcile on the X and Z reports.
Card — Yoco, four ways
Card machine (the default): the card is taken on the physical Yoco terminal and the POS records the leg. Pay by link: the POS creates a Yoco checkout link the guest pays on their own phone — a waiting screen shows on the till and the bill closes itself the moment Yoco confirms. Tap to Pay: the device itself is the card terminal, where Yoco SoftPOS is enabled. Guest checkout: on a QR Ordering venue the guest starts it themselves — they tip and pay in a hosted Yoco checkout on their own phone, and Aura settles the order the moment the payment captures.
SnapScan & Zapper
QR tenders at the till. On a QR Ordering venue SnapScan is the fallback rail rather than the first one: guests get a hosted Yoco card checkout where Yoco is configured, and where it isn't, a per-order SnapScan QR for the exact amount including any tip they added. With neither configured the guest app honestly says "pay at the counter" rather than faking a payment.
EFT
Recorded as its own tender for the bills that are settled by transfer, so the payment mix and the expected-cash figure both stay honest.
Gift cards
Enter the AG-… code and the balance is verified as you charge. Partial
balances stay on the card for next time. Issued and managed from the back office,
searchable by code, name, email or phone.
House accounts & store credit
House account charges the bill to a running credit account — refused automatically if it would breach the limit. Store credit redeems a customer's balance when they're attached to the sale, including credit a manager issued instead of a cash refund.
Four ways, and they compose
A table of six rarely pays one way. Aura captures each portion as its own payment leg with its own method and its own tip, so the payment mix on your report is what actually happened.
- Evenly — two to six ways
- By seat — using the seats you assigned as you rang the order
- By item — tick the lines each person is covering
- By amount — "R300 on the card, the rest in cash", as many times as it takes
Reconcile to the cent
Up to four configurable percentages on non-cash tenders — the default is 10, 12.5 and 15 — and "no tip" is always offered. Card tips are captured on the payment leg and reconcile exactly on the X and Z reports. Guest tips on QR orders ride the whole way: charged inside the guest's own card checkout when they pay on their phone, or carried on the bill when they add the round to the table's tab. Cash tips are handled outside the till, deliberately.
Paper, WhatsApp or web
Print to an ESC/POS thermal printer — cash sales also kick the drawer. If WhatsApp is configured and the attached customer has opted in, they get a receipt automatically with a signed web link valid for 90 days. A tampered or expired link shows nothing.
Never double-numbered
Receipt numbers are sequential per device per day, so two tills ringing at once can't collide — and a sale rung offline keeps correct numbering when it syncs. Every sale commits atomically on the device: a power cut mid-sale can't leave half a transaction.
Refunds, voids and comps
Three different things that are often confused. Aura treats them differently because they hit stock, VAT and your shrinkage report differently.
Refund
A manager refunds a paid order with a reason. Card refunds go back through the original provider, stock is restored, and the ledger records a reversing entry. The button only exists for managers and admins — there's no override prompt for it.
Or refund to store credit: when a customer is attached, a manager can credit their balance instead — no cash leaves the till, the change is audited, and they spend it next visit.
Void
Takes a fired line off the bill with a reason — wrong order, guest changed their mind, kitchen error. Stock is not depleted. Manager-gated, audit-logged, and safe to do offline: the audit row syncs later.
Comp
The guest gets the item free — it shows as COMP at R0.00 with VAT excluded — but the kitchen still makes it. Comps appear in shrinkage reports, which is the point: a comp is a cost, not a discount.
Nothing breaks when a provider isn't configured
Provider keys are server environment variables your installer sets. Every integration degrades honestly rather than failing loudly.
| Not configured | What happens instead |
|---|---|
| Yoco | Card tenders are recorded as a leg without a provider round-trip. Pre-auth on tabs and Tap to Pay are unavailable. |
| SnapScan merchant code | The SnapScan tender isn't offered. Guest QR orders fall back to a hosted Yoco card checkout, or to "pay at the counter" if Yoco isn't configured either. |
| Zapper | The Zapper tender simply isn't offered. |
| Receipt and booking-confirmation sends quietly no-op. Nothing errors, nothing queues forever. | |
| Mailjet | The checklist daily-summary email reports "not configured" instead of failing silently. |
Already have a Yoco terminal?
Then most of this is a settings screen, not a project. Book a walkthrough and we'll show you the whole payment path on your own tender mix.