Scan, take payment, done
Switch a terminal to shop mode and the hospitality surface disappears — no floor, no kitchen, no tabs. What's left is a fast retail register with variants, layby, store credit and stock control behind it.
One setting changes the whole till
Settings → Store type → Shop / retail, and the terminal becomes a retail register immediately. Store type is per terminal, so a restaurant with a merch counter can run one shop-mode till beside its table-service tills on the same account and the same catalogue.
- Hides what a shop doesn't need — no Floor, Kitchen or Tabs tabs
- Simplifies the Sale screen — no order-type chips, no seats, no course grouping
- Merges repeat scans — scanning the same barcode three times gives one line, quantity 3
- Keeps everything else — Sale, Orders, Checklists, Reports, Register, Customer display, Settings
Built around the scanner
Any USB or Bluetooth scanner
The scan lands in the search field and the Enter your scanner sends adds the exact barcode or SKU match straight to the basket, then clears for the next scan. No driver, no configuration — if it types, it works.
Variants with their own SKUs
Sizes and colours live under the product — "Small −R10 / Large +R20" — each with its own SKU and price. Scan a variant SKU and you ring that exact variant; tap the product on the grid and a picker opens. Variants sync to the terminals, so they work offline too.
Barcode label sheets
Print A4 label sheets — name, price and a Code 128 barcode — for any products or variants, straight from the back office. New stock gets labelled and scanned the same afternoon.
Park it, or sell it on layby
Two different problems, two different tools. Park puts a basket aside when the queue is building or a customer forgot their wallet — resume it from Orders → Open. Layby is a sale the customer pays off over time, with the goods handed over at the end.
- Attach the customer, take a deposit, and Aura tracks the outstanding balance
- Every installment is taken like a normal payment — cash or card — and counts toward that register's cash-up
- Orders → Laybys lists every open layby with its balance
- The final payment settles the sale automatically
- An installment can never exceed the remaining balance
Three different kinds of stored value
They're often muddled together. Aura keeps them separate because they behave differently at the till and in your books.
Store credit
A balance attached to a customer. Managers add or deduct it with a reason and every change is audited. A manager can refund a sale to credit instead of cash — no money leaves the till and the customer spends it next visit. Redeemed as a tender when the customer is attached.
Gift cards
Issued from the back office with an AG-…
code and an optional recipient. Redeemed by typing the code at the payment sheet;
the balance is verified as you charge and partial balances stay on the card.
Searchable by code, name, email or phone.
House accounts
Credit accounts for regulars and corporates, with a credit limit or none. Charge and settle with memos, print a statement of postings. At the till the charge is refused automatically if it would breach the limit.
Know what you have and what it's worth
On-hand, valued, and flagged
Levels with stock value, reorder points that raise low-stock alerts, and a low-stock badge in the terminal's top bar so the counter knows before the shelf is empty. Wastage and damage are logged with a reason.
Stock counts that write themselves back
Enter what you counted and Aura writes the adjustments and flags the variance — so a count produces a corrected system and an explanation, not a spreadsheet you then have to key in.
Transfers between branches
Create a transfer and Send — stock leaves the source immediately. Receive at the destination. Receive short and the difference is recorded as shrinkage in transit rather than quietly vanishing.
Suppliers and purchase orders
Suppliers with contacts, payment terms and VAT numbers. Raise a purchase order, send it, and receive it — receiving stocks in the lines and feeds input VAT on your VAT201. Reorder low stock proposes POs grouped by each product's supplier with quantities prefilled.
The four questions a shop owner actually asks
What sells?
Quantity, revenue and margin by product, category and brand — so you reorder to what moves, not to what you remember.
Who's coming back?
New versus returning customers, average basket, repeat rate and your top spenders.
What's gathering dust?
Stock aging shows what hasn't moved and how much money is sitting in it.
When are we busy?
A revenue heatmap by day-of-week × hour over 7, 30 or 90 days — for staffing the counter.
Plus the register view, dashboards, VAT201 and accounting exports every Aura venue gets — see reports and accounting.
Selling food or coffee alongside the shop?
QR Ordering gives a counter, a deli or a coffee bar its own code: customers order and pay by card on their phones, and the order lands on the kitchen screen. Shop customers always pay as they order — there's no waiter to settle a bill later. It costs less added to a Shop subscription than it does on its own.
Bring your product list, we'll import it
Aura maps barcodes and SKUs out of a Lightspeed, Tebi or Pilot CSV export, so the scanner works from day one.