Abacus Cloud POS works perfectly without an Internet connection and there is no perceptible difference to the performance of the POS.
One caveat however is that if you have an integrated EFTPOS solution like Tyro, then your POS will not be able to communicate to the Tyro cloud (which then sends the request to the Tyro terminal) and integrated EFTPOS will fail.
The workaround in this situation is to make a manual transaction on the Tyro terminal, as they all have a 3G Mobile Data SIM card in them to allow them to connect over this network.
Your sales data will still be saved, and then you can 'PUSH' this to the Cloud easily from within Abacus under 'Order History' when your Internet connection is restored.
Order printing, and printing of receipts will still work without an Internet connection as long as your WiFi router still advertises its WiFi SSID (network name) when it detects an internet connection is not present.
BE WARNED - some routers don't do this - and switch off the WiFi until the Internet (ADSL land line) comes back on.
If you need a router that works even when there is no internet connection talk to us.
The major issue we see when the Internet goes down is that customers complain of their orders not printing and the no. 1 reason for this is that their iPad tries to find an alternate WiFi network to connect to the Internet on when it detects the POS WiFi isn't delivering an Internet connection. This is a behaviour of the iPad, NOT the Point of Sale Software.
To ensure you can still print dockets in Off-line Mode
1) Check which WiFi network you are connected to - ensure the iPad is connected to the normal POS WiFi network at your venue.
2) Check that your printers are turned on.
If you still need assistance, please call us if you have a Valid service contract with Cloudifi.
If you'd like a service contract to ensure you have round the clock support with a guaranteed response time, please talk to us.
Andrew Wilmot
Author