Loyalty points

Give your regulars a reason to come back. Switch the programme on and every sale with a customer attached quietly earns them points — which they can later spend as money off at the counter. You decide how fast points build up, what they're worth, and when they run out.

Overview

A loyalty programme is a simple bargain: the customer keeps shopping with you, and you give a little of it back. In POS that works in two halves.

• Earning. When a sale is rung up with a customer attached, the system awards points automatically — for example 1 point for every 10 spent. Nobody has to remember to do anything.
• Redeeming. Later, that customer can spend their points at the counter. The cashier types in how many to use and the value comes off the bill — for example 100 points = 10 off.

The settings are system-wide: one programme for your whole business, not a different one per store. Walk-in sales never earn — the cashier has to attach a customer first.

Why it's useful

• It brings people back. A balance sitting on a customer's account is a small reason to choose your shop over the one next door.
• It costs you nothing until it's used. Points are only worth money when a customer actually redeems them.
• It's completely automatic. Cashiers don't calculate anything — points are awarded when the sale finishes and clawed back if it's voided.
• It tells you who your best customers are. The points history shows who buys often and how much you're giving back.

Setting up the programme, step by step

1. Open Settings → Loyalty points

   Click Settings in the sidebar, then the Loyalty points card. The programme is off on a new install — while it's off, no loyalty options appear anywhere in the app.

2. Turn on Enable loyalty points

   The earning and redeeming sections become editable.

3. Decide how points are earned

   Set Points earned and For every (amount spent) — for example 1 point for every 10 spent. Then choose whether to earn on the grand total (what the customer actually pays, tax included) or the subtotal (goods only, before tax).

4. Decide what points are worth

   Set Points redeemed and Are worth (amount) — for example 100 points are worth 10. Keep an eye on the What this means panel: it shows the effective reward as a percentage of the sale, which is the number that matters to your margin.

5. Set your limits

   Minimum balance to redeem stops customers spending five points at a time. Maximum of a sale points can cover (%) caps how much of one bill can be paid with points — set it to 50 so at least half of every sale is still real money, or 100 to allow a fully-points sale.

6. Choose whether points expire

   Points expire after (months) — leave it at 0 and points never lapse. Set 12, for example, and unused points disappear a year after they were earned. See Expiry below.

7. Save

   The programme is live immediately. The next sale with a customer attached earns points.

What each setting does

Setting Points earned to 0 pauses earning without switching the whole programme off — existing balances stay spendable. That's the gentle way to wind a programme down.

Earning faster for some customers

Customer groups can earn at a different speed. Open Customers → Customer groups, edit a group and set its Loyalty points multiplier:

• Blank — the normal rate (1×).
• 2 — that group earns double points. Good for a "Premium" or "Club" tier.
• 0 — that group earns nothing. Good for a wholesale tier that already gets a trade discount.

See Customer groups for how groups work generally.

How points are earned

• A customer must be attached to the sale. Walk-in sales earn nothing — that's not an error, there's simply nobody to credit.
• Points are always rounded down. A part-earned point is never awarded, so a customer can't collect fractions.
• Each sale earns once. Reloading, reprinting or re-syncing a sale never awards a second helping.
• Points paid for with points don't earn again. The part of a bill covered by a redemption is excluded, so points can't breed more points.
• Offline sales earn too — just later. A sale rung up with no internet earns its points the moment it syncs. See Selling offline.

Redeeming points at the till

1. Attach the customer

   Ring up the basket as normal and pick the customer on the POS screen. If they hold enough points, a Redeem points panel appears with their balance and what it's worth.

2. Enter the points to spend

   Type the number of points, or press Max to use as many as the rules allow on this bill. Press Apply.

3. Check the total

   The redeemed value comes straight off the amount due and shows as its own line — Points redeemed — so it's never confused with a discount you gave.

4. Take the rest as usual

   Collect whatever is still owed by cash, card or any other method. See Taking payments.

If a cashier tries to redeem below the minimum, or more than the sale's cap allows, they're told clearly and no points are taken. Pressing Remove before payment puts the points straight back.

The customer's Loyalty tab

Open any customer and choose the Loyalty tab to see their points balance, what it's worth in money, and a full history of every point earned, spent, adjusted or expired — each row showing the date, the reason or sale it came from, and the balance afterwards.

Adding or removing points by hand

Click Adjust points on that tab to correct a balance — a goodwill gesture, a complaint, points promised in a promotion, or a mistake to undo.

1. Choose add or remove

   Use the direction toggle, then type a positive number of points.

2. Give a reason

   The reason is required, and it's kept forever alongside your name — so anyone reading the history later knows why the balance changed.

3. Save

   The new row appears at the top of the history immediately.

Removing more points than the customer holds isn't possible — a balance can never go below zero. Manual top-ups have no expiry date, so they stay until they're spent.

Adjusting needs the Add or remove loyalty points manually permission. Staff without it can still see the tab, they just can't change the balance — see Users & roles.

Voids, refunds and returns

A balance never goes negative. If a claw-back is bigger than what the customer currently holds, it simply stops at zero. See Voiding a sale and Returns & refunds.

Expiry

If you set an expiry, points lapse that many months after they were earned. Two things are worth knowing:

• Oldest points are spent first. When a customer redeems, their earliest points go first — so only genuinely untouched points ever expire.
• It runs overnight. Expiry is handled by the nightly housekeeping job, which needs your cron job to be running. If the cron isn't set up, points simply never expire.

The same nightly job double-checks every balance against its history and corrects any drift, letting an administrator know if it found some.

Seeing what the programme costs you

Open Reports → Loyalty points for the whole picture over any date range: points earned, redeemed and expired, plus the headline figure — your outstanding liability, which is what every unspent point would cost you if it were all redeemed tomorrow. Rows break the same numbers down per customer, and the whole thing exports to CSV, Excel or PDF like every other report. See Reports.

Tips & best practices

Notes & warnings

Related: Customers · The POS screen · Discounts & pricing · Reports · Cron job setup