Setting up a till for a shop in Qatar: a practical checklist

Receipts in Arabic and English

Shoppers in Qatar read Arabic, English or both, and many staff and customers read Urdu. A receipt in Arabic and English covers most of your customers. Print the shop name, address and phone number, a receipt number, the date and time, each item with its quantity and price, the total and how it was paid.

Test a printed receipt before you open. Check that Arabic letters join correctly, that long product names are not cut off and that the riyal amounts show two decimals. A receipt is also your proof in a return, so it should be easy to read.

Product list and dirham prices

Build the product list before the first customer arrives. Give each product a clear name in the languages you need, a code, and a price. The riyal has one hundred dirhams, so a price such as QAR 7.75 must be entered exactly, not rounded to a neater figure.

Put barcodes on the products that do not have them, and decide how you will name variants such as size and colour. A tidy list at the start saves many corrections at the counter, when a queue is waiting.

Printer, scanner and cash drawer

You need a receipt printer, a barcode scanner and a cash drawer, and they must work with your Mac. Check each one before you buy, and again after you set it up. Our free POS hardware checker is a general guide to what to look for. It is not a list of tested devices, so always test your own model at your own counter.

• Print a test receipt in Arabic and English and read it closely.
• Scan ten products and check that each one finds the right item and price.
• Open the drawer from the system and close it again, to confirm it kicks open on a sale.
• Keep a spare roll of receipt paper at the counter, not in the storeroom.

Daily closing and who gives discounts

Decide the closing routine before opening: count the drawer, compare cash and card totals with the system, note differences and lock the day. Put it on a card by the till so any staff member can follow it.

Decide discounts just as early. If every cashier can give any discount, the margin quietly disappears. Agree a small limit that cashiers may give on their own, and a rule that anything above it needs the owner or a manager. Record the reason each time, so you can see patterns.

Where TAQNIX ERP fits

TAQNIX ERP is a program on a Mac that opens in the browser. Its cashier screen takes cash and card payments, prints receipts in Arabic and English, supports daily closing, and handles returns by credit note. The same program also holds your invoices, quotations, orders and payment tracking.

It does not include stock control, and it does not promise that any particular printer, scanner or terminal will work. Test your hardware first. What the program gives you is one record of every sale.