---
title: "POS back office: what the owner runs away from the till"
description: "The till takes the payment; the back office decides what the till sells, at what price and by whom, then checks the numbers. A practical owner checklist."
canonical: "https://sandooq.app/blog/pos-back-office"
locale: "en"
updated: "2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z"
---

# POS back office: what the owner runs away from the till

The till takes the payment; the back office decides what the till sells, at what price and by whom, then checks the numbers. A practical owner checklist.

**Tags:** operations, pos, back-office, retail

The POS back office is the management side of a point-of-sale system: the dashboard where you set up products and prices, receive stock, manage staff and permissions, review cash sessions and day-end reports, and read sales and stock reports. The till sells; the back office decides what the till can do and checks what it did.

This guide splits the two sides, gives each job to the right person, and ends with a printable daily, weekly and monthly checklist. New to POS altogether? Start with [what a POS system is](/blog/what-is-a-pos-system).

## Till vs back office: who does what

The term comes from company organisation: Wikipedia describes the back office as [where "work that supports front office work is done"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_office), the part customers never see. A POS splits the same way: the till is one part of the system, and the [back-office side typically handles inventory, pricing, purchasing, receiving and moving stock between locations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale).

| | Front of house (the till) | Back office (the dashboard) |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Sell, take payment, print the receipt | Decide what is sold, at what price and by whom; check the numbers |
| Typical tasks | Scan items, give discounts within limits, take returns within the policy, open and close the cashier's own cash session | Products and prices, stock and counts, purchasing and suppliers, staff and roles, store settings, reports |
| Who uses it | Cashiers and a shift lead | Owner, manager, inventory clerk, accountant |
| When | Opening hours, at the counter | Before opening, after closing, or from home |
| What a mistake costs | One sale | Every sale on every till until someone notices |

The last row is the one to remember: a wrong price, tax setting or permission in the back office reaches every till at once, so back-office access deserves more care than till access.

In Sandooq, the till app and the back office are one system, and every till reads the same products, prices and stock. The [Sandooq features page](/features) lists what each side does; the FAQ below covers a till that is offline when a price changes.

## Products, prices and the catalog

Every product needs a code, a barcode, a cost price, a selling price and a tax treatment, plus the stores where it is sold. The barcode decides whether the till finds the item in one scan; the cost price decides whether your margin figure means anything.

- **Plan categories before you import.** They group the till screen and split sales in reports. A tree such as Beverages → Soft drinks → Cans reports better than one flat list of 40 categories.
- **Change prices in batches.** Apply a supplier's price list in one sitting before opening, and print shelf labels in the same session so shelf and till agree from the first customer.
- **Limit who can change prices.** One or two people. A price anyone can edit is a price nobody owns.

In Sandooq, each product carries its code, barcode, cost, selling price and tax treatment, and can be made available per store. Categories sit in a tree that drives the till layout, stock views and reporting. Prices change in bulk in a grid, a catalog can be imported from CSV with column mapping and validation or exported for review, and barcode labels print from the browser with the size and copy count you choose. Our guide to [cashier software for small shops](/blog/cashier-software) covers the till side.

## Stock, purchasing and suppliers

Every sale lowers stock at the till, but everything else that moves it happens in the back office:

- **Receiving.** Check the delivery against the purchase order, so stock and cost update from what arrived, not from what was ordered.
- **Counts.** A section each week, the whole shop less often: that is how you find the gap between system and shelf.
- **Adjustments.** Breakage, expiry and theft are recorded with a reason, and large ones should need a manager's approval.
- **Suppliers.** Open orders, late deliveries and what you owe each supplier belong in one place, not in a notebook.

The inventory clerk usually counts and receives; the owner or manager approves large adjustments and places the bigger orders.

In Sandooq, you can set a low-stock threshold on each product, and products at or below it are listed on the dashboard. Our guide to [inventory management for retail stores](/blog/inventory-management-retail) covers counts, purchase orders, receiving and adjustments in depth, including how Sandooq handles each, and the guide to [running a full stocktake](/blog/stocktake-full-inventory-count) walks through the annual count step by step.

## Staff, roles and the audit trail

Access should follow the job. The principle of [least privilege limits each user's access "to the minimum necessary to accomplish assigned tasks"](https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/least_privilege): a cashier needs the till, not the price list. And [separation of duty means "no user should be given enough privileges to misuse the system on their own"](https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/separation_of_duty): the person who gives a large discount or records a cash difference should not be the one who approves it.

In Sandooq, access is role-based, with admin, manager, cashier, inventory clerk and accountant roles. You invite staff, set each person's role and stores, and revoke access in one place. The till is locked behind a per-user PIN, and failed attempts are counted on the server. Voids, large discounts, returns, session opens and failed sign-ins are written to a server-side audit trail that cannot be edited afterwards.

Role design, approval thresholds and shift handover deserve a guide of their own: see [staff shifts and POS permissions](/blog/staff-shifts-pos-permissions).

## Cash: sessions, the safe and the day-end Z-read

The till handles cash during the day; the back office decides how the day is opened, closed and checked. Each cashier's session opens with a counted float and closes with a counted drawer, so a difference shows at once, against that cashier. A handover passes a live till to the next cashier with a count, not a shrug. The safe holds cash lifted from the drawers and tomorrow's float. The Z-read closes the day.

The owner's job is not to watch every count, but to read the Z-read and every session difference next morning and ask about any that has no explanation.

In Sandooq, each store opens and closes its own business day. Cash sessions open with a float and close with a count, safes and floats are managed from the back office, and a live till can be handed from one cashier to the next without closing the day. The day-end Z-read shows the takings by payment method and the drawer position. Opening and closing the day and drawing the Z-read need a connection. Card payments are recorded at the till as their own payment line and stay out of the cash count.

What each report contains is covered in [X report vs Z report](/blog/x-report-vs-z-report-retail), and how to run the drawer day to day in our [cash management procedures](/blog/cash-management-retail-store).

## Reports the owner should actually read

A back office can produce dozens of reports. Most owners need five, read on a schedule:

- **Sales by period and store**, compared with the same weekday last week, not with yesterday.
- **Product mix and margin**: the items that bring in money and the ones that bring in profit are rarely the same list.
- **Cashier performance**: takings, voids and returns per cashier. One person far out of line is a question, not a verdict.
- **Stock and purchasing**: what is running low, what has not sold in months, what is on order.
- **Customer balances and financial statements**: who owes you, for how long, and whether the month made money.

In Sandooq, the cashier report shows takings, voids and returns per cashier. The back office also carries a profit and loss statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement and trial balance, plus customer aging and statements. Those are open by role (admin and accountant), and the profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow statement export to CSV. A settlements screen matches payouts from your card provider to what the till recorded.

Our guide to [POS sales reports](/blog/pos-sales-reports-retail-analytics) explains which report answers which question, and [POS with accounting](/blog/pos-with-accounting) covers the ledger and the accountant's side.

## Store settings that change how the till behaves

Some decisions are made once and then shape every sale: whether prices include tax, what the receipt says, how cash totals are rounded when small coins are scarce, which till actions need a manager, and how many days a customer has to return an item, in what condition. Review them whenever you open a branch or change a policy.

In Sandooq, tax treatment, receipt details, rounding and till behaviour are set per store, including whether voids, returns, discounts and cash differences need a manager's approval. Printing the receipt automatically after each sale is a store setting too, and it is off until you turn it on. Return policies can be set for the whole business or per store.

**A Lebanon example.** A shop that prices in US dollars and takes both dollars and Lebanese pounds needs one more back-office setting: the exchange rate. In Sandooq the business enters its own rate, and each ledger entry keeps the rate it was booked at. Our [POS system for Lebanon](/pos-system/lebanon) page shows how the two-currency till works.

## An owner's back-office checklist: daily, weekly, monthly

Print this and keep it by the office computer. "Who" assumes a shop with a manager; in a one-person shop, every row is the owner's.

| When | Task | Who | What to look for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily | Read yesterday's Z-read and every cash-session difference | Owner or manager | A difference with no explanation, or the same cashier short twice |
| Daily | Scan voids, returns and large discounts by cashier | Manager | One cashier far above the others |
| Daily | Check items running low | Manager or inventory clerk | Best sellers close to empty before the next delivery |
| Daily | Match yesterday's card total with the bank terminal's settlement | Manager | Any card payment recorded at the till but missing from the terminal, or the reverse |
| Weekly | Count one section | Inventory clerk | Gaps that repeat on the same items |
| Weekly | Chase open purchase orders and late deliveries | Inventory clerk or owner | Orders still open after the promised date |
| Weekly | Compare cashier performance | Manager | Takings, voids and returns per cashier against the team |
| Weekly | Apply price changes and print shelf labels | Owner or manager | Shelf and till prices that disagree |
| Monthly | Count or value the whole stock | Owner and inventory clerk | Shrinkage by category, and slow movers to clear |
| Monthly | Approve outstanding expenses | Owner | Expenses without a receipt or a category |
| Monthly | Reconcile till, bank and books, then close the month with the accountant | Accountant | Differences that are still unexplained |
| Monthly | Review who still has access | Owner | Former staff, and roles wider than the job |

In Sandooq, most daily rows have their own screen: the Z-read, the cashier report for voids and returns, the dashboard's low-stock list, and the settlements screen for card payouts. The monthly access review happens in the same place where staff are invited and their access revoked.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is a POS back office?

The POS back office is the management side of a point-of-sale system, usually a web dashboard. It is where products, prices, stock, purchasing, staff permissions, store settings, cash sessions and reports are managed. The till sells; the back office sets the rules the till follows and checks the results.

### What is the difference between the front end and the back office of a POS?

The front end is the till, where cashiers scan, take payment, print receipts and run their own cash session. The back office is the dashboard where the owner, manager, inventory clerk and accountant manage the catalog, stock, staff, settings and reports. Both read the same products, prices and stock.

### Can I manage the back office from my phone or from home?

If the back office is a web dashboard, yes. Sandooq runs in a recent browser on a desktop, tablet or phone, and on a phone-sized screen the back-office menu folds into a slide-out panel. The back office works online, so you need an internet connection. A phone is fine for checking the day's numbers; bulk price changes and imports are easier on a larger screen.

### Which staff should have access to the back office?

Only the people whose job needs it, and only the parts they need: the owner and manager for most areas, the inventory clerk for products and stock, and the accountant for reports and the books. Cashiers normally need the till only. Review the list every month and remove anyone who has left.

### Do price changes in the back office reach the tills immediately?

A till sells at the prices it last downloaded. In Sandooq, a till downloads product and price changes when it loads, and the server checks each line's price when it records a sale, refusing a line that no longer matches. A till that is offline keeps the prices it already has; a queued sale whose price changed in the meantime can be refused when it syncs, and the till's own sales list shows it as not booked. Make price changes before opening, then reload the tills while they are online.

### What should a store owner check in the back office every day?

Four things: yesterday's Z-read and any cash-session difference; voids, returns and large discounts by cashier; items running low before the next delivery; and whether yesterday's card payments at the till match the bank terminal's settlement. Done every morning, it becomes a short routine rather than a monthly hunt.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia — Back office](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_office) — the definition of the back office as the work that supports the front office.
- [Wikipedia — Point of sale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale) — the till as one part of a POS system, with back-office functions such as inventory, pricing, purchasing and receiving.
- [NIST Computer Security Resource Center — least privilege](https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/least_privilege) — the principle of restricting access to the minimum needed for assigned tasks.
- [NIST Computer Security Resource Center — separation of duty](https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/separation_of_duty) — the principle that no single user should hold enough privileges to misuse the system alone.

## See the back office in a demo

[Book a demo](/demo) to see the back office the way an owner uses it, from the morning Z-read to a bulk price change, or browse the [Sandooq features](/features) first. Plan details are on the [pricing page](/pricing).