How Float fits together

One mental model carries the whole app: a sale happens, and Float updates everything else automatically. The sale itself can be rung up in Float's own till, or it can come from a Yoco / SnapScan / external POS — Float treats both the same.

No manual reconciliation. No "did I update stock yet?" Sell once, see everything line up.

Quick tour of the app

Float is organised into a left sidebar (the menu) and a main content area. Everything you need to do happens in one of these sections:

Your first 15 minutes

The fastest way to get going: run through the setup wizard, then add a few products, then make a test sale. Here's the path.

Step 1: Run the setup wizard

When you first sign up, the wizard appears automatically. It asks you five quick questions:

1. What's your shop's name? (e.g. "Lephalale Hardware")
2. What kind of shop is it? Pick from Hardware, Feed & Farm, Spaza, Salon, Restaurant, or Other. Each one pre-loads sensible categories and example products.
3. What's your business address? Used on receipts, quotes and invoices.
4. VAT registration? If you're VAT-registered (turnover above R1m), tick yes and enter your VAT number. Otherwise skip.
5. Currency & tax basics — already set to South Africa (Rand, 15% VAT). You shouldn't need to change anything.

After the wizard runs, your shop is set up with example products you can edit, delete or build on. Skipped the wizard? Open it again any time using the Reopen setup wizard button at the bottom of this page.

Step 2: Add your first real products

Go to Products in the sidebar. Tap Add product and fill in:

• Name — what shows on receipts (e.g. "Cement 50kg")
• Category — keeps the till tidy. Pick one or create a new one
• Selling price — what the customer pays (incl. VAT)
• Cost price — what you pay your supplier (for profit reports)
• Stock on hand — how many you currently have
• VAT — usually 15%. Some products like raw maize meal are VAT-exempt — tick the exempt box

Step 3: Add yourself (and your team)

Go to Employees. Tap Add employee, enter the person's name, role (cashier or admin), and a 4-digit PIN they'll use to sign in at the till.

Your owner account is automatically set up with PIN 0000. Change it the first time you sign in — it's the master PIN.

Step 4: Open your register

Go to Register. Count the cash you have in the till to start the day (the float). Type that amount into Opening cash and tap Open register. You're now ready to ring up sales.

Making your first sale

Tap Sale in the sidebar. The screen has three parts:

• Left: the products grid, with category tabs and a search bar at the top
• Right: the cart (empty until you add something)
• Bottom of the cart: payment buttons (Cash, Card, EFT, Account, Voucher)

Adding products to the cart

1. Find the product you need. Use the category tabs at the top, or type into the search bar — search matches name and barcode.
2. Tap a product tile. It jumps into the cart with quantity 1.
3. To increase the quantity, tap the + on the cart row. Or tap the same product tile again. Or tap the quantity number itself to type in any amount (handy for "8 × bricks").
4. Made a mistake? Tap the × next to a cart line to remove it.

Choosing how the customer pays

Below the cart you'll see five payment buttons. Tap the one that matches:

• Cash — type the amount tendered, Float calculates the change
• Card — if you have Yoco set up, this charges the card reader directly. If not, run the customer's card on your separate machine and tap Card to confirm
• EFT — for customers paying by bank transfer. Float captures the reference
• On Account — for account customers (see "Customers" below). Adds the amount to their tab
• Voucher / Store credit — redeem a customer's voucher or credit balance

You can also split the payment across methods (e.g. R200 cash + R150 card). Tap the split icon next to the payment buttons.

Completing the sale

1. After choosing the payment, tap the big Charge button at the bottom.
2. The receipt opens. From here you can print, email, or WhatsApp it to the customer (you'll be prompted for their email or number).
3. Tap Done. The cart clears and you're ready for the next customer.

Your daily routine

Most days look the same: open the till, ring up sales, close the till, reconcile. Here's the rhythm.

Morning: open the register

1. Sign in to Float using your PIN.
2. Go to Register.
3. Physically count the cash in the till drawer — coins and notes.
4. Type that amount into Opening cash.
5. Tap Open register. Float now tracks every cash transaction against this opening figure.

Through the day: ring up sales

Most of your time is spent on the Sale screen. A few common situations:

• Wrong amount tendered: tap the cash field again and retype
• Customer wants to add another item mid-sale: just tap the product, it adds to the existing cart
• Need to give a discount: tap the % button next to a cart line for line discount, or use the cart-total discount button at the bottom
• Refund: go to History, find the original sale, tap it, and choose Refund. Float reverses the stock and the cash automatically
• Void a sale: if a sale was rung up by mistake (and the customer hasn't left), use Void instead of Refund. It cancels rather than reverses

Petty cash

If you need to take cash from the till during the day — to pay a delivery driver, buy bread, etc. — use the Petty cash button on the Register page. Type the amount and a quick note. Float deducts this from your expected closing cash so the variance still makes sense at end-of-day.

Evening: close the register

1. Go to Register.
2. Count the cash physically in the drawer.
3. Type the count into Actual cash.
4. Float shows: opening cash + cash sales − refunds − petty cash = expected. Then it shows your variance (actual − expected).
5. Tap Close register. The closure report opens — print or save it. This is what your accountant wants for the daily reconciliation.

Products & pricing

The Products page is your shop's customer-facing catalogue — everything you sell over the counter. Float supports a clean mental model: every product declares how it's used, and that single decision drives where it appears and how it behaves.

The role decision — comes first when adding a product

When you click Add product, the very first question is "How is this product used?". Three answers:

• 🛒 For sales — sold to customers on the till. Lives on the POS and in the Stock list. Default for new products.
• 🏭 For production — used in your kitchen / workshop, never sold directly. Lives in the new Production section. Pickable as a recipe ingredient.
• 🔁 Both — sold AND used in recipes (e.g. Bread baked in production then sold at the till). Lives in all three places.

Real example: a feed shop with a small bakery

Same flour brand, same supplier, but they're TWO products in Float:

• "Flour 25kg" — role = For sales, sold over the counter at R380. Customer-facing.
• "Flour" — role = For production, unit = grams, used in bread recipes. Kitchen-facing.

When 100 bags arrive from the mill, the owner decides how to split: 90 to the shop floor, 10 transferred to kitchen stock. Two clean numbers, no cross-contamination.

Adding products — one at a time

Click + Add product. Pick a role. Fill in name, category, prices, stock. This is the right approach for shops with under 100 items, or when you're just getting started.

Bulk import via CSV

If you've got a stock list in Excel or you're migrating from another POS, export it to CSV and import it into Float:

1. Go to Products → Import CSV.
2. Download the CSV template if you don't have your own.
3. Map your columns to Float's fields (name, price, cost, stock, category, barcode, VAT).
4. Preview the import. Float flags any rows with missing data.
5. Confirm. Hundreds of products land in your catalogue at once.

All imported products default to role For sales. After import, edit the kitchen items and switch their role to For production.

Categories

Categories keep the till tidy. Aim for between 6 and 12 categories — enough to be useful, few enough to fit on one screen. Examples: Feed, Medication, Drinks, Snacks, Hardware. Edit categories from Products → Categories button.

Variants — selling the same product in different sizes or flavours

Use variants when you sell the same item in multiple sizes, weights, flavours, or types — each with its own price and stock count. Examples: Flour 5kg / 10kg / 25kg bags. Coca-Cola 330ml / 500ml / 2L. Croissant Plain / Chocolate / Hazelnut. T-shirts S / M / L.

In the variant grid the first box is Size / name. Type a number and pick a unit for a sized variant (e.g. 500 + g → "500 g"), or just type a name for a flavour or type (e.g. Chocolate) — Float drops the unit and the variant simply shows as "Chocolate" on the till and receipts.

Under the hood, each variant is its OWN sellable thing with its OWN stock level — it deducts on sale, receives stock, and is counted in stocktakes on its own. The variant card groups them in the catalogue for tidiness, but they don't share stock.

🔪 Pieces — for products used by the slice / portion

Tick this when you BUY a product whole but USE it in pieces inside recipes — like tomatoes sliced for burgers (1 tomato → 5 slices) or buns from a pack (1 pack → 6 buns). The product is still sold whole at its normal price; the piece info only affects recipe math.

Sits right under the variants toggle, because it's the sibling concept: variants split a product for selling, pieces split a product for making.

VAT and exempt products

South African VAT is 15% on most goods. Some are zero-rated by law: brown bread, samp, raw maize meal, fresh milk, vegetables, fruit. When you add such a product, tick the VAT-exempt box in the Advanced section. Float keeps it out of the VAT 201 output side.

Production & recipes

If your business makes things — bread, pre-mixed feeds, prepared meals, hampers — the Production section is your home. It lives at the top level of the sidebar under Operations.

The three Production tabs

• Schedule — planned production runs grouped by date (Today, Tomorrow, This week, Overdue). This is the default landing tab — what to make today.
• History — every completed run, with the staff member, time, and ingredients consumed.
• Production products — your kitchen / workshop catalogue. Shows only products with role "For production" or "Both". Renamed from "Products" to disambiguate from the main Products page.

Setting up — the order to do it in

1. Add your ingredients first. Each one as a product with role For production. Set a unit appropriate for recipes (grams, ml, each). Set a cost price (what you pay per unit).
2. Configure pieces where needed. Pack of buns? Tick 🔪 Pieces → 6 pieces per unit → piece name "bun".
3. Add your finished product. Bread, Hamburger, whatever you make. Role depends on whether it's sold or used as another recipe's ingredient — most finished goods are For sales or Both.
4. Add the recipe. Click Add recipe in the green section. Search for each ingredient (only production-role products appear), specify quantity and unit.
5. Optional: turn on Production-tracked. If you make this in batches (bread) rather than to-order (burgers), flip the Production-tracked switch. Now it appears on the Production page for planning.

Recipe products — two flavours

Once a product has a recipe, you choose how stock works:

• Made-to-order (Production-tracked OFF, default). When sold, each ingredient deducts from its own stock. The product itself doesn't track stock — it doesn't exist until ordered. Examples: hamburgers, cocktails, plated meals.
• Production-tracked (Production-tracked ON). Pre-made in batches. Stock fills up when you record a production run; stock drains when items sell. Examples: bread, cakes, pre-mixed feeds.

The two-step planning workflow

Production splits PLANNING from EXECUTION:

1. Plan production — schedule what to make on which day. No stock change yet.
2. Record production (or "Mark produced" on a planned row) — confirms what was made, deducts ingredients from stock, adds finished units to inventory.

The owner can plan the week on Sunday night. The baker checks Monday morning to see what to make. As items finish, they're recorded — that's when stock actually moves.

Recording the production run

The form shows a live recipe preview: each ingredient with a red SHORT badge if stock is low. Pick a staff member (required — keeps the audit trail honest), confirm date and time, add a waste qty if applicable, save.

Float deducts every ingredient from kitchen stock and adds the finished units to the product's stock.

Reversing a run

Mistakes happen. To reverse: open the run in History → Reverse run → optionally type a reason → confirm. Ingredient stock is restored, finished units removed. The run stays in History with a strikethrough + REVERSED badge — the audit trail is preserved.

External POS mode (Yoco, SnapScan, other tills)

If you already ring sales up on a Yoco device, a SnapScan QR till, or any other POS, Float can act as your back-office without forcing you to switch tills. Stock, recipes, finances, customers, and reports still work — you just feed sales in differently.

Turning it on

1. Go to Settings → Stock & Production.
2. Toggle "I sell on a different POS" ON.
3. The Sale and Register items disappear from the sidebar — you won't be using them.
4. A new External sales item appears in the sidebar. The History page also gets a Log external sale button.

Two ways to log sales

• One-at-a-time (manual entry). Open External sales → add the products sold → split the payment across cash/card/etc. → save. Float decrements stock, runs recipes for made-on-demand items, and updates reports just like a normal sale. Good for end-of-day reconciliation: enter your Yoco z-report totals.
• Bulk CSV import. Export your Yoco transactions CSV from the Yoco Business Portal. In Float go to History → Import button → drop the file. Float auto-detects Yoco's format, skips aborted / system rows, and creates one Float sale per Yoco receipt. Duplicates (same receipt reference) are skipped automatically, so re-running the same file is safe.

When this is the right mode

• You already trained staff on Yoco's till and don't want to retrain.
• You need Float's back-office strengths (recipes, production planning, profit margin reports, supplier invoices) but Yoco is fine for the actual selling.
• You run a multi-channel business (Yoco at the front, EFT invoicing in the back) and want one place for stock + reporting.

Managing stock

Float tracks stock automatically as you ring up sales. Sell 1 bag of cement, the cement count drops by 1. The Stock page shows you the current state of everything that's For sales (your customer-facing inventory). Kitchen ingredients (role: For production) live in the Production section, with their own stock view.

Receiving stock

When a delivery arrives, log it so your stock counts go up:

1. Go to Stock → Receive stock.
2. Pick the supplier and enter the invoice reference.
3. Add each product with the quantity received and the cost price (Float updates the cost average for accurate profit reports).
4. Save. Stock goes up, the supplier invoice gets logged.

Stocktake

Once a month (or whenever you suspect shrinkage), do a physical count and reconcile against Float's numbers:

1. Go to Stock → Stocktake.
2. Walk the shop, count each product, type the actual count next to Float's count.
3. Save. Float records the variances for your records and updates the on-hand numbers.

Low-stock alerts

For each product, set a reorder level. When stock drops below it, the product appears on your dashboard low-stock list and on the Smart Reorder tab inside the Stock page, which can auto-generate purchase orders to send to suppliers.

Your team & PINs

Float supports as many team members as you need. Every staff member has their own login, their own PIN, and their own permissions.

The three roles

• Owner — you. Full access to everything, including billing and account settings. Only one owner per account.
• Admin — managers and senior staff. Can do everything except cancel the subscription or transfer ownership.
• Cashier — front-of-shop staff. Can ring up sales, see their own sales history, open/close the register, but cannot view full reports, edit products, or see other staff's sales.

Adding a team member

1. Go to Employees.
2. Tap Add employee.
3. Enter their name, contact details, role, and a 4-digit PIN. The PIN is what they'll use to sign in at the till.
4. Save. They can sign in immediately on the team picker screen.

PINs at the till

Every time you open Float on a till, the team picker appears with everyone's name. Each person taps their tile, types their PIN, and they're in. Their sales get tagged with their name automatically — useful for end-of-day reports and accountability.

Customers & accounts

You can ring up sales without recording the customer (a "walk-in") — most retail sales work that way. But some customers are worth tracking: regulars who buy on account, or businesses you invoice monthly.

Walk-in sales

Just ring up the sale on the till. No customer name needed. The receipt is yours to print or hand over.

Account customers (on-account sales)

For customers who buy on credit and pay later — common for builders, farms, regular trade clients:

1. Go to Clients → Add client. Capture name, contact, business name, credit limit (the most they can owe at any time).
2. At the till, tap the Client button at the top of the cart and select them.
3. Choose On Account as the payment method. The amount is added to their tab.
4. When they come to pay, find their record on the Clients page and capture the payment.

Customer history

Every account customer has a full transaction history — every sale, every payment, current balance, age of debt. You can email them a statement directly from the Clients page.

Vouchers and store credit

Customers can also have vouchers (gift certificates you sell or issue) and store credit (from refunds where they didn't want cash). Both are visible on the customer's record and selectable as payment methods at the till.

Reports & VAT

The Reports page is where you go to understand what's happening in your shop. Four main report types, all with date pickers so you can pull any period.

Sales reports

• Daily summary — sales count, total takings, profit, payment method split
• Sales by category — which categories are pulling weight, which aren't
• Sales by product — your top sellers and your dust-collectors
• Sales by cashier — who's ringing up the most

Register history

Every register session ever — opening cash, sales count, closing cash, variance. Click into any row to reprint the closure report.

VAT 201

For VAT-registered shops only. Float's VAT 201 report breaks down output VAT (what you collected on sales) by tax code, ready for you to capture into SARS eFiling. It does not yet handle input VAT (what you paid on purchases) — your accountant will reconcile that side from your supplier invoices.

Exporting

Every report has an Export to CSV button. Send the file to your accountant by email, or open it in Excel for further analysis. CSV exports include every transaction in the period — full detail, not just totals.

Yoco card payments

Float integrates with Yoco card readers. Once connected, the till charges the customer's card directly when you tap Card — no double-typing the amount, no "did the card go through?" guesswork.

Connecting Yoco

1. Sign in to your Yoco merchant account at yoco.com and create an API key (Settings → Developers).
2. In Float, go to Yoco settings in the sidebar.
3. Paste the API key in. Tap Connect.
4. Float pings Yoco to verify. Once green, you're connected.

Charging a card

At the till, when the customer wants to pay by card:

1. Add their items to the cart as normal.
2. Tap Card as the payment method.
3. Tap Charge. Float sends the amount to your Yoco reader.
4. The customer taps or inserts their card on the reader. The reader confirms.
5. Float receives the success signal and prints/emails the receipt. The customer leaves.

Refunds

Card refunds can be processed directly from Float — go to History, find the sale, tap Refund. Float talks to Yoco, the money goes back to the customer's card, and the sale is marked refunded.

Reconciliation

Daily Yoco settlements show on your Reports page so you can match Float's card-sales total against what Yoco actually paid out into your bank account. They should match exactly minus Yoco's transaction fees.

Backup & data export

Every sale, product, customer and report is automatically backed up to our cloud database the moment it happens. There's no "save" button to forget. If your phone falls into a fish tank, sign in on another device and your shop is right there.

Manual export

If you want a snapshot of your data — for an audit, an accountant request, or just peace of mind — go to Backup in the sidebar. Float zips up everything: sales, products, customers, reports, attendance. The download is a JSON file plus CSV exports of the major tables.

Going offline

Float currently needs an internet connection to save sales to the cloud. For short outages, the existing browser tab keeps responding but sales won't save until the connection returns. For load shedding, most shops put a small UPS on the wifi router (R500–R1500 from Takealot) which keeps internet up for an hour or two. For full outages, use the Offline slips feature in the sidebar — print pre-numbered paper receipts, write sales by hand, then capture them using the 'This is an offline sale' toggle on the Sale screen once you're back online. Sales captured this way land in reports with the correct date and reference. True offline mode is on our roadmap.

If you cancel

If you ever decide to stop using Float, your data stays exportable for 30 days after cancellation. After that, we permanently delete it. Full details in our Refund & Cancellation policy.

When things go wrong

Common situations and how to fix them. If your problem isn't here, see Getting help below.

"I can't sign in"

First check: are you using the email and password you signed up with (different from your PIN)? PINs are for the till; email and password are for the account. If you've forgotten your password, sign-in screen → Forgot password? sends a reset email.

"My PIN doesn't work"

The owner can reset it. Sign in as owner, Employees → tap the staff member → Reset PIN. New PIN comes into effect immediately.

"The till won't ring up a sale"

Most likely the register is closed. Go to Register and check the status pill at the top — it should say "Register open". If it says "Register closed", tap Open register, enter your float, and try the sale again.

"Internet just dropped"

Float currently needs an internet connection to save sales. The till tab will keep showing the products and cart, but tapping Charge will fail until the connection returns — and you should not refresh the page during an outage (it won't reload without internet). The cleanest way to keep trading: use Offline slips from the sidebar to print a stack of pre-numbered paper receipts, write sales by hand on those, then capture each one in Float once you're back online (tick the 'This is an offline sale' toggle on the Sale screen and enter the slip reference number). Best long-term solution for shops in load-shedding-prone areas: a small UPS on the wifi router (R500–R1500 from Takealot) keeps the connection alive through most outages. Card payments via Yoco need internet on top of that.

"I made a mistake on a sale that's already done"

Two options. If the customer is still there, do a refund from History and re-ring the sale correctly. If the customer has left and you only need to fix internal records, contact us — we can edit the sale on our side without affecting your accounting.

"My closure variance is huge"

Open History for the day and walk through every cash sale. Common causes: a Card sale rung up as Cash; petty cash withdrawn without logging; change miscounted on a busy moment. The History page shows the cashier on each sale, so you can pinpoint what happened and when.

"My stock count looks wrong"

Most often this is a stocktake-vs-sales gap. Run a stocktake from Stock, count physically, and Float reconciles. If the gap is consistent, it might be: products being sold without ringing up; theft; receiving stock that wasn't logged; or returns that weren't recorded.