Reception POS and card readers

POS mode turns a tablet into the reception desk. It is part of the Professional plan and above, and it is built for the realities of a campsite office: big buttons, a dark mode for the evening, a guest who only gives a name, and wifi that comes and goes.

Getting in and out

Press POS mode at the top of the dashboard. The tablet remembers the choice, so from then on opening the dashboard on that device goes straight to the desk. To get back to the full dashboard, open the ⋯ menu at the top right and choose Exit POS mode.

POS works on the campsite currently selected in the dashboard. If you run more than one site, exit, switch campsite, and enter again.

Every member of the team can use the desk. The takings report, card readers, the product list and reversing payments are for owners and admins only. Each person should sign in with their own login, because every payment is recorded against whoever is signed in. (See Your team.)

The four tabs

Today is the board. Three lists: arriving today, leaving today, and on site. Tap a guest to see the stay, the pitch, the party, the reference and what they still owe, then Check in, Check out or Take payment. Checking out a guest who still owes money asks you to confirm. The board refreshes itself every minute.

New booking takes a walk-in in three steps: dates and pitch type, the party, confirm. Only the guest's name is required; email and phone are optional, and a guest with no email simply gets no confirmation. You see the price breakdown, choose Cash now, Card machine now or Pay on arrival, and can tick Check in now so they go straight on to the board. Bookings can be taken up to a year ahead. The quick form does not take discount codes, vouchers or extras; for those, the link to the full booking form opens the dashboard's booking page.

Payment finds a guest (the list shows everyone here today, or search by name or booking reference) and takes money against the booking: the full balance, half, or an amount you key in. You cannot take more than is owed. If the guest has a shop tab, Pay whole bill settles stay and tab together. Afterwards there is a Receipt button.

Shop sells things over the counter. Tap items into a basket, then either Pay now or Add to booking, which puts them on the tab of a guest who is arriving today or on site, to settle at checkout. Set the things you sell up under ⋯ → Manage products: a name and a price is all a product needs.

Cash, card machine and card reader

There are three ways to record money at the desk:

• Cash: recorded as taken.
• Card machine: a record that the guest paid by card on your own terminal. No money moves through Campiamo. Reconcile it against your terminal's own report at the end of the day.
• Card reader: a Stripe reader paired with Campiamo, which charges the card through your Stripe account there and then. See the next section.

All three mark the booking as paid or partly paid, and the balance shown on the board and in the dashboard updates straight away. Payments taken at the desk appear on the booking's page in the dashboard like any other payment.

Receipts can be printed from the tablet (it uses the normal print dialog, so any printer the tablet can see will do) or emailed. The email address is filled in from the booking if there is one, and you can type another. Receipts are only sent when you ask for one.

Card readers

Campiamo works with two Stripe readers, the Stripe Reader S700 and the BBPOS WisePOS E, bought from your Stripe dashboard. Other card machines, including Bluetooth ones, cannot be paired. The reader needs your Stripe account to be connected under Settings → Payments (Stripe keys or Stripe Connect; PayPal accounts cannot use readers) and the campsite's address and country filled in under Settings → Details.

To pair one, open ⋯ → Card readers, then on the reader open its settings and choose Generate pairing code. Type the three words it shows and give the reader a name such as "Reception". The reader connects to Stripe over its own wifi; it does not talk to the tablet.

To charge a card, pick the guest on the Payment tab and choose Charge card reader. The reader asks the guest to tap, insert or swipe; the tablet waits up to 90 seconds and then shows the result. A declined card can be tried again. The payment lands in your Stripe account as a normal in-person payment with Stripe's in-person fees and no Campiamo commission.

Two limits worth knowing. The reader charges the stay balance only; a shop tab is settled as cash or card machine. And the Charge card reader button only appears while a reader shows as online; if you have just paired one, or the button has vanished, open Card readers and press Check to refresh its status.

When the wifi drops

The desk keeps working offline, within reason:

• Payments, shop sales, check-ins and check-outs are queued on the tablet and sent as soon as it is back online. An amber bar says "Offline — n waiting to send". Each queued item is sent exactly once, however many times the connection flickers, so nothing is charged twice.
• New bookings cannot be taken offline, because availability and prices come from the server. Write the details down and book when you are back online.
• Card reader charges, receipts and the takings report need a connection.

Tap the amber bar to see what is waiting and to send it now. If the server rejects a queued item (the booking was cancelled in the meantime, say) the bar turns red and lets you review it. If the tablet was signed out while it was offline, sign in again and the queue is sent.

The takings report

⋯ → Today's takings (owners and admins) shows the day's cash, card and total, split between stays and shop and broken down by who took it, with every transaction listed. Earlier days can be looked at too. A Reverse button on a cash or card-machine payment records the money as handed back and makes the balance collectable again. Card reader charges are refunded from the booking's page in the dashboard, where the refund goes back to the guest's card through Stripe. A sale can be voided; it stays in the record and the day's totals never change retrospectively.

How desk bookings differ

A booking taken at the desk is confirmed immediately, and its source is recorded as POS, so you can tell it apart in the bookings list and the export. If the guest gave an email they get the normal confirmation and, for a future stay, the usual balance reminders; a booking with no email sends nothing at all. Desk bookings are entered in the campsite's language.

A few practicalities

• Any recent tablet with a modern browser will do. Add the POS address to the home screen for a one-tap start; the screen stays awake while the desk is open.
• There is no PIN or kiosk lock. If the tablet is left in a public place, sign out at the end of the day.
• Products have no stock count or VAT field: it is a till for small sales, not an inventory system.