Billing while offline

This guide covers billing on one device and uploading to the cloud after reconnection. With BitMed Link installed and paired, counters in the same store can also share completed bills, returns, held bills and stock changes over the shop network during an internet outage. See What BitMed Link is and what syncs locally.

What keeps working with no internet

• Creating bills — cash, UPI-marked, card-marked, and credit sales
• Product search, FEFO batch selection and rack locations
• Creating customers at the counter
• Schedule H1 sales (the register entry syncs with the bill)
• Printing receipts (local printer)
• Bill history and reprints — for any bill in the last seven days, from any counter in this store, plus this terminal's own bills that haven't uploaded yet
• Returns and credit notes — against those same bills
• Stock and expiry views
• The Doctors directory — search it, and add a doctor (the new one queues)

While you are offline the sidebar keeps Billing, Sales, Inventory and Doctors open. Everything else — Dashboard, Products, Customers, Purchases, Suppliers, Reports, Labels and Settings — is greyed out with a crossed-cloud icon until the connection is back, because those screens read live server data.

What needs the internet

Be honest with staff about these, so nobody waits at the counter:

• Store Credit — both spending it on a bill and viewing a customer's balance. Take cash/UPI/card instead; store credit works again once you're back online.
• Cash refunds on a bill that was partly paid with store credit — refund as Store Credit, or wait until you're online.
• Voiding a finalised bill — the Void button greys out offline, because the void has to reverse stock and the H1 register on the server. Return and Print on the same bill stay live.
• Bills older than seven days — the device holds a seven-day window, so offline the date presets and Custom range are clamped to it. A wider range is not refused, it is simply narrowed to what the device has.
• Creating or editing purchase orders, GRNs and purchase returns.
• Switching this device's billing counter — bind the counter before the connection drops (see OFF-03).
• Rack layout changes — the rack label still shows on the pick list offline; only editing the layout needs a connection.

Steps

1. Notice the indicator flip to offline — that's all the action required. A pink bar appears above the status bar reading Offline — billing continues and will sync when back online, with the count still waiting to upload in brackets. The status bar repeats it as Offline · N pending sync.

   

2. Bill normally — search or scan, take payment with Pay [F7], hold and recall as usual. Bills finalize locally and queue for upload. The bill number printed on the receipt is the final one; it never changes on sync.

3. Look a bill up if you need to — open Sales. The header carries an Offline — last 7 days chip telling you exactly how far back the list can reach. Bills from the other counters in your store are there too, not just the ones rung up on this terminal.

   

4. Reprint or return from that list — open the bill and everything except Void behaves normally.

   

5. When internet returns — the queue uploads by itself, the pending count falls to zero and the pink bar disappears. Nothing to press.

The three rules of offline

1. Leave the BitMed tab open and on screen — browsers throttle tabs that are hidden or minimised, so the queue drains more slowly. Nothing is lost either way; it catches up when you come back to the window.
2. Never clear browser data while offline or with pending uploads — that's where the queued bills live.
3. Don't "fix" by refreshing repeatedly — offline is a normal mode, not an error.