LS Central POS offline mode: what happens and what to check
Internet drops mid-Saturday-rush. The good news: a properly configured LS Central POS keeps selling. The bad news: what happens next depends on whether anyone follows up.
What the POS does when the connection drops
The terminal switches to its local transaction storage and keeps recording sales with the last-known master data (items, prices, tenders). Cashiers can keep working — that's the whole point. But understand the limits:
- Lookups use stale data. Prices and item info are whatever was last distributed. A price changed at head office an hour ago won't be reflected.
- Some validations can't run. Anything requiring a live check (certain tender authorizations, customer lookups) may be limited or unavailable.
- It's a buffer, not a second system. Local storage is finite and meant to be temporary. Don't treat offline as a normal operating mode.
When the connection comes back
Queued transactions upload to the central database. This is usually automatic, but "usually" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Run this checklist:
- Confirm the queue drained. Check that all offline transactions reached the transaction list in LS Central. Compare counts: POS report vs. central list.
- Look for conflicts. Anything that changed centrally while the terminal was offline (price updates, item blocks) can create mismatches on the uploaded transactions. Review them before statement calculation.
- Check replication jobs. Make sure distribution and data director jobs are running cleanly again — an outage often leaves a failed job behind it.
- Then run the normal close. Only calculate the statement once the transaction list is complete. (See our end-of-day routine.)
How to know it happened
The sneaky version of this problem: a terminal went offline and back without anyone noticing, and the queue didn't fully drain. Symptoms later: statement totals that don't match the POS report, or "missing" transactions. If the numbers don't tie, always ask: was any terminal offline today? before assuming a posting problem.
Prevention
- Monitor POS connectivity — even a simple ping check per terminal beats finding out from the cashier.
- Keep local storage healthy; don't let terminals run for weeks without syncing.
- Train staff: "POS is offline" is a report-to-management event, not a shrug.