When the internet drops
Restaurant Wi-Fi fails. Usually for thirty seconds, sometimes for ten minutes, occasionally for an afternoon. Biller is built so that a dropped connection does not cost you an order.
What happens now
When you add a dish, change a bill's stage or cancel a line and the connection is not there, Biller saves that change on the device instead of throwing it away. A bar appears under the top bar telling you exactly what is waiting:
No internet -- 3 changes saved on this device and will sync automatically.
Keep taking orders. The moment the connection comes back the saved changes are sent, oldest first, and the bar disappears on its own. There is nothing to press and nothing to remember. If you can see the Wi-Fi is back and would rather not wait, tap Try now.
The changes stay saved even if you close the tab or the app, or the device runs out of battery. They are not held in memory -- they are written to storage on the device.
What still needs internet
Some things genuinely cannot happen without a server, and Biller will tell you rather than pretend:
- Completing a bill. Settling draws the GST invoice number and touches your plan, both of which the server has to do. Complete the bill once the connection is back. If your plan does not include offline billing, Finish says the bill was not completed (nothing is recorded as paid) -- reconnect and tap Retry.
- Starting a brand new bill works only in the sense that the request is saved -- the bill will not appear on your board until it syncs, so you cannot add items to it while you are offline. Bills that were already open before the connection dropped can be worked on normally.
- Anything with AI in it -- menu scanning, ingredient suggestions, Insights narration.
- Card and UPI capture, SMS and email receipts, buying credits or a plan.
How long a device can stay offline
Up to 5 days since the device last reached the internet (24 hours in a browser that has not guaranteed its storage). On a plan with offline billing, bills finished in that window keep the invoice number the device printed. After that, a full-screen notice asks you to connect once -- nothing saved is lost. A till that has never synced must connect once before it can settle bills offline. Only a cashier, manager or owner can settle a bill offline, the same as online.
The bar is telling you something else
Two other messages can appear in the same place, and both mean something different from "waiting to sync".
"...could not be applied. Open the bills to check them." The connection came back and the server refused one of the saved changes -- most often because the bill moved on in the meantime, or somebody else changed it first. Nothing has been thrown away. Open that bill and make the change again if it is still what you want.
"This device cannot save work offline." This is the one to act on. Your browser is blocking storage -- usually private/incognito browsing, or a site-data setting. On this device, changes made without internet will be lost if the page reloads. Use a normal browser window, or the installed app, before you rely on it during service.
"This browser is too old for offline billing." Also one to act on before service. An older browser cannot record an outage bill safely, so Biller switches offline billing off on that device rather than letting it look like it is working. Everything else carries on normally while the device is online. The notice carries an update link that goes to the right place for the device it is on -- the Play Store on Android, the browser's own update page on a computer.
If you are on the phone app
It behaves exactly the same way. The Android app stores saved changes with the same mechanism the browser uses, so an outage on a waiter's phone is no more dangerous than one on the till.
What to tell your staff
One sentence covers it: if the bar appears, keep working -- the orders are safe and will send themselves. The only two messages that need anyone to stop and do something are the storage warning and the out-of-date-browser notice, and both appear before service rather than in the middle of it.