For anyone who has watched a queue walk out
What to do when your POS machine is down
Why terminals fail at the worst hour, why the account number fallback creates a second problem, and how to keep taking payment when the machine will not.
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The machine is not the only way to be paid
Every business that leans on a terminal has had the same hour: the network is congested, the provider is having a bad day, and the screen says the transaction failed while a queue builds behind the customer. Nobody in that queue cares whose fault it is.
What usually happens next is the fallback everyone reaches for. You read out an account number, the customer transfers, and you carry on. It keeps the sale, and it quietly creates the second problem this guide is really about.
Why it fails
Five reasons a terminal stops working
Worth knowing, because the right response is different for each one.
The mobile network is congested
Most terminals ride on a SIM. At a busy hour, indoors, or in a spot with thin coverage, the request times out. This is the most common cause and the one you can do least about.
The provider is having an outage
When it is the processor rather than your line, every terminal from that provider in the area fails at once. If a neighbouring shop is down too, stop troubleshooting your own setup.
The customer's bank is not responding
The card is fine and your terminal is fine, but the bank on the other side is not answering. Another card often works immediately.
It failed but the customer was debited
The worst version. The payment left their account and never reached yours, and now you are holding a reversal argument instead of serving.
The terminal itself
Flat battery, expired paper, an app that needs updating. The cheapest failures to prevent, and the most embarrassing to hit.
In the moment
What to do while the queue is still standing there
In order. The point is to stop the queue waiting on something you do not control.
Try once more, then stop
One retry is reasonable. Repeated attempts risk multiple holds on the customer's account and turn one reversal into several. If it fails twice, it is not going to work.
Check whether it is you or everyone
Ask a neighbouring business. If they are down as well it is an outage, so stop trying and switch to another way of being paid rather than restarting the machine.
Never release goods on a failed screen
A customer showing a debit on their phone is not the same as a payment in your account. If they were debited on a failed transaction the reversal is between them and their bank, and it will come back.
Switch to a payment the customer controls
If they can pay from their own phone, your terminal being down stops being your problem. That is the whole point of a link, a QR code or an in-app checkout: the payment does not depend on your hardware or your provider.
Write down anything paid another way
The moment you step outside the machine, the record steps outside it too. Note what was sold, how it was paid and who paid, before the next customer.
The hidden cost
What the account number fallback really costs
At the counter
- Today
- Read the number, wait, check
- With TAB
- They pay, it shows as paid
The waiting is the visible cost. Ten transfers in an afternoon is an hour of somebody's day.
In the record
- Today
- A credit with no order attached
- With TAB
- A payment against the order
The terminal at least printed a slip. A transfer into your account says nothing about what it bought.
At closing
- Today
- Match alerts to a notebook
- With TAB
- Read the day's total
The outage is over in an hour. The reconciliation it created waits for you that evening.
In the stock
- Today
- Items left without being recorded
- With TAB
- Stock counts down as it sells
On a bad afternoon this is where the real loss hides, and nobody finds it until the count comes up short.
The two problems are one problem
A payment that records itself is also a payment that reconciles
Downtime and reconciliation get treated as separate complaints. They are the same one. Every payment taken outside your normal route leaves a record somewhere else, or nowhere, and somebody has to join it up later by hand.
So the useful question is not which provider has less downtime. It is whether the payment attaches itself to the order regardless of how it arrives, because that is what decides how the evening goes.
Where TAB fits
One mention, then you can go
TAB takes the payment on the customer's own phone: card (NGN or USD) or bank transfer, through a QR code, a WhatsApp link or your storefront, with no terminal on your side to go down. The payment attaches to the order it paid for and the stock counts down with it, so a bad network hour does not become an evening of matching alerts. If you have a terminal you like, keep it: take the payment on the machine and record it in TAB, and the order and the payment still line up.
Questions we get
The ones worth answering plainly
- What should I do when my POS machine is not working?
- Retry once, check whether nearby businesses are also down to tell an outage from your own line, never release goods on a failed transaction even if the customer shows a debit, and switch to a payment the customer makes from their own phone. Write down anything paid outside the machine before the next customer.
- Can I take card payments without a POS terminal in Nigeria?
- Yes. Card and bank transfer payments can be taken through a link, a QR code or an in-app checkout that the customer completes on their own phone. There is no terminal on your side, so a provider outage on one device does not stop you selling.
- The customer was debited but the transaction failed. What now?
- Do not release the goods on the strength of their screen. A debit on a failed transaction is reversed by their bank, usually within a few working days, and it is between the customer and their bank. Take the payment again by another route so the sale is genuinely paid for.
- Why do POS machines fail so often at busy times?
- Most terminals connect over a mobile network, and the busiest trading hours are also the most congested hours on that network. Add processor outages and the customer's own bank not responding, and the failures cluster exactly when you can least afford them.
- Is collecting by bank transfer a good backup?
- It keeps the sale, but it moves the cost to the evening: the credit arrives with no order attached, so somebody matches it by hand at closing. A payment the customer makes against the order itself keeps the sale and skips the matching.
Think TAB might help?
Tell us what you run and we will say plainly whether it fits, including when it does not.
More guides
For anyone already selling in the chat
How to sell on WhatsApp without losing track of orders
Read the guideFor shops, restaurants and anyone paying terminal rent
How to take card payments without renting a POS machine
Read the guide