Частые вопросы

Yes, both at the till in SoftPOS, with the Point of sale module.

Several payment methods

With the mixed payment method, one bill is paid with one or more cards and, if you like, a cash part. You enter each part until they add up to the total. With a connected card terminal, the card parts go to the terminal.

Deposit

For a large order or a job that is collected later, turn on Part payment (deposit) at checkout and enter the amount taken now. The sale is saved as partly paid. When the customer comes back, open the sale under Orders, where Open balance lists everything still owed, and collect the rest.

Good to know:

• A sale that includes a gift card must be paid in full, so it cannot take a deposit.
• At a table, guests who want to pay separately split the bill first.

Yes. Pet shop is offered as Early access: you can use it, but not every need of this kind of business is covered yet.

What Softphia recommends for a pet shop:

• Point of sale for the shop counter. The till opens on the sales screen, with the appointments one tap away.
• Appointments for grooming: bookings for a team member and a resource, such as a grooming table, with the free times worked out for you.
• Email and SMS for booking confirmations and reminders.
• Optional: Inventory for the stock of food and supplies.

Grooming services are set up in the Service Catalog with their price and duration, next to your products.

What to keep in mind: appointments are booked for the customer, the pet's owner. Softphia keeps no separate record for each animal, so note the animal's details in the description of the booking.

Not by themselves. Softphia has no online booking page for clients. Your team books every appointment, whether the client calls, writes or walks in:

• In the Softphia panel, under Venue & Scheduling > Appointments: choose the branch, the team member, the length and a free start time, then enter the client's details. You can note where the booking came from, for example Phone, Walk-in or Instagram.
• In SoftPOS, from Booking or the Chairs board: a booking made at the till belongs to a customer record, and the services in the cart can be booked directly, with their durations setting the length.

Both apps use the same calendar, so a booking made at the till is busy in the panel too. With the Email or SMS add-on and these messages switched on, the client then receives a confirmation and a reminder.

Yes. With the Appointments module and the Email or SMS add-on, Softphia can send:

• Appointment booked, Appointment confirmed, Appointment moved and Appointment cancelled,
• Appointment reminder, by default 24 hours before the start; you can choose any time from 15 minutes to 7 days before,
• Visit completed, by email, when the visit is finished and paid at the till.

Each message is switched on per channel under Communication > Notifications, where you can also change its wording. Messages go to the phone number and email address on the booking, in the client's language when it is known. Reminders are sent only for bookings that are still Booked or Confirmed.

What you need: emails leave through your own mail server, and SMS through your own account at a supported SMS provider (BulkGate, Infobip or Twilio), which may charge you per message. Softphia does not sell SMS credit.

Yes. When your business takes items in, Softphia counts the pieces of each order and SoftPOS prints a tag for every one.

• 3 shirts on one line are 3 pieces with 3 tags. A line entered by weight, such as 2.5 kg of laundry, counts as one piece with one tag. Things you sell with the order, such as a garment bag, get no tag.
• A tag shows the number of pieces with the order number, the item with its treatment, for example Trousers Dry cleaning, and the customer's name. It carries no price.
• Pieces are numbered across the order, and a number is never given out twice.
• Tags print with the ticket when you finish the intake, and you can reprint all of them or a single piece later.
• They go to a tag printer of the branch, or to the receipt printer if there is none.

You can switch tags off in the intake setup. The Softphia panel prints the customer ticket, but not the tags.

Yes, with the Point of sale module and the Table management add-on. In SoftPOS you open the table and choose Split Bill:

1. Add a guest for each person who pays separately; you can give each guest a name.
2. Hand each guest their share of every line, unit by unit, until every item is assigned.
3. Confirm. Each guest now has a bill of their own, priced by Softphia, and you take payment one bill at a time. The other bills stay open on the table.

Good to know:

• A table is split once, and split bills cannot be joined again.
• Sending to the kitchen still covers the whole table, and the kitchen ticket lists the items under each guest's name.
• A guest can also pay their own bill partly in cash and partly by card, with the mixed payment method.

Yes, once your paid subscription is running. You make changes in the Softphia panel under Settings > Billing & Subscription, with Manage subscription.

Adding and removing

• A module, add-on or more capacity is charged now for the rest of the current billing period and works as soon as the payment is confirmed.
• A removal costs nothing now. It takes effect at the end of the billing period, and you keep the function until then. The records you created with it are not deleted.
• During the trial the setup stays as you chose it: start your paid subscription first, then change it.

Cancelling

• A cancellation always takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Nothing more is charged, and until that date you can still decide to keep the subscription.
• After that the account is read-only: you can still sign in, view and export your data, and the till pauses sales.
• Your data is kept. To come back, start a new paid subscription on the same account; nothing has to be set up again.

Both. Your price list is your catalogue: each line of a cleaning order names a product and is charged that product's price.

• Per piece: create a product for each garment, such as Shirt, Trousers or Suit, with its price. The quantity on the order is the number of pieces, and every piece gets a tag.
• Per kilo: enter the weight as the quantity. The whole line counts as one piece with one tag.
• Several treatments: if a garment can be cleaned, ironed or altered at different prices, give the product variants. The variant is printed with the item on the ticket and on the tag.
• Extras: something you sell with the order, such as a garment bag, can be added in the Softphia panel as a material line; it is charged but gets no tag.

Garments are products without stock tracking. If you also have the Inventory module, set them to keep no stock; otherwise they count as materials and get no tag.

Yes. What you can take out:

• Catalogue: Catalog / Product Management > Import / Export exports products, categories or the full catalogue as an XLSX file, with variants, recipes and, with the Inventory module, a snapshot of your stock. The file has the same layout as the import, so you can edit it and upload it again.
• Reports: with the Analytics module, each analytics report can be downloaded as a CSV file. The finance reports can be printed.
• Documents: sales invoices and credit notes can be downloaded as PDF, and with Point of sale also the Z report of each closed till shift.

If your trial or your subscription ends, the account becomes read-only, but you can still sign in, view your data and export it.

Yes. In the Softphia panel, Catalog / Product Management > Import / Export reads an XLSX or CSV file laid out like the Softphia catalogue workbook.

1. Download a template, Simple products or Full catalogue, or export your current catalogue to use as a starting file.
2. Fill in your products and categories and, if you use them, variants, recipes and opening stock.
3. Upload the file with Upload and check. Softphia checks every row and shows what it would create, update or refuse.
4. Click Confirm and apply. Rows with errors are left out; the annotated file says why, so you can fix them and upload the file again.

Good to know:

• Recipe rows need the Recipes module, and stock rows the Inventory module.
• The new products must fit your product limit.
• Brands, suppliers and options must already exist before the file refers to them.
• The workbook covers your catalogue. Customers are not imported; you add them in the panel or at the till.

Yes. When your business takes vehicles or devices in, the Work orders module adds the Vehicles & devices register. No separate add-on is needed.

• Each vehicle, device, machine or installation is registered once, under its owner, with its type, its identifier (such as the plate, IMEI or serial number), make, model and notes.
• Every reading taken at intake or on the record, such as mileage or operating hours, is kept in its reading history.
• From the record you open all its work orders and its maintenance plans.

If a new reading is lower than the last one, Softphia points it out. Correct the value, or mark that the gauge was replaced or reset, and the new reading is accepted.

Built-in types cover vehicles, phones and tablets, computers, appliances and equipment, machines, installations and lifts. You switch on the types you need, and you can add your own with extra fields and an intake checklist.

Yes, with the Recipes module. Recipes are never deleted, so their history stays on record.

• A recipe in Draft can still be changed. Once it is Active, it is read-only, so the version that sales and production used is kept as it was.
• To change an active recipe, you clone it. The copy becomes the next version, for example v2, as a draft. When you activate it, the previous version becomes Inactive.
• A product variant has one active recipe at a time.
• Each production order keeps the recipe version it was created with; a new order uses the version that is active at that moment.

Every saved recipe also shows a cost analysis: the estimated cost of one batch and of one unit, priced from the ingredient lots in stock, which needs the Inventory module. The real cost is fixed when a production order is completed.

Yes. Access in Softphia works with roles, and this is included in Softphia Core.

• A role is a set of permissions, such as listing products or creating refunds. You create your own roles, for example one for cashiers and one for managers, and give each user a role.
• The person who signs up holds the admin role, which has every permission.
• Menu items and screens that a role does not allow are hidden. The same roles apply in the Softphia panel, at the till in SoftPOS and in SoftBoss.
• Every change to roles and to who holds them is kept in a change history.

At the till

Staff sign in to SoftPOS with their own PIN, or with an NFC card on devices that read one. Some actions can be left to managers: opening or closing the till, changing a price or giving a discount, voiding an item already sent to the kitchen, and refunds. When a cashier without the permission starts one of them, a manager of the same branch confirms it on the spot with their PIN or card, and Softphia records who approved it.

Yes, you choose one of them.

• Monthly: billed every month.
• Annual: billed once a year. It costs less than twelve monthly payments, and the pricing page shows how much you save.

You pick the period at sign-up, for the time after the trial. When you start paying under Settings > Billing & Subscription, that choice is preselected, and you can still change it.

Payment and renewal

• You pay by card, on the payment provider's secure page.
• The first period is charged when you start the paid subscription, and then at the start of each billing period. You can cancel at the end of any period.
• Softphia issues an invoice for each payment. You find your invoices on the Billing & Subscription screen and can download them as PDF.

Good to know: you can switch from monthly to annual later, but an annual subscription cannot be switched back to monthly.

Yes. Production uses three modules: Production, Recipes and Inventory. Production works only together with the other two.

1. Ingredients such as flour, butter and yeast are raw materials with stock. Doughs or creams you make in batches can be semi-finished products, and what you sell are finished products.
2. Each product you make has an active recipe: its ingredients, how much one batch yields and the expected scrap.
3. Each morning, create a production order with the planned quantity, check the material requirements, start it and, when the batch is ready, complete it with the quantity actually produced.
4. On completion, the ingredients leave stock and a new stock lot of the finished product enters it, with a unit cost calculated from what was used.

Products you make when the customer orders, such as a filled sandwich, can instead deduct their ingredients at each sale. The counter sells in SoftPOS with Point of sale, and if an ingredient runs out, the till shows what is missing.

For a bakery, Softphia recommends Point of sale; Production is optional.

Yes, with maintenance plans. They come with the Work orders module when your business takes vehicles or devices in.

A plan belongs to one vehicle or device and says how often it comes back for service:

• every so many months,
• every so many kilometres or operating hours, if the asset has a meter,
• or both, whichever comes first.

An asset without a meter, such as most appliances, can only be planned by months. A plan by reading estimates the due day from how fast the reading moves.

When a plan falls due, it is listed under Operations > Maintenance plans in the panel and on the Maintenance due tab of the work orders board in SoftPOS, where you create its work order with the lines already filled in. Softphia can also create the draft by itself. With Remind the customer switched on and the Email or SMS add-on, the customer is told once that the maintenance is due.

For lifts or heating installations, a plan can be set as a visit done on site, at the asset's address.

Yes. In Softphia each location of your business, such as a shop, a branch or an office, is a warehouse under Stock & Logistics > Warehouses. One location is included in every subscription, and each Additional location adds one more.

What belongs to a location:

• Tills and staff: every POS station and every user is assigned to one location, and a till sells from its own location.
• Invoice numbers: each location has an invoice prefix that starts the numbers of its sales.
• Working hours, which decide the free times for appointments.
• In a restaurant, its own floor plan, kitchen stations and printers.
• Stock: with the Inventory module, stock is kept per location. You move goods between locations with stock transfers, and the receiving location confirms what arrived.

Your product catalogue and your customers are shared by all locations, and gift cards are valid at every branch.

Not yet. Softphia has no web shop today. The Online store module is coming soon: it cannot be ordered or used yet. At sign-up and under Manage subscription it is shown as Coming soon and cannot be chosen.

What you can do today:

• Take the orders customers place by phone at the till in SoftPOS, as pickup or delivery orders, with the Point of sale module.
• Send quotes and invoices to customers by email, with the Email add-on. An invoice of a business in Switzerland or Liechtenstein can carry a Swiss QR bill, so the customer can pay it by scanning the code.

Yes, as part of Softphia Core. Every sale gets an invoice number, and an accepted quote can be turned into an invoice.

A Swiss QR bill, the payment part with a QR code, is added to page 2 of an invoice when:

• your company address is in Switzerland or Liechtenstein,
• your company currency is CHF or EUR,
• your company name and IBAN are filled in,
• the sale still has an amount due.

The QR bill asks for the amount still due, not the original total, and Softphia creates its payment reference. A fully paid invoice prints without a payment part.

You print invoices or download them as PDF in the Softphia panel. To email them to customers from your own address, you need the Email add-on. With the Reconciliation add-on, incoming bank payments can then be matched to these invoices by their reference.

Yes, with the Point of sale module. Restaurants, cafés, bakeries and takeaways have the pickup queue on their till; other businesses switch pickup on per branch. Delivery is switched on per branch.

Pickup

A pickup order gets a ticket number and waits on the Pickup queue. Staff move it through preparing and ready and hand it over when the customer collects it. You can set an estimated pickup time. The order can be paid at once, or placed unpaid and paid on collection; a branch that routes payments through a card terminal takes the payment when the order is placed.

Delivery

A delivery order takes the customer's address, a delivery method with its fee and, if needed, a scheduled time. The Delivery dispatch board then follows each order until it has been delivered.

Good to know

• With the Kitchen display add-on, the kitchen's progress moves the orders on for you.
• With the Email or SMS add-on, customers can be told that their order is ready to collect or on its way, once you switch these messages on.
• Customers cannot order online yet: the Online store is coming soon and cannot be ordered.

Yes, with the Inventory module.

• Every stock entry is a lot: one product in one warehouse, with its quantity and cost and, if you enter them, a batch number, a manufacturing date and an expiry date.
• Lots past their expiry date are not sold.
• Which lot a sale takes first is a company setting, Sales Strategy: FIFO (first in, first out) by default, or FEFO (first expired, first out), LIFO (last in, first out) or LCFO (lowest cost, first out). Choose FEFO to sell what expires first.
• The same order applies when production orders and recipes use up ingredients.
• Every change of stock is recorded as a movement: purchases, transfers, sales, refunds and production.

The Stock Dashboard shows your stock value and the products that are below their minimum stock.

Yes.

• For each person: using SoftSI is a permission in the role editor. Leave it out of a role, and the people with that role do not see SoftSI in the panel or in SoftBoss. Everything else in Softphia works as before.
• For the whole business: the admin role always keeps every permission, SoftSI included. If you want SoftSI switched off for everyone, contact Softphia support.

When nobody uses it, SoftSI uses no AI credits. None of your records depend on SoftSI: quotes, sales and everything else work the same whether it is used or not.

Yes, at the till in SoftPOS, with the Point of sale module.

Barcode scanner

A scanner that types the code like a keyboard works with SoftPOS. Switch the sales screen to barcode mode and scan one item after another: each scan adds the product, and the first scan opens a sale if none is open. A product with several variants asks which one to add, unless you scan a variant's own SKU. A code that is not found can be searched in the catalogue straight away.

Scale labels

SoftPOS can read labels printed by a scale that carry the weight, and it uses the weight as the quantity. This works once the label format of your scale has been set up for your business. There is no screen for this in the panel, so mention your scale during onboarding. Labels that carry their own price instead of a weight are not accepted; add those items from the catalogue.

Products, barcodes and SKUs are part of Softphia Core.

Yes, with the Table management add-on, which needs Point of sale.

• Floor plan: you draw your floors and tables in the Softphia panel under Venue & Scheduling > Restaurant Plan. Each branch has its own plan.
• At the till: SoftPOS opens on the floor. You open a table, add items, send rounds to the kitchen, print a pre-bill and take payment. A table can be moved, and items can be transferred to another table.
• Table status: the floor shows each table as Available, Occupied or Reserved, and all tills of the branch see the same plan.
• Reservations: taken and managed in SoftPOS, with the guest's name, the table, date and time, duration and number of persons. A table cannot be booked twice for overlapping times. The panel has no reservations screen.
• On the go: SoftBoss shows occupied tables and reservations live.

For a restaurant, Softphia recommends Point of sale with Table management; kitchen screens and tips are optional add-ons.

Yes, with the Tips add-on, which needs Point of sale.

1. At checkout in SoftPOS, the cashier enters the tip. It is added on top of the amount due and saved with the order.
2. The tips of a till shift form its tip pool. The shift's X and Z reports and the SoftPOS daily report show the tips.
3. After the shift is closed, you share the pool out in the Softphia panel under Operations > Tips Management: directly to the waiter, manually, equally or weighted.

You set a tip rule for all branches or for one branch: the method suggested by default, and who may receive tips, waiters only or all staff including the kitchen. The panel also keeps the distribution history and a summary per staff member.

The add-on suits cafés, bars and restaurants, and also salons and other service businesses.

Yes. Using SoftSI is a permission in the role editor, like any other.

• The person who signed up holds the admin role, which includes SoftSI. For the roles you create, you decide whether their holders may use it. People without it do not see SoftSI in the panel or in SoftBoss.
• SoftSI works with the permissions of the person using it. If a cashier's role does not allow quotes, SoftSI cannot make a quote for that cashier either; the step is refused and the reason is shown.
• Every person has their own conversation, and a change with a business effect waits for the approval of the person who asked for it.
• Seeing the AI credits needs access to the subscription, and buying credit packs needs the right to manage it.

Yes, with the Reconciliation add-on.

1. Register your bank account in the Softphia panel.
2. Upload a statement file from your bank in camt.053 or camt.054 format, and start the reconciliation.
3. Softphia matches a payment automatically when its payment reference belongs to an open sale and the amount and currency agree. For other lines it can suggest a document. Bank fees, interest and internal transfers are classified rather than matched.
4. You accept the suggestions, match the rest by hand and resolve what is left as exceptions.

A match records the bank payment on the sale and books the money into the linked money account, so your unpaid invoices are updated without typing.

Automatic matching relies on the payment reference that Softphia prints on its QR bills. References are created when your company is in Switzerland or Liechtenstein, works in CHF or EUR and has an IBAN on file.

It never deletes anything and never pays money out. Some work is never left to SoftSI, whatever you ask and whatever your role:

• It never deletes anything, not even a draft it created itself.
• It never refunds a payment, never cancels a sale, never pays a supplier, never moves money between accounts and never takes a payment at the till.
• It never changes users, roles, permissions, passwords, company settings or your subscription.
• It never opens or closes a till.
• It never sends anything you have not approved: it emails a quote or an invoice to your customer only once you approve the address, and it sends no text messages.

These actions cannot be taken back or decide who has access, so a person does them on the screen made for them.

Money coming in is the one exception. SoftSI can record a payment your customer has already made, on a sale or on an invoice that bills several sales. It shows you the payment on an approval card first and records nothing until you approve with your password or the code of your authenticator app.

Yes. SoftSI uses an AI model, and like any AI it can misunderstand a request, pick the wrong record or word an answer badly. Softphia is built so that a mistake stays small and visible:

• SoftSI only works with records it has found in your data. When two customers or products match, it asks you which one you mean.
• Prices, taxes and totals are always calculated by Softphia, never by the AI.
• What SoftSI does on your word alone, such as a quote draft, a new customer or a booking, can be changed or removed on its screen.
• Every change with a business effect is shown to you first, value by value, and only happens once you approve it. Read the card before you approve.
• SoftSI never deletes anything and never pays money out.

The answers of the advisor on the Softphia website are generated from Softphia's public catalogue and may be incomplete. If an answer looks wrong, ask again in other words or do the task on its screen.

No. You start the trial on the sign-up page without entering any payment details, and nothing is charged while it runs.

• The trial lasts 15 days from the day you sign up.
• It does not turn into a paid subscription by itself. When it ends, nothing is charged.
• You add a card only when you decide to continue: in the Softphia panel, under Settings > Billing & Subscription, you start your paid subscription and pay on the payment provider's secure page. You can do this at any time during the trial or after it has ended.
• Card details are entered with the payment provider, not in Softphia.

Each business has one trial. It runs with the configuration you chose at sign-up, and Settings > Billing & Subscription shows how many days are left.

Yes, without being typed in twice. You set up kitchen stations, such as the hot kitchen or the bar, and route categories or single products to them. Each item then goes to its station.

On screens: Kitchen display

With the Kitchen display add-on, which needs Point of sale, orders appear on a kitchen screen running SoftKitchen. The board has the columns PENDING, PREPARING and READY, and the cooks move each ticket forward. For takeaway and delivery orders, the kitchen's progress also updates the order at the till. One kitchen screen is included, and each Additional kitchen screen adds one.

On paper: kitchen printers

At tables served with the Table management add-on, staff send each round with Send to Kitchen, and the tickets print on the kitchen printers of the stations. You do not need a kitchen screen for this.

Good to know: at a counter without table service, orders reach the kitchen screens as soon as the sale is recorded; the kitchen printers do not print them.

SoftSI reads only what a request needs, and only what the person asking may see. It has no access of its own to your data: it looks records up through the same functions as the Softphia screens, with that person's permissions.

• The AI model receives the request, the conversation and the results of the look-ups made for it. From a list it receives only the fields it needs, such as a customer's name and phone number.
• The AI model is provided by OpenAI, which processes these requests under its terms with Softphia. Softphia does not use your data to train AI models.
• The password or code you type to approve an important change is checked by Softphia and never passed to the AI.
• The Help mode answers from the Softphia guide, not from your records.
• The advisor on the Softphia website sees no business data at all. Please do not type personal details into it.

A refund always refers to the original sale, so the money and the stock stay connected to it. Refunds are included in Softphia Core; at the till they need Point of sale.

At the till

In SoftPOS you open the sale and refund single lines, the whole order, a partial amount or a goodwill amount. The money goes back the way it was paid, spread over the sale's payment methods, and a refund can never be more than was collected. If the cashier may not refund, a manager approves it on the spot with their PIN or card.

In the panel

On the order page you can refund with or without a till. The panel creates a credit note, and for each line you choose whether the goods go back into stock.

Good to know

• With the Inventory module, refunded items return to stock; at the till they always do.
• Payments made through a card terminal or with a gift card are refunded at the till, where the card is. A Pavo card payment is refunded on the terminal itself.
• With the Email add-on, the customer can receive a refund message or the credit note by email.

With the Point of sale module, every payment at the till belongs to a cash register shift, which each till opens and closes on its own.

1. Open: at the start of the day, open the register in SoftPOS and enter the cash you put in the drawer.
2. During the day: record the cash you put in or take out, for example for change or a small purchase. The X report shows an interim reading of the shift at any time.
3. Close: count the drawer by notes and coins, or enter the total. The till shows the expected cash, your count and any difference, marked short, over or balanced. Then close the register.

The Z report of the closed shift is stored with the counted cash, the takings per payment method, the refunds and the tips. You can print it at the till, and in the Softphia panel under Operations > Cash Register you follow the shifts of all your tills and download Z reports as PDF.

Opening and closing can be left to managers: a cashier without the permission needs a manager's approval at the till. A closed shift cannot be reopened.

Before SoftSI books a sale, issues an invoice, takes goods into stock or makes any other change with a business effect, it shows you a card with exactly what will be sent: the customer, the branch, every line and its quantity. Nothing happens until you click Approve.

• The approval comes from Softphia, not from the AI. Only your click creates it, so the AI cannot approve anything on its own.
• It covers exactly the values on the card. If anything else would be sent, the step is stopped.
• It works once and only for a short time, and a step never runs twice.
• For high-impact changes, such as a new price for many products at once or a supplier's bill, you also confirm with your password or the code of your authenticator app.
• Even an approved step is checked like any action on the screens: if your role does not allow it, it is refused.

Look-ups, and drafts you can still change, such as a quote draft, run straight away on your word.

For a dry cleaner or a laundry, Softphia recommends Point of sale and Work orders, with Email and SMS to tell customers when their order is ready. On screen, work orders are called cleaning orders; a tailor or a shoe repairer sees jobs instead.

1. Drop-off: in SoftPOS, choose the customer and add the items, such as 3 shirts and a suit. The customer accepts your service terms, and you can name a risk, such as a stain that may not come out.
2. Ticket and tags: the customer gets a ticket with a tracking QR code, and every piece gets its own tag. The customer can pay now or at pick-up.
3. Work: tap Start work when cleaning begins and Mark ready when everything is done. If the Work order ready message is switched on, the customer gets an email or SMS.
4. Pick-up: scan the ticket, gather the pieces by their tags, take the payment if it is still open, then tap Hand over and Complete.

The Ready tab of the board lists everything that is waiting for collection.

With the Work orders module. On screen, a work order takes your trade's word: a garage or phone repair shop sees repair orders, a technical service sees jobs.

1. Intake: at the counter in SoftPOS or in the Softphia panel, choose the customer and the vehicle or device they hand over, or register a new one. Record the reading, such as the mileage, answer the intake checklist and describe the problem. For phones and computers you can store the unlock code; it is never printed and is deleted at handover.
2. Terms: the customer accepts your published service terms and any risk you name, and you record the answer.
3. Ticket: the customer gets a ticket with a tracking code, also as a QR code, which your staff scan to find the order again.
4. Work: add labour and parts, assign a staff member and move the order through In progress and Ready.
5. Handover: the bill goes to a till and is paid like any sale, which needs Point of sale; then you hand the vehicle or device over.

Work can also be done at the customer's site, with the visit address on the order.

With the Appointments module, the Softphia panel and SoftPOS offer only start times that are really free, and both use the same calendar. A time is offered when:

• the branch is open for the whole length of the appointment,
• the team member has no other booking at that time and, with the Staff & HR module, no recorded time off,
• a resource, such as a chair, a nail table or a tattoo room, still has room. Each resource has a capacity: how many bookings may overlap on it.

The time is checked again when you save. If someone took the same chair or person a moment earlier, you are asked to pick another time. Cancelled bookings and no-shows free their time again.

Bookings can be moved or cancelled later, and a new time goes through the same check.

In SoftPOS, the length of a booking follows the durations of the booked services, so a long tattoo session blocks the right amount of time.

You pay only for the parts you choose. Every subscription has Softphia Core. On top of it you choose modules, such as Point of sale or Appointments, smaller add-ons, such as Kitchen display or SMS, and extra capacity if the included limits are not enough. You pay for that selection monthly or annually.

• Prices are in Swiss francs (CHF). The pricing page states that no VAT is charged.
• There is no setup fee. Remote onboarding is part of the subscription.
• The 15-day trial is free and needs no card.

See your price before you sign up

On the pricing page of the Softphia website, choose your business type. The page shows the setup Softphia recommends for it, the monthly and yearly price with a line for each item, the capacity it includes and the add-ons you can add, with their prices. At sign-up, the Your selection summary shows your price after the trial at every step. Once you are a customer, the panel's Billing & Subscription screen shows your current prices.

To talk your setup through first, choose Request a demo on the contact form of the website.

Every subscription includes:

• 5 users,
• 5,000 products,
• 1 location (warehouse),
• 10,000 customers,
• 1 POS device, with Point of sale,
• 1 kitchen screen, with Kitchen display.

If you need more, you add capacity packs: Additional user (+1), Additional products (+5,000), Additional location (+1), Additional customers (+10,000), Additional POS device (+1) and Additional kitchen screen (+1). At sign-up you simply enter the totals you need, or start from a preset such as Larger team, Several registers, Large catalogue or Several locations, and Softphia works out the packs and their price.

Good to know:

• Only login accounts count as users. Team members who never sign in, for example a stylist who is only booked for appointments, do not count.
• Records you delete no longer count.
• When a limit is reached, everything you already have keeps working; you cannot add one more until you raise the limit or remove a record.
• Once your paid subscription runs, you can raise capacity at any time under Manage subscription.

Printed documents

Receipts, pre-bills, invoices and their PDFs, credit notes, kitchen tickets, X and Z reports and work-order tickets are always in your business's default language, whoever prints them and whatever language their app is set to. You choose the default language at sign-up and can change it later under Settings > Languages. If the default language is not one Softphia can print in, documents are printed in English.

Customer messages

Emails and SMS to customers, sent with the Email or SMS add-on, such as an appointment reminder or an order-ready message, use the language on the customer's card. If it is empty, your default language is used, and then English. You can write your own wording for each channel and language.

Good to know

The service terms that customers accept when they hand in work are put to them in the default language, so publish your terms in that language.

Yes, with limits. Small manufacturer is offered as Early access: you can use it, but not every need of a manufacturing business is covered yet.

What works today:

• With the Inventory module, the materials you buy are raw materials, sub-assemblies are semi-finished products and the goods you sell are finished products, all with stock.
• With Recipes and Production, each product has a recipe, and production orders consume the materials and add the product to stock with its material cost.
• You sell from the Softphia panel, or at a till with Point of sale.

Current limits:

• A production order has one warehouse, one product variant and one completion; its output cannot be recorded in several steps.
• An order has no planned date other than its creation date, and starting it does not reserve materials.
• The cost of a produced lot covers materials only, not labour or machine time.
• Each order works on one recipe level: make sub-assemblies with their own orders first.

Yes. SoftSI is part of Softphia Core, so every subscription includes it, and you do not need an extra module for it.

• Your subscription comes with a monthly free allowance of AI credits. Each request to the assistant uses some credits for the AI's work. The allowance starts again every calendar month, and what is left is not carried over. A free trial has a smaller allowance.
• The Help mode, which explains how Softphia works, is free and uses no credits.
• If your business needs more, you can buy credit packs. Purchased credits carry over from month to month and are used once the free allowance is spent.

What SoftSI can do for you also follows your modules: booking an appointment through SoftSI, for example, needs the Appointments module, just like booking it by hand.

Messages to the customer

With the Work orders module and the Email or SMS add-on, Softphia can tell the customer when:

• the order is received (Work order received),
• it is marked ready (Work order ready),
• it is handed over or completed, by email,
• it is cancelled after the customer was told about it,
• a maintenance plan falls due (Maintenance due).

Each message is switched on per event and channel under Communication > Notifications. The messages name the order number and the tracking number and are sent in the customer's language, to the email address or phone number on the customer's record. Payment is taken at the till, at drop-off or when the customer collects.

Tracking

There is no online page where customers look up their order. The customer ticket carries a tracking code, also as a QR code, and your staff scan or type it to find the order when the customer calls or comes in.

Yes, while it lasts. Launch Partner is Softphia's introductory offer: a percentage off your first paid subscription for a set number of months.

• The pricing page and the Billing step of the sign-up show the offer's name, the percentage and the number of months. The discount applies from your first paid period after the trial.
• You need no code. When you start your paid subscription, the discount is applied by itself and appears as its own line.
• The offer runs for a limited time and for a limited number of businesses, and each business can use it once. If no place is left when you sign up, the sign-up tells you and shows the updated price.

Good to know: while the discount runs, the billing period cannot be changed. With annual billing, functions and capacity can be added only after the discount period has ended.

During the trial you work with the configuration you chose at sign-up: Softphia Core, the modules and add-ons you selected and the capacity you set, such as the number of users and POS devices. The apps that belong to it all work, so you can sell at the till, send orders to the kitchen or book appointments as you would in daily use.

Good to know:

• At sign-up, Softphia suggests a starting set for your business type. You can add or remove functions there, and the Your selection summary shows what your choice will cost after the trial.
• During the trial the configuration stays as chosen. To add or remove a function or to change capacity, start your paid subscription first; after that you can change it at any time.
• What you enter during the trial is kept when you start paying, so nothing has to be set up again.
• Online store is shown as Coming soon at sign-up and cannot be chosen yet.

SoftSI itself costs nothing extra: it is part of Softphia Core and comes with every subscription.

• Each request to the assistant uses AI credits, more for a request with many steps than for a short question. Your subscription includes a free allowance every month, and a free trial a smaller one. Free credits a month does not use are not carried over.
• The Help mode, which explains how Softphia works, is free, and so is the advisor on the Softphia website.
• If you need more, credit packs come in three sizes: Starter, Plus and Pro. A pack is paid once by card and does not change your subscription. Purchased credits carry over from month to month and are used after the free allowance.
• When all credits are used up, the assistant pauses until the next month's allowance or a new pack. The Help mode and the rest of Softphia keep working as usual.

For the current pack prices, contact the Softphia team.

Nothing is charged and nothing is deleted.

• The subscription status becomes Expired.
• Your data is kept. You can still sign in to the Softphia panel, view your records and export them, for example your catalogue.
• New changes are not saved until you continue, and SoftPOS pauses sales until the subscription is paid.
• To continue, open Settings > Billing & Subscription and start your paid subscription. Your company, data and settings stay exactly as they are; nothing has to be set up again.

You can also start paying before the trial ends, so that there is no break. The billing period you chose at sign-up, monthly or annual, is preselected when you start paying, and you can still change it then.

Each business has one trial, and it cannot be restarted.

Always included: Softphia Core

Products and services, customers, quotes that become invoices, unpaid invoice tracking, payments and refunds, purchasing and suppliers, money accounts and cash transactions, users, roles and settings. The SoftBoss app is included too.

Modules

Point of sale, Inventory, Recipes, Production, Staff & HR, Appointments, Analytics and Work orders. Online store is coming soon and cannot be ordered yet.

Add-ons

Kitchen display, Tips, Table management, Reconciliation, Email and SMS. Email and SMS send customer messages through your own mail server and your own account at an SMS provider. SumUp payments and Pavo payments connect a card terminal to the till.

What needs what

• Kitchen display, Tips, Table management, SumUp payments and Pavo payments need Point of sale.
• Production needs Recipes and Inventory.

At sign-up, a function that depends on another one says so, and Softphia points out anything missing before you confirm. The pricing page shows the price of each item.

Softphia is business software for the working day of a shop, restaurant, salon, workshop or service business. Sales, customers, invoices, stock, appointments, work orders and money are kept in one place, so a sale made at the counter does not have to be typed in again in the office.

The apps

• The Softphia panel runs in your web browser. It is the back office: products, customers, quotes and invoices, purchasing, money accounts, users and settings.
• SoftPOS is the till app for a tablet or computer. It comes with the Point of sale module.
• SoftKitchen shows orders on a screen in the kitchen. It needs the Kitchen display add-on.
• SoftBoss is the mobile app for owners and managers. It shows the day's figures and the finances; it only reads your data and changes nothing.

How it is put together

Every subscription includes Softphia Core. You add the modules and add-ons your business needs, such as Inventory, Appointments or Work orders, and pay only for what you choose. The business type you pick at sign-up suggests a starting set and uses your trade's word for a job on screen, such as cleaning orders at a dry cleaner.

SoftSI is the assistant built into Softphia. You tell it in your own words what you need, for example "make a quote for Garage Weber with four winter tyres", and it finds the customer and the products, prepares the quote and opens it for you.

• In the Softphia panel, SoftSI finds records, prepares quotes and work orders, adds customers, products and suppliers, and books appointments and tables. Once you approve, it also books sales, takes deliveries into stock or plans a price change for a whole category. Its Help mode explains how Softphia works.
• In SoftBoss, the mobile app for owners and managers, it answers questions about your customers, stock, sales and bookings.
• On the Softphia website, SoftSI answers visitors' questions about modules, prices and the right setup.

SoftSI only works within the permissions of the person using it. It asks before any change with a business effect, and it never deletes anything or pays money out.

Two kinds of terminal can be connected to the till, each with its own add-on. Both need Point of sale.

• SumUp payments: a SumUp Solo card reader. You connect your SumUp account in the Softphia panel, pair the reader with the code it shows and assign it to a till.
• Pavo payments: a Pavo terminal on your local network. You register it with its connection details and assign it to a till; the till and the terminal must be on the same network. Refunds of Pavo card payments are made on the terminal itself.

With a connected terminal, the till sends the amount to the terminal and books the sale once the payment is approved. If a payment cannot be confirmed, the till warns you not to charge the customer again, and a manager reviews the case in the panel.

You can also keep any other card terminal. It is not connected: the payment runs on your terminal, and SoftPOS records the card payment, optionally with the terminal's transaction reference.

Each till can have its own terminal.

It depends on the functions you use.

• Back office: the Softphia panel runs in a web browser on any computer. Nothing has to be installed.
• Till: with Point of sale, SoftPOS runs on a tablet or a computer. Each device is connected once as a POS station: Android and iOS devices with a QR code, computers such as Windows PCs with the station code and password. One POS device is included, and each Additional POS device adds one. A station is used by one device at a time.
• Printing: a receipt printer on your network or connected by USB.
• Card payments: a SumUp Solo reader with the SumUp payments add-on, or a Pavo terminal on your local network with Pavo payments.
• Barcodes: a barcode scanner that types the code like a keyboard.
• Kitchen: with Kitchen display, a screen in the kitchen running SoftKitchen. One kitchen screen is included.
• On the go: SoftBoss on the phone of owners and managers.

Use the free trial to try your own devices with Softphia before you start paying.

• The Softphia panel and SoftPOS: English, Turkish, German, French, Italian and Russian.
• SoftKitchen and SoftBoss: English, Turkish, German, French and Italian.
• The website: English, Turkish, German, French and Italian.

Each person chooses their own language, and each app has its own language setting. A cashier can work in Turkish at the till while the manager uses the panel in German.

Your own texts, such as product names and descriptions, can be written in several languages: you switch on the languages your business uses under Settings > Languages, and the product forms then show a tab for each of them.

At sign-up you choose your business's language. It becomes the default language of your printed documents, and the emails Softphia sends you are in this language too.

SoftSI answers in the language you write to it in. Ask in English, Turkish, German, French, Italian or Russian, and the answer comes in the same language.

• In the Softphia panel, SoftSI's buttons and messages follow the panel language: English, Turkish, German, French, Italian or Russian.
• In SoftBoss they follow the app's language: English, Turkish, German, French or Italian.
• The Help mode answers in the language of your panel, from the Softphia guide. Where the guide has no article in that language, it reads the English one.
• The advisor on the Softphia website answers in the language of the question, or else in the language of the page.

SoftPOS sends every print job itself, so printers are set up on the till, in the SoftPOS settings, with the Point of sale module. The Softphia panel lists them per branch.

• Connection: a network printer, entered with its IP address and port or found with a scan, or a USB printer plugged into the till device. A USB printer prints only from the device it is plugged into.
• Paper: 80 mm or 58 mm wide, with automatic cutting and automatic printing if you want them.
• Types: a Receipt printer for receipts and cash reports, a Kitchen printer for kitchen tickets, assigned to kitchen stations, and a Tag printer for the tags of work orders.

Some prints are pictures: work-order tickets and gift card vouchers need a receipt printer that can print pictures. You can test each printer from SoftPOS with a test print before you save it.

A print job that fails waits in the till's print queue and can be printed again. Test your printer with SoftPOS during the free trial.

Softphia Core includes the main figures in the Softphia panel:

• Dashboard: sales, collections, open balances and the cash and bank balance of a period.
• Finance Dashboard: money accounts, cash book, receivables, payables, profit and VAT, with printable reports.
• Accounting Dashboard: a VAT summary and checks of sales and payments.

Modules add their own reports:

• Analytics compares sales and profit with earlier periods and shows the busiest hours, top and weak products, customers, staff and payment methods, with CSV exports.
• Inventory adds the Stock Dashboard with stock value, critical stock and movements.
• Point of sale adds the X and Z reports of every till shift and a daily report in SoftPOS.
• Staff & HR adds the HR Dashboard.
• Reconciliation shows how many bank statement lines are matched.

On the go, SoftBoss shows the dashboard and the finance figures on the phones of owners and managers.

At sign-up you choose an industry and then the business type closest to yours. Softphia currently offers:

• Food & drink: Restaurant, Café, Bar, Takeaway, Bakery.
• Retail: Minimarket, Grocery, Boutique, Pet shop.
• Beauty & wellness: Barber, Nail studio, Tattoo studio.
• Item care & repair: Dry cleaning, Laundry, Tailor, Shoe repair, Watch & jewellery repair.
• Vehicle, device & equipment service: Auto garage, Phone repair, Technical service, Machinery service, Heating & air conditioning, Lift maintenance.
• Manufacturing: Small manufacturer.
• Other: Other business, if nothing fits. You start with the essentials and add what you need.

Your business type suggests a starting set of functions and puts your trade's word for a job on screen: a dry cleaner sees cleaning orders, a garage repair orders, a tailor jobs. It never hides a function you pay for and does not change the price.

For Restaurant, Minimarket, Dry cleaning, Auto garage and Tattoo studio, the daily flow has been tested end to end; for the other types, existing modules carry the whole flow. Pet shop and Small manufacturer are marked Early access: you can use them, but not every need of that kind of business is covered yet.