There's a line at the stall. The customer in front hands you a note for two coffees and a pastry, and asks for a receipt. You need to take the cash, work out the change, print something, and move to the next person — all before the queue grows.
You don't think of this as "invoicing." You think of it as ringing up a sale. That's exactly what this guide is about: using MobileBiz Pro as a counter till — for a market stall, a corner shop, a delivery van, a café counter. No paperwork, no chasing anyone. Money in, receipt out, next customer.
What the setup actually is
Two things, and you probably already own one of them:
- The phone in your pocket. That's the till.
- A generic 58mm Bluetooth thermal printer — the small receipt printer you've seen on every market counter. The $20–40 kind works fine; you don't need a branded one.
Pair the printer once, tell the app your paper is 58mm, and you're done. It's a one-time job — the full walkthrough is in Print Receipts with a Bluetooth Thermal Printer. After that, the printer just sits there and prints.
That's the whole rig. No cash register, no dedicated hardware, no monthly terminal rental.
The shape of the day
Once you're set up, every sale is the same short rhythm — the same three or four taps, hundreds of times a day, until it's muscle memory:
- New Cash Sale. Tap it on the Dashboard. Leave the customer blank for a walk-in — most counter sales don't need a name.
- Add what they're buying. The total climbs as you tap. Coffee, coffee, pastry.
- Mark as Paid. The app knows a cash sale is paid on the spot, so it opens the cash screen for you.
- Type the cash they handed you — or tap a quick-cash chip for a round note. The app shows the change due in big numbers, so you're not doing sums with a queue watching.
- Print. The receipt comes out with the sale, the cash tendered, and the change. Hand it over. Next.
That's it. The customer's gone before the next one reaches the counter. Every button, field, and the change-making screen is spelled out step by step in Print a Receipt for a Cash Sale — keep that one open the first day, then you won't need it.
What it quietly replaces
Here's the part that pays off after closing time. Because every sale went through the app, three old jobs just disappear:
- The cash register — the phone counted every sale as you went.
- The receipt book — no carbon copies, no handwriting, no running out of pads.
- The end-of-day tally — this is the big one. You didn't record sales so you could report on them. You recorded them because that's how you took the money. So the day's takings and what sold are already sitting in your reports, with nothing extra to add up. The shoebox of receipts and the notebook total are gone.
You get the bookkeeping for free, as a side effect of just making sales.
Make the receipt yours
The receipt starts plain, and plain is fine. But when you've got a slow ten minutes, you can put your stall name and logo at the top, add a "Thanks — see you next market!" line at the bottom, and choose which lines show. It takes a few minutes, once — see Customize Your Receipt.
One honest note
Printing receipts is part of Plus, MobileBiz Pro's paid tier. Making and recording the cash sale is free — you can ring up sales and keep your totals today without paying anything. It's the printed receipt from the thermal printer that Plus unlocks. If handing customers a receipt is part of how you trade, that's the line worth crossing — see About Plus for what's included.
Good to Know
- No printer yet? You can still make every cash sale and see your totals — you just won't get the printout. Add the printer whenever you're ready; nothing about your sales changes.
- A quiet stall day is the day to set this up — pair the printer, run one test sale on yourself, personalize the receipt. Then the busy day just works.
- Every company you run keeps its own receipts and totals, so a second stall or a van stays separate from the shop.
Still stuck? Contact Support for help.