Counter Mode

How to use it

1. 1A locked tablet still hears about each scan, so the register keeps working. That signal carries no customer information.
2. 2To set up the kiosk tablet from a locked tablet, open Counter. Under Ready for the next customer, open Set up a tablet and press Show a code to scan, or Copy the link.
3. 3Scan the code with the kiosk tablet and press Connect this tablet on it. This works only when Counter staff can pair tablets is on in Settings. The tablet’s row then says Counter staff paired it.
4. 4With that switch off, the tablet says “This tablet is in Counter mode. Switch back to Manager with your Manager PIN to do this.”
5. 5A locked tablet cannot make itself the kiosk, see the paired tablets or unpair one. Those stay with Manager. Only the owner can unpair a tablet.
6. 6Press one of the five buttons down the side and its list opens beside Today. Today stays where it is. Close the list with Close, Escape or a press beside it. Picking anything in it closes it too.
7. 7Set a Manager PIN in Settings, under Counter mode: four digits, typed twice. The PIN itself is never stored, only a scrambled version of it.
8. 8A locked tablet shows no bell and no Help button, so staff see no account notices. Switch back to Manager to read them. A shift note is the exception: it is pinned at the very top of Today in Counter mode too, in yellow, so nobody opening up misses it. Staff can end a note early only if a counter wrote it.
9. 9Where the screen is wide enough, a locked tablet shows the same day panel as Manager, fixed on the right: the month calendar with the day’s shift notes (no names) and the week’s weather. It also shows no “Pick your city” strip, because only you can fix that in Settings.
10. 10Old addresses such as /app/crm and /app/ledger still work. They open the same screen inside the back office.
11. 11Lock the tablet before you hand it to staff. Press Counter on the Manager | Counter switch at the top of the screen.
12. 12A box asks “Lock this tablet?”. Press Lock to lock it. Press Cancel, press Escape or tap outside the box, and nothing is locked.
13. 13Lock for staff (Counter mode) in the classic menu, and Start Counter mode now in Settings, lock straight away without asking.
14. 14No Manager PIN yet? Pressing Counter opens Settings at the Manager PIN box. Set the PIN there first.
15. 15Any tablet signed in to your shop can lock, even one where you never typed the PIN. The shop only needs a Manager PIN.
16. 16If the lock cannot be saved, the tablet stays open and says “That did not work. Nothing was changed. Try again.”
17. 17A locked tablet shows Stamp card & regulars, Today and Shift notes. It also shows Today’s sales and Supplier invoices if you switched them on.
18. 18Any other address, such as Settings or the ledger, opens the stamp card instead. Reloading or restarting the browser keeps the tablet locked.
19. 19While locked, the shop name at the top is not a button, so staff do not see your other shops. The account button holds only Sign out.
20. 20Today on a locked tablet is the counter’s own page. It shows your shop name with Counter beside it, a greeting on your shop’s clock, and the note for this shift.
21. 21It has three big buttons: Give a stamp, Redeem a reward and Leave a note for other shifts.
22. 22Today so far counts stamps given, customers joined, rewards redeemed and notes waiting since midnight. A count that cannot be read is left out, not shown as 0. From 6 November 2026 customers joined includes the people who joined at the counter or on the kiosk, on a locked tablet too. It read 0 there before.
23. 23What to tell customers gives staff the sentence to say. Three examples show what staff can ask the box along the bottom. Pressing one fills the box.
24. 24It shows no takings, setup or Settings. Ask the box for an owner’s screen and it says “That one is in the manager’s view.” Typing that screen’s address opens an empty Today.
25. 25Optional: in Settings, tick Let staff enter today’s sales in Counter mode. It adds one screen, Today’s sales, with one box for the day’s net sales (before tax and tips, after refunds).
26. 26Staff see nothing else from the ledger. It is off until you switch it on. It is a setting of the shop, so every tablet follows it. Untick it and the tool goes.
27. 27Every tool you switch on appears in four places: on the At the counter card, in the bar at the top of a full-page screen, in the box along the bottom, and as its own row under Counter tools.
28. 28Those rows always show, so staff can see what the tablet can do without pressing anything.
29. 29Staff find Log today’s sales in three places. On Counter, the At the counter card has it under Give a stamp, Redeem a reward and Leave a note for other shifts.
30. 30On a full-page screen, such as Stamp card & regulars, it is in the bar at the top, beside Close. Typing sales, log sales or today’s sales into the box along the bottom also opens it.
31. 31With the box unticked, none of these is there. The box along the bottom says the screen is in the manager’s view.
32. 32These two boxes and Switch to Counter mode by itself save as soon as you press them. Saved appears beside the one you pressed. If it fails, the box goes back and says Not saved, with what to do.
33. 33Optional: in Settings, tick Let staff log supplier invoices in Counter mode. It is separate from the sales box, so you can allow one and not the other.
34. 34With it on, the tablet gets Supplier invoices in the same four places as Today’s sales. Shift notes also gets a Log a supplier invoice button that opens the form.
35. 35Staff pick a supplier or add a new one by name, type the total, the date and a note, then press Save invoice.
36. 36Staff cannot rename or delete a supplier, or mark an invoice paid. They see only the invoices that tablet entered in the last 12 hours. Our database enforces this, not the screen.
37. 37Untick the box and the tool leaves the tablet. Its address opens the stamp card, and a save is refused.
38. 38Invoices from the counter show in Sales & costs under Recent entries, marked Entered at the counter. A filter above the list shows just those.
39. 39It is off until you switch it on. Only you can switch it, and never from a locked tablet.
40. 40An open tablet picks up a change to these two boxes within a minute, without reloading. A half-typed shift note or a number on the keypad is kept.
41. 41If our server cannot be reached, the tablet keeps what it had and asks again.
42. 42Optional, in Settings: Switch to Counter mode by itself after the tablet sits idle. It works only once a Manager PIN is set. Five minutes unless you change it, or off. Every tablet follows what you choose.
43. 43Where the tablet lands depends on how it locked. Counter on the switch, Lock for staff (Counter mode) and Start Counter mode now all open the counter Today.
44. 44The counter Today shows the shift note, the three jobs and what has happened so far. The lock that happens by itself after a quiet spell opens the stamp card instead.
45. 45Switching back works the same way. The right Manager PIN opens the manager’s Today as a fresh page, so nothing from the counter stays open behind it.
46. 46Your screens go the moment you press Lock. A plain “Locking…” covers the whole screen first, so nothing of your back office shows.
47. 47If our server cannot save the lock, the cover lifts and your screen comes back as you left it, with “That did not work. Nothing was changed. Try again.” Nothing is locked then.
48. 48The lock that happens by itself does the same, and says so in a line at the foot of the screen.
49. 49To switch back to Manager, press Manager on the switch at the top and type your Manager PIN. The pad says Enter your Manager PIN.
50. 50The pad opens over any screen, including a full-page one such as Stamp card & regulars. Cancel, Escape or a tap beside it closes it.
51. 51Five wrong PINs lock the pad for one minute. Each new lock-out is longer: two minutes, then four, up to an hour. During a lock-out even the right PIN is refused.
52. 52Our server counts the wrong PINs, so wiping the tablet’s saved data gives nobody more tries.
53. 53If our server cannot answer, or holds no lock for this tablet, the pad checks the PIN saved in this browser. That lifts the lock on the screen and nothing else.
54. 54If our database still holds the tablet as locked, the next page load locks the screen again. A correct PIN is not a promise that everything opens.
55. 55During a shift note’s hours, it shows as a card at the top of every counter screen, the stamp page included. The card shows the note, who left it, when, and Got it.
56. 56The card never covers the keypad or the phone box, and it waits while somebody types a number. Several notes share one card, marked 1 of 3.
57. 57A note written on another device reaches an open tablet within a moment, without reloading. A note being typed on the tablet is never overwritten.
58. 58A locked tablet shows the same account notices you see, such as a failed payment or a paused shop. Staff get the Manager PIN pad instead of the billing button. No card or bill details show.
59. 59To sign out at the end of a shift, press the round account button at the top right, then Sign out. On the classic screens it is at the bottom of the classic menu, or beside the Manager | Counter switch.
60. 60It asks “Sign out of this tablet?” once. Signing out unlocks the tablet for whoever signs in next.
61. 61On a locked tablet the first press only arms it: the row turns red and says “Tap again to sign out of this tablet”. If you do not tap again, it resets after five seconds.

What it does

• What it is for: it keeps whoever is on shift on the stamp card, and it keeps your customer list and your money screens shut. From 29 October 2026 the lock is also kept in our database, not only in this browser. That is what makes it hold against someone with developer tools: clearing the tablet’s saved data, deleting the lock cookie or editing what the browser remembers does not open anything, because our database still has the tablet marked as locked. From 30 October 2026 that is true of the page itself as well, not only of the buttons on it: before sending a screen to a locked tablet we ask our database whether this tablet is locked, so a page sent to one carries none of your other shops, your sign-in email, your address or your billing, whatever the browser has been told to say about itself. If we cannot reach our database at that moment we send the locked version, so a tablet that cannot be checked is treated as locked. And it runs the other way too: a tablet that thinks it is locked while our database holds no lock for it is not locked, and from 30 October 2026 it says so instead of showing half a locked screen. That happens when a lock never reached us — if you press Counter and the tablet is back in Manager next time you look at it, the lock did not save, and pressing Counter again while the tablet is online fixes it. What it does not do is stop someone who signs in as you. That takes your password, which is not on the tablet. The card in Settings says the short version in one line: Counter mode keeps staff on the stamp card and shift notes, they cannot open Manager, your money or your settings, and your Manager PIN switches back to Manager. Until 25 October 2026 all four sentences of this paragraph were on the card, next to the box where you choose a four-digit PIN. From 25 to 29 October 2026 it was one grey line saying only your PIN unlocked it, which did not say what it unlocked.
• Forgot the PIN? Sign in to KANJIN again with your account password and the PIN is cleared. The PIN pad says so.
• Supplier invoices at the counter are a setting of the shop, like the sales box, and the tablet asks our server whether the tool is on rather than remembering it, so a box ticked on your laptop reaches the tablet and an unticked box takes the tool away. A tablet signed out for the night is refused too, even though its sign-in is still valid for a while. A tablet may log thirty invoices an hour and add ten suppliers an hour, which is far more than a counter does. A supplier name the counter types that is already on your list (spelled the same, ignoring capitals) does not make a second one and does not change the first.
• How the database lock works, from 29 October 2026. Pressing Lock marks that one signed-in session as locked in our database. It is the tablet that is locked, not you: your phone, signed in as you, is not. A locked session cannot read your customers, your sales, your costs or your emails, and cannot change them. It can still do what the counter needs: give a stamp, undo one, redeem a reward, fix a card by one stamp, and use the kiosk. Fixing a card is limited to the stamps one visit gives, at most twenty fixes an hour, and each one is recorded as made at the counter. Only your Manager PIN, checked by our server, lifts the lock.
• The Manager PIN is now kept on our server as well as on the tablet, as a scrambled version, never the digits. Setting, changing or removing it in Settings updates both. If our server cannot be reached when you do that, nothing changes and you are told it did not work, so the two never disagree. Only the owner can set or remove the PIN. A tablet that was locked before this change keeps working: the first time it is locked again, it sends its own PIN to the server once.
• What the lock does not cover. A few buttons that act through our server, such as downloading or erasing a customer, check the lock cookie and then ask the database whether this session is locked. If the database cannot be reached, only the cookie is checked. And the lock is for the stamp card, not for the account: someone who signs in as you with your password is you.
• Whether your shop has a Manager PIN is read from our server, from 30 October 2026. Until then Settings worked it out from the browser you had open, so a shop that already had a PIN still said “Set the Manager PIN” on every other device — your laptop, a second tablet, a phone. The PIN had been set hours earlier and nothing on the screen said so. Settings now asks our server, and every device agrees: a shop with a PIN offers Change the Manager PIN and Remove the Manager PIN, and a shop without one offers Set the Manager PIN. Only that one yes-or-no answer leaves our server; the PIN itself, and the scrambled version of it, never do. The Manager | Counter switch at the top of the screen reads the same answer, from the same day. For one day it did not, and the two disagreed in front of you: the card offered Change the Manager PIN while the switch beside it said Set a Manager PIN in Settings to use Counter mode. On a device that has never had the PIN typed into it, pressing Counter now asks whether to lock the tablet, because your shop has a PIN to unlock it with.
• Changing or removing the Manager PIN in Settings asks for the current Manager PIN first — on a device that knows it. The pad checks what you type against the copy saved in that browser, so a device that has never had the PIN typed into it has nothing to check and would refuse every attempt. On one of those, Change takes you straight to the new PIN and Remove removes it. Either way our server allows it only for the owner of the shop, and never from a locked tablet.
• Start Counter mode now works on a device that has never had the PIN typed into it, from 30 October 2026. Before, that button did nothing at all there: locking needed the PIN saved in that browser. It now locks the tablet through our server, using the PIN your shop already has — and it locks the screen only once our server has the lock, so a tablet can never be shut with no way to open it.
• The two Counter Mode choices, staff may enter Today’s sales and how long the tablet sits idle, are saved on your shop and only you can change them, and never from a locked tablet. A locked tablet is still signed in as you, so without that rule it could tick its own box and give itself the sales tool, or set its own idle time to never; our database refuses both with the same answer it gives a locked tablet that tries to set a new PIN. If our server cannot be reached when you change one, nothing changes and you are told so.
• From 29 October 2026 a locked tablet also refuses the addresses behind the back office. Typing the address of the customer list download, or of the billing pages, gets the message “This tablet is locked to the counter” instead of the file. The kiosk, the customer’s card and the command box on Today are not affected. This door looks at the lock cookie first. If the cookie has been deleted, the database lock described below still keeps the customer list and the money screens empty.
• One address got past that until 30 October 2026: the one that reads your Square sales. It asked Square directly, with the key your shop gave us, so there was nothing in our database for the lock to stop. Someone holding a locked tablet could delete the lock cookie, type that address, and read the takings. Nothing else was open — every other money address reads through our database, which already turns a locked tablet away. Now every address that works through a shop you have connected, or through one of our own keys, asks our database whether this tablet is locked before it does anything: Square sales, connecting Square or Google, the billing pages, and the searches that find local creators. Deleting the cookie makes no difference to the answer. The kiosk, the customer’s card, Suggest a feature, the unsubscribe links in emails and Sign out are not affected, so a locked tablet can still do all of those.
• The same day it went further than addresses. A button is only a way of asking our server to do something, so the server now says no too: a locked tablet cannot change a setting, send an email, add or remove a person, pair a tablet or download your customers, whichever way the request arrives. What the counter needs still works: the stamp keypad, Redeem, Give a stamp, Undo, Fix this card, adding an email at the counter, and the kiosk’s Ready for the next customer and its numbers waiting. If something is refused you see “This tablet is in Counter mode. Switch back to Manager with your Manager PIN to do this.”
• The same night it was closed on what a locked tablet can READ. The stamp card used to send the whole customer list and the top ten regulars with their numbers to a locked tablet and hide them on screen, so they were in the page. A locked tablet is now sent the keypad and the three figures above it, and nothing else; looking up one customer by the number they give you works as it always did, and so does the list of numbers waiting at the kiosk. The list loads when you switch back to Manager. Fix this card is the one write the counter keeps: at a locked tablet it can change a card by at most the number of stamps one visit gives in your shop, and every fix is counted for you on Today. From 29 October 2026 our database enforces this too, so the same limit holds if someone reads through the browser’s own tools.
• Also from 29 October 2026, your own contact details are no longer sent to the tablet at all. The stamp card screen used to be handed your whole shop record, including your email address, your postal address and your name, even though the screen never showed them — so they sat in the page where anyone who knew how to look could read them. It is now sent the twenty things the screen actually uses and nothing else. The email address you sign in with and your shop’s postal address were still in the page after that, one in the list down the side and one in the setup card, so a locked tablet is no longer sent either. The “Signed in as” line is not drawn on a locked tablet. Switch back to Manager and both are sent again.
• Later on 29 October 2026 the rest of that page was looked at the same way, rather than one field at a time. If you have more than one shop, the tablet used to be sent the name, the town and the plan of every other shop on your account. The shop menu at the top never opens on a locked tablet, so nobody could see them — they were in the page all the same. A locked tablet is no longer sent them. It is also no longer sent your plan’s renewal date, how much of your free month is left, how far through setting up your shop you are, or whether your card was declined. What it still gets is what the counter uses: your reward, your shop’s name, its clock and its country, and whether you are on the paid plan. Switch back to Manager with your Manager PIN and all of it is sent again, on the same tablet.
• In the back office the Manager and Counter buttons are in one place. The old frame draws its own pair underneath, and on Today they were both there — hidden behind the new screen, but still reachable with the Tab key. Today now shows one pair. Every other screen is unchanged.
• Two notices carry a link a locked tablet cannot use: the paused shop’s Download my customers, and the failed card’s Change your card. On a locked tablet each is replaced by that same sentence and an Unlock button that opens the Manager PIN pad. Switch back to Manager with your Manager PIN and the link is shown again.
• A lock belongs to one shop. If a different account signs in on the same tablet, the old shop’s lock and PIN are dropped rather than left in the way — the lock lives in the browser, not in the account, so until 25 October 2026 a tablet handed on carried it to the next owner, who met a back office with everything but the stamp card shut and a PIN only the last shop knew. A lock set before that date does not say which shop it belongs to, so the first time any shop signs in on that tablet it is cleared and the PIN has to be set again in Settings — once per device, and never again after that.
• The line telling you how to recover a forgotten PIN is in your language. Until 17 October 2026 it and the pad were in English in every language, which is the worst place in the product for that: they are read by whoever is holding the tablet when it locks, and not understanding them means not getting back in. From 29 October 2026 the pad’s heading, Enter your Manager PIN, and the line under it were reworded and show in English until the next translation round.
• On the stamp card in Counter Mode, staff see the keypad, the stamp stepper, Rewards waiting and Redeem. The customer list, the list of regulars, the card rules, imports and upgrade notes are hidden, and from 29 October 2026 the list and the regulars are not sent to the tablet at all.
• The first page a locked tablet is sent carries none of the manager’s screens, from 30 October 2026. The list down the side (Money, Grow, Settings and the rest), the plan link and the line about pairing a tablet used to be in that page, and the tablet covered them a moment after it loaded. Anybody who looked at the page source, or loaded it with JavaScript off, could read them. Our server knows the tablet is locked before it sends anything, so it now sends the counter’s own list and nothing more. They were only the names of screens: no customer, no money figure and no email address was in that page.

Related screens