Run your shop on one PC. Offline-first.

Kiosk Desktop installs the complete point-of-sale on the till computer. The same app you use in the cloud — same cashier screen, same inventory, same customer tabs — but instead of talking to our servers, it talks to a database that lives on the PC itself. Sales, stock, and shifts keep working with the internet cable unplugged.

What's in the box

• The POS app — cashier screen, inventory, suppliers, reports, settings. The same Kiosk you'd use online.
• A bundled database — a private MariaDB instance that belongs to this install. Your data never leaves the PC unless you share it on the LAN.
• A bundled Java runtime and WebView — nothing else to install on the machine. Windows installs also carry the WebView2 runtime, so setup works fully offline.
• A printer & cash-drawer bridge — ESC/POS receipts go straight to a network receipt printer, and the drawer kick fires from the till.

Ports the app uses

Where your data lives

Everything is under one per-user folder. Deleting it is effectively a factory reset, so treat it with care:

• db/ — the database files.
• backups/ — backups you create from Settings → Desktop.
• media/ — product photos you upload locally.
• kiosk.log, mariadb.log, backend.out.log — diagnostic logs. If something ever looks wrong, these are the first place support will ask you to look.

Install the app

1. Step 01Download the installer for your machine from the download page — Windows 64-bit or macOS.
2. Step 02Windows: run the installer. If SmartScreen warns about an unknown publisher, choose More info → Run anyway until the installer is signed. macOS: drag the app into Applications; if Gatekeeper complains, right-click → Open → Open.
3. Step 03Launch Kiosk Desktop. A splash screen appears with the message “Starting your till…” — the first launch initializes the local database and applies the schema, which takes about a minute. This only happens once.
4. Step 04The app opens the setup wizard. Create the shop owner account, name your business, and you land in the dashboard.

Your first day — the checklist

1. Step 01Add your products. Inventory → add items with a price; print or apply barcodes if you have a label printer. You can also import from a spreadsheet.
2. Step 02Set your opening float — the cash you start the day with in the drawer.
3. Step 03Set up the receipt printer (Settings → Desktop → Receipt printer) if you have one — see Part 5.
4. Step 04Invite your cashier (Settings → Staff) with a PIN, or just sell as the owner for now.
5. Step 05Make a test sale — cash, then a credit tab — and check the receipt prints correctly.

The daily rhythm

A till day has a shape: open, sell, close. If you follow it, the cash in the drawer always matches the ledger — that's the whole trick of a shop.

Open the shift

From the cashier screen, open a new shift and enter the opening float — the notes and coins you put in the drawer. From this moment, every sale, drawout, and refund is recorded against this shift.

Sell

• Scan a barcode — it lands in the cart instantly.
• Search by name if there's no barcode — the shelf updates as you type.
• Weighed items — plug in a scale and sell by weight; the price follows the weight.
• Apply a discount per line or to the whole cart where you've allowed it.

Take payment

• Cash — key the amount given; the app shows the change to return. Split payment lets you take part cash, part tab, or part wallet in one sale.
• Credit tab — attach the sale to a customer who owes you; their tab balance updates immediately.
• Customer wallet — deduct from money the customer has deposited with you in advance.
• Loyalty — let the customer redeem points toward the bill.

Print the receipt

On Desktop, receipts go through the device bridge to your ESC/POS printer — no browser print dialog. The same bridge fires the cash-drawer kick when a cash sale completes.

Close the shift

At the end of the day (or when the cashier hands over), close the shift and count the drawer. Kiosk totals the expected cash from the ledger; the difference between expected and counted is your variance — zero is a perfect day. Drawouts (cash removed mid-shift) are tracked separately so they never look like shortages.

Kiosk Desktop doesn't need a second install for a second cashier. The PC that runs the app also hosts it: switch on LAN sharing and any device on the same network — another computer, a tablet, a phone in a stand — opens the till in its browser. No installs, no licenses per till, one stock count, one ledger.

Turn on LAN sharing

1. Step 01On the host PC, open Settings → Desktop → Share on LAN.
2. Step 02Choose Enable LAN sharing. Kiosk shows the address other devices will use, the local IPs it detected, and a QR code you can point a phone camera at.
3. Step 03Restart Kiosk Desktop — the bind change applies on the next launch.

What the shop looks like

Add a till

1. Step 01On the new device, open a browser and go to the LAN address shown in Settings (for example http://192.168.1.20:5050) — or scan the QR code.
2. Step 02Sign in with a cashier account (create one under Settings → Staff). Each cashier gets their own PIN login and their sales are attributed to them.
3. Step 03Open the till, start a shift, and sell — the sale lands in the same database the host uses, so stock and tabs stay in one place.

Setting it up properly

• Give the host PC a fixed IP (DHCP reservation in the router) so the till address never changes.
• Put the host on a UPS. It's the only machine that holds the database — a clean power supply is cheaper than a restore.
• Keep tills off the guest Wi-Fi — guest networks often block device-to-device traffic, which is exactly what LAN sharing needs.
• A decent router handles 5–10 tills comfortably. The bottleneck is the host PC, not the router: a few dozen browser tills are far beyond a shop's counter.

Inventory & stock

Products carry prices, barcodes, units, reorder levels, and optional expiry dates. Stock moves in three ways: receiving (stock arrives from a supplier), selling (leaves the shelf), and stocktakes (you count what's actually there and adjust). Every movement is recorded, so “what should be on the shelf” is always one screen away.

Suppliers & supplies

Keep a supplier directory, record what you order, and post the bill when stock arrives — the cost lands on the product and on what-you-owe. Purchases flow into the ledger like everything else, so profit reports count real costs, not guesses.

Credit tabs

Many shops run a “book” — customers take goods and pay later. In Kiosk that's a credit tab:

1. Step 01Register the customer — name and phone number from the cashier screen. The customer appears in the directory with a tab balance.
2. Step 02Sell on tab — attach the cart to the customer instead of taking cash. Their balance grows, and the shop's outstanding total updates.
3. Step 03Collect — when they pay, record the payment against their tab. It clears what they owe.

Wallet & loyalty

Customers can pre-deposit money into a wallet (pay for it in cash at the counter) and spend from it later. Loyalty points accrue on purchases and can be redeemed toward a bill — a simple way to keep regulars coming back without a paper card.

Weighed items & the scale

For vegetables, meat, and anything sold per kilo: attach the scale, pick the product, weigh — the cart line follows the weight. Prices can be set per unit or per kilo.

The till's safety nets

• Draft carts — a half-finished sale survives a restart, so a power blip doesn't lose a customer's basket.
• Till lock — the cashier can lock the screen with a PIN when they step away; nobody touches the drawer while they're gone.
• Split payments — cash plus tab, or cash plus wallet, in one transaction, recorded line by line.

Backups — the golden rule

A desktop shop has one copy of everything, on one disk. A backup is not optional; it's the difference between “lost an afternoon” and “lost the ledger.”

1. Step 01Settings → Desktop → Backups → Backup now. The file lands in the backups/folder of your data directory.
2. Step 02Back up at least daily — the evening habit: close the shift, run the backup.
3. Step 03Copy the backup off the PC — a flash drive, another machine, anywhere. A backup on the same disk as the shop is not a backup.
4. Step 04To restore: Settings → Desktop → Backups → Restore next to the file. It overwrites the database and asks you to restart Kiosk.

License & trial

Every install starts with a 30-day trial — the full app, nothing locked. After the trial you need a license key from your vendor, applied under Settings → Desktop → License.

Receipt printer setup

Settings → Desktop → Receipt printer gives you three modes:

When something looks wrong

Kiosk writes a detailed log to kiosk.log in the data folder. Most problems announce themselves there long before they reach your eyes. Here are the common ones:

Full reset

To start completely fresh: uninstall Kiosk Desktop, then delete the data folder for your OS (see Part 1). This removes the database, media, and logs — keep a backup file somewhere safe first, because nothing survives a reset.

Signs you've outgrown it

• More than one shop — a second branch needs its own books under one business, and one manager watching both.
• You need to sell when the shop PC isn't running — uptime you can't get from a single machine.
• M-Pesa STK on the counter — online payments are a cloud feature; Desktop takes cash and tabs.
• You want to watch the shop from home — live sales and stock from any device, not just the counter.

Desktop vs Cloud at a glance

Moving without losing the books

Your backup file is the bridge: contact your vendor with the latest backup and they'll carry the data — products, stock on hand, customers and their tabs, sales history — into your cloud business. From then on the same cashier screen runs online, with STK and branches on top. You keep Desktop on the counter until the switch is done; nothing stops selling while you move.

Frequently asked questions

Does the shop need internet to sell?

No. Selling, stock, tabs, shifts, and reports run entirely on the PC. Only M-Pesa STK and outbound SMS (cloud features) need the internet, and Desktop doesn't use those.

Can two cashiers sell at the same time?

Yes — enable Share on LAN and open a second till in a browser on the same Wi-Fi. Both write to the same database, so stock and tabs stay consistent.

What happens to my data if the PC dies?

That's what backups are for. Run one daily and copy it off the PC; restore it onto the replacement machine and the shop comes back. Without a backup, the data is on that disk only.

Is there a monthly fee?

Desktop starts with a 30-day trial, then runs on a license key from your vendor — one license per machine. There's no usage metering; it's a flat offline subscription.

Can I use Desktop and Cloud at the same time?

Not for the same shop — pick one home for the books. Moving between them is done deliberately, via a backup and vendor assistance, not by running both at once.

Where do receipts print from on Desktop?

Through the built-in ESC/POS bridge — point Settings → Desktop → Receipt printer at your network printer (RAW 9100) and receipts print directly, with the cash drawer kick on cash sales.