# Offline POS: what happens when the internet drops

> What keeps working when the restaurant internet drops, what waits for it, how sync avoids duplicate orders, and the limits we are still fixing.

Source: https://salohq.com/offline/

When the internet drops, each Salo device keeps taking orders, printing tickets and accepting cash on its own, saves every action locally, and syncs it once the connection returns.

| Task | During an outage | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Take orders and add items | Keeps working | Saved on the device right away and queued to sync. |
| Print kitchen tickets and order summaries | Keeps working | On a printer the device can reach over USB, Bluetooth or the local network. |
| Take cash and record counter payments | Keeps working | Cash is always available. The bill closes on the device. |
| See table timers and the floor | Keeps working | As this device knows it. Other devices catch up after reconnect. |
| QR Ph payments | Waits for internet | Never marked paid offline. Paid only after the provider confirms it. |
| Guest QR ordering and waiter calls | Waits for internet | Needs internet. Guests order through staff until it returns. |
| Owner reports and menu changes | Waits for internet | Update after the devices sync. |
| Kitchen screens receiving orders from other devices | Needs Branch Hub | Needs the planned Branch Hub. Until then, print from the ordering device. |

## How sync works

1. Saved on the device first: Every order, item and payment is written to the device before anything is sent. The screen updates right away, online or not.
2. Sent with a unique ID: Each action carries its own ID. If a weak connection makes the device send it twice, the server records it once. Retries cannot create duplicate orders or payments.
3. Caught up on reconnect: When the connection returns, the device sends its backlog in order and pulls whatever changed on other devices.
4. Conflicts are shown, not hidden: If two devices changed the same thing, Salo asks staff to resolve it. It never quietly overwrites someone's work.

## The honest limit: devices do not talk to each other during an outage yet

Today, each Salo device works on its own when the internet is down. A waiter's phone and the kitchen screen only share orders through the cloud, so during an outage the kitchen screen will not see new orders until the connection returns.

Branch Hub is our planned fix: a small device on your local network that lets phones, tablets and kitchen screens in one branch keep sharing orders with no internet at all. It is not available yet.

Until then, the reliable path to the kitchen during an outage is a printed ticket from the device that took the order, or a runner.

## Printer fallback

Salo treats the kitchen printer and the kitchen screen as backups for each other, so one failing does not stop the kitchen.

- Screen down or unreachable: print tickets from the ordering device.
- Printer jammed or out of paper: tickets stay on the kitchen screen and any ticket can be reprinted.
- Common 58 mm and 80 mm thermal printers. We confirm your model during setup.

## What we test before a restaurant goes live

Before any pilot restaurant runs real service on Salo, we test these conditions and do not go live until they pass.

- Retries on a bad connection never create duplicate orders or payments.
- Staff can keep taking orders through an 8-hour internet outage on the same device.
- Reconnect sync works with a large backlog and with conflicts.
- Payment confirmations can be replayed and reconciled.
- Restore and rollback work.
- Printer and kitchen screen fallbacks are written down for your team.

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Salo Restaurant OS. Salo prints order summaries, not official receipts. Keep your current BIR-registered invoicing for that. No commission on your sales.