We are testing Zoho POS for a retail business with multiple physical stores and have identified an important limitation in the cashier workflow.
When a sale is completed using Credit Sale, Zoho POS correctly creates an unpaid invoice and the outstanding balance is reflected in Zoho Web POS. However, when the customer later returns to make a payment, the cashier cannot collect that payment from the Zoho POS Billing App.
The invoice can be viewed from the POS application, but there is no option such as Record Payment, Receive Payment, Collect Payment, or Apply Payment.
The payment can only be recorded from the Zoho POS web application / Business Manager, where the Record Payment option is available.
This creates an operational problem because cashiers should only have access to the Billing App and should not require access to the full Zoho POS web application or Business Manager.
We would like Zoho POS Billing App to support the following workflow:
Allow the cashier to search for a customer and display all outstanding invoices for that customer.
Show invoice number, invoice date, original amount, amount paid, and current balance due.
Allow the cashier to enter the amount received from the customer.
Allow the payment to be applied to one specific invoice or distributed across multiple outstanding invoices.
Support both full and partial payments.
If the customer pays less than the total outstanding balance, allow the cashier to choose which invoices receive the payment or automatically apply it according to a configurable rule such as oldest invoice first.
Allow payments using the tender types configured in the register, such as Cash, Credit Card, Check, Bank Transfer, or other custom payment methods.
Post the payment automatically to the correct Deposit To or clearing account configured for that payment method.
Generate a payment receipt showing the invoices to which the payment was applied and any remaining customer balance.
Keep this functionality permission-based so administrators can decide which cashier roles are allowed to collect Accounts Receivable payments.
A customer purchases merchandise for $100 using Credit Sale.
Zoho POS correctly creates an unpaid invoice for $100.
Later, the customer returns to the store and wants to pay $50.
In the Billing App, the cashier can see the outstanding invoice but cannot record the $50 payment.
The cashier must use the web application and open:
Invoice → Record Payment
From the web application, Zoho already allows a partial payment of $50 to be applied to the invoice.
We would like this same capability to be available directly from the cashier's POS Billing App.
This functionality is essential for retail businesses that sell merchandise on credit.
Without it, businesses must either give cashiers unnecessary access to the full Zoho POS web application or require a manager/administrator to record every customer payment.
For stores with many customers purchasing on account, this creates delays at checkout, additional administrative work, and unnecessary access-control risks.
A very practical option would be to add a new button in the Billing App such as:
Customer Payment
The cashier would select the customer, see all open invoices, enter the amount received, choose the payment method, allocate the payment, and complete the transaction.
This would make Zoho POS much more suitable for retail businesses that regularly offer customer credit.