Set Up Till and Taxes

Set Up Till and Taxes

Here you define how your POS system calculates and processes payments: tax rates, which payment methods your location accepts, whether bills can be split, how tips and deposits work, what receipts look like, and how amounts are rounded. Below that, you register the POS system with the tax office and generate the procedural documentation. You can find this page in the menu under Settings → Till & payments → Checkout & taxes (/manager/settings/checkout).

This page is only available in the Komplett Kasse plan and not in the demo account. All settings apply to the location selected at the top of the dashboard.

In the top right corner, you'll see Refresh (reloads the page) and Reset to defaults. If you haven't saved anything yet, “Using default settings. Configure and save to customize.” will appear at the top.

As soon as you make a change, the “You have unsaved changes” bar appears at the bottom with Save and Discard. Saving prompts you again with “Save changes?”. After that, it shows “Checkout settings have been updated successfully”. The sections “Report your till (ELSTER)” and “Process documentation” at the very bottom save separately.

Tax Settings

Section “Tax settings” applies to the terminal, dashboard, receipts, invoices, and the DATEV export. You specify which rate applies to an individual service when you define the service.

• Tax exempt: Toggle for small businesses under § 19 UStG. Receipts and invoices are then issued without sales tax, and the fields for tax rate and revenue accounts disappear.

• Tax rate: The standard rate as a percentage, 0 to 100, with up to two decimal places. In Germany, 19%. Applies to all services and products with the standard tax rate.

• Reduced tax rate: Optional, 0 to 100 percent. For services and products subject to the reduced rate—7% in Germany.

• Product revenue account, standard rate: Four-digit account number. Products with the standard tax rate are posted to this account. With 8400, products and services are posted to a single account. Many tax advisors prefer to see products listed separately; in that case, enter the account from account class 8 that your tax advisor specifies, for example, 8410. This change takes effect starting with the next sale; previous receipts remain where they were posted. An example below the field shows your account with a product price.

• Product revenue account, reduced rate: The same applies to reduced-rate products. Under account 8300, they are combined with reduced-rate services.

• The tip belongs to: two options to choose from.

  • “The staff member”: no sales tax; the receipt shows “No VAT.” The business holds onto the tip only until it pays it out.
  • “The business”: your own sales revenue at the local tax rate. This applies if you're the one serving customers.

  Note: For a staff member's tip to remain tax-free, it must be allocated to the staff member who provided the service. The business may not determine the distribution.

• Prices include tax (gross): “On” means the prices for your services are final prices that already include sales tax. “Off” means sales tax is added to each price at checkout. An example below the register calculates what the customer pays based on your tax rate.

Payment Methods

Section “Payment methods” shows four cards that you can select or deselect individually:

• Cash: on the terminal and in the dashboard.
• Card: on the card reader. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and girocard are included as card options.
• Bank transfer and PayPal: for entry in the dashboard only. The terminal does not support them.

The terminal only supports cash and card payments, and only if these options are enabled here.

Split Payment

In section “Split payment”, enable Allow split payment: pay a bill using multiple payment methods, for example, partly in cash and partly by card. When enabled, two fields appear:

• Minimum split amount: in euros. Each portion must be at least this amount, both at the terminal and in the dashboard.
• Maximum splits: 2 to 10. Applies in the dashboard. At the terminal, the payment is always split into two parts: cash and card.

Tips

In section “Tip”, enable Allow tips. Then, when processing a payment, tip suggestions will appear, and change can be left as a tip at the terminal. For Suggested tip percentages, enter whole percentages from 1 to 100 and confirm each one with Enter (“Add percentage...”). The terminal converts these into amounts.

Deposits

In section “Deposits”, enable Require deposit: Require advance payment for reservations. When enabled, three fields appear:

• Default deposit percentage: Percentage of the total amount to be paid in advance, 0 to 100.
• Minimum deposit amount: In euros, regardless of the percentage.
• Refundable hours: In hours. The deposit is non-refundable starting this many hours before the appointment.

Receipt Settings

Section “Receipt settings” has three settings:

• Receipt prefix: Appears before the number of each appointment receipt. Maximum of 10 characters; only uppercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. Anything else you type will be removed; lowercase letters will be converted to uppercase. Do not change the prefix without a good reason: it keeps your receipt numbers sequential.
• Receipt footer: Appears at the bottom of every receipt printed by the terminal. Leave blank to omit the footer. The field displays “Thank you for your visit!” as a placeholder.
• Email receipt by default: After processing a payment in the dashboard, the receipt is automatically sent via email, but only to customers who have consented to this. At the terminal, you choose whether to send it each time.

Rounding Settings

Section “Rounding settings” is locked until your tax advisor approves the rounding. Until then, it displays: “Price rounding is locked until your tax advisor signs off. Contact support to enable it.” The fields are then grayed out. After approval, set the following:

• Round to nearest: 1 cent, 5 cents, or 10 cents.
• Rounding method: “Half up (standard)”, “Always round up”, or “Always round down”.
• Currency override: three letters. Leave blank for EUR.

The Currency override field is open even without approval.

Registering the Till (ELSTER)

Section “Report your till (ELSTER)” is a reminder. According to Section 146a(4) of the German Fiscal Code (AO), every electronic till must be reported to the tax office via Mein ELSTER. Terminz does not submit the report itself. Here is the information that ELSTER requests, along with a tip for copying it:

• Place of business: Name and address of your location.
• Type of system and Manufacturer.
• TSS ID, TSE serial number, and TSE certificate. If the serial number or certificate is not available, “Currently not retrievable” will appear.
• Under Hardware, list each till with its serial number and the note “Registered in Terminz on …”. ELSTER asks for the purchase date, which you must enter yourself.

If you have registered the till with ELSTER, check the box Reported to the tax office. After that, “Reported on …” will appear there. A device that is out of service displays “Out of service” and the deadline “Report the decommissioning via Mein ELSTER by … (§ 146a(4) AO).”. Once you've completed this, check the box Decommissioning reported. If no till is set up for the location, it will display “This location has no till configured, so there is nothing to report.”

Procedure Documentation

The GoBD requires procedural documentation for every IT system in use. Terminz generates this documentation based on your location's data. You add the information that only you know and download the PDF. This section appears only for locations in Germany.

The fields:

• Legal form: Selection, for example, GmbH, e. K., GbR.
• Profit determination: “Cash-basis accounting (EÜR)” or “Balance sheet”.
• Responsible for the till: Who manages the till on a daily basis. Select from your active staff members or “Someone else …” with a custom name.
• Counting rhythm: “daily at closing time”, “at the end of every shift”, “daily and at every shift change”, or “weekly”.
• Procedure during an outage: Free text describing what happens if the TSE or the Internet goes down.
• Responsible for this document: Name of the person responsible for maintaining the documentation, plus optionally Function, for example, management.

Everything except the function is required. If anything is missing, the Generate document button is disabled, and “Still open: …” appears below it listing the missing fields. The button first opens the question “Generate the process documentation?”. This document is your own declaration to the tax office. You are responsible for its accuracy and completeness; have your tax advisor review it beforehand. Each time you generate it, a new, unalterable version is created. Afterward, the PDF opens in a new tab, and “Process documentation generated” appears.

Under “Generated versions”, you'll find all previous versions listed with the date, creator, and template version, each marked with Download. If no version has been generated yet, it will say “No version generated yet.”. If the latest version reflects an older version of the software, a note will indicate that you should generate a new one.

Reset to Default

In the upper right corner, Reset to defaults resets the page (visible only if you've already saved). Before doing so, Terminz shows what will be reset and what will remain:

• What will be reset: Prices incl. sales tax (on), split payment (on, starting at €5.00, up to 3 parts), tip (on, suggestions 10%, 15%, and 20%), deposit (off), receipt (no footer, email receipt on by default), and rounding (to the cent, no custom currency).
• Remaining: Tax (small business owners, tax rates, and who receives the tip), your payment methods, the receipt prefix, rounding approval by your tax advisor, and the check-in window of the POS app.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I set the tax rate for a single service? In the service itself. Here, you only set the rates for the location.

Why can't I see the page? You need the “Change Business Settings” permission, the Komplett Kasse plan, and you must not be using the demo account.

Why can't I change the rounding? It's locked until your tax advisor approves it. Contact support.

Why doesn't the terminal offer PayPal? Bank transfers and PayPal are only available for entry in the dashboard. The terminal only accepts cash and cards.

Does Terminz report my till to the tax office? No. You report it yourself via Mein ELSTER. Terminz shows you the information you need for this.

Where do I set whether the terminal prints automatically or how long before an appointment check-in is allowed? These settings aren't available on this page.