How to prepare your staff to run the program

Invitations go out from Team Access, under Settings, or from the Invite your team step on the Setup page. The form's own advice is "Give the least they need for their day’s work. You can change it later." It asks for a work email ("Use an address only they read, not a shared counter inbox."), a role and one outlet: "Their scanner and counter work only at this outlet." The emailed link stays open for seven days.

The form invites the first three; an admin is a colleague the owner promotes after they join. Make most of the team Staff, and make sure every shift has someone who can correct a mistake: a Location manager, an admin or you.

A colleague who accepts the invitation lands on a page headed Get ready to serve. It lists "A few things to do once, before your first customer" and tags the ones that matter Needed to serve.

A sign-in. The invitation is an emailed link, so the first step is Choose your password.

Two-step verification. This is a six-digit code from an authenticator app on their own phone, asked for at each sign-in. The page is blunt: "The scanner will not record anything for you until this is on."

A Staff PIN. The page describes it as "A PIN of 4 to 6 digits that is yours alone. You enter it at the counter each time you record a purchase or hand over a reward." It must be "different from everyone else’s in your business", and the step opens only once two-step verification is on. You need one yourself: the Setup page has Set your staff PIN under Run the counter. No owner or admin can set a colleague's PIN or reset it. Someone who forgets theirs saves a new one, signed in as themselves.

You can see who is ready without asking. The Setup step Invite your team keeps a count, in the form "3 of 5 ready to serve", and shows four marks for each person: Invited, Joined, Two-step verification and Staff PIN. Its rule: "Someone is ready once they have joined, turned on two-step verification and set a staff PIN of their own."

A colleague who skips a step can still open the Scanner. A notice sits at the top, Finish getting ready before your first customer, and warns: "Until then the counter will not record a purchase or a reward for you." Its Get ready button leads back to their steps.

One choice is yours: whose sign-in stays open on the counter's own device. Whatever that account can open is open to anyone standing there, so let it be a colleague with the Staff role and never your own. Each person still enters their own PIN: "Actions are attributed to you, even on a shared terminal." Five wrong PINs in a row lock PIN entry on that sign-in for 15 minutes, for everyone using it. Until the lock lifts, a correct PIN gets the same refusal: "The personal staff code was not accepted." A second device, signed in separately, is not affected.

The Setup page gives the reason in a line: "Each stamp and reward is recorded under the person who gave it, and nobody shares a password."

The nearest research is about favours. A paper in the Journal of Marketing in 2012 examined what its authors call service sweethearting, in which "frontline workers give unauthorized free or discounted goods and services to customer conspirators". It gathered data from 171 service employees and 610 of their customers, and reports that "a variety of job, social, and remuneration factors motivate" it. We read only the abstract, which names no country or trade, and the study is about goods and services, not stamps. A stamp for a friend who bought nothing is the same favour in a small size.

You can watch for it without accusing anyone. Team Access shows Counter, 30 days on each person's card: the purchases, rewards and corrections recorded under their PIN. Activity History counts Recorded twice in 15 minutes, which it describes as "Sometimes a genuine second purchase, sometimes a duplicate or a favour at the counter". Tell the team that both exist.

Ask for the card as you ring up every sale. Unless a POS connection is switched on for your business, a purchase reaches the card only when someone records it, and those records are what Home counts as visits. (How to get customers to join at the counter covers customers who have no card yet.)

In the Scanner, staff scan the card in the customer's Wallet, or type a member ID or phone number and read the name back before Yes, continue. They type the amount where the card earns from spend (a Stamp or Visits card asks for none), enter their Staff PIN and press Record purchase. The screen shows what the purchase will earn before it is recorded. Four seconds after, it moves on to the next customer.

A reward under Ready is already the member's and is handed over with Use reward. One under Claim now is within their balance and takes Claim and use now. Each needs the PIN. Finding a member changes nothing on their card.

A photo or a screenshot of a card. The code on a Wallet Card is the same at every visit, so a copy of it scans like the card. The check sits with staff: ask to see the card in the customer's Wallet, and read the name on the serving screen before recording anything. Two things never scan. One is the card picture on your Business page, which shows your design and is not the member's card. The other is a member ID, which is typed: "Type the member ID. A scanner reads the code on the card." A copied card can be ended by an owner or admin under Issued Cards, where Revoke permanently is for a card that is "compromised, duplicated or must never be accepted again".

No phone, or no card to hand. A member can be found by phone number or by member ID. A phone number works only if it is on the membership. Staff can add one during a visit, with the member's agreement, using Add beside "No phone number yet". The member ID is on the member's record in Customers, which an owner or admin can open. A member who holds a reward also sees it on that reward's page, under Use it at the counter. The name check needs a name, too: a member who joined without one shows as "Unnamed customer".

Several items on one bill, and the free one. A stamp is given for each purchase recorded, not for each cup, and four records for four drinks would show under Recorded twice in 15 minutes. Settle the rule and say it aloud: one bill, one record. Using a reward records no purchase, so the free drink earns nothing unless staff record one.

A balance shared by a family. Where your program lets a Family Account share what its members earn, a member in one brings up two buttons, Personal and With family. Under With family the screen does the sum; on a Points card it reads "Their own points pay first; the family adds the rest." Nothing else lets one member's balance pay for another's reward.

No answer, or no connection. The Counter does not work offline: "You’re offline. Card actions are paused until the connection returns." A lost answer shows as Result not yet confirmed. Staff press Check result, or send it again, because "it cannot be counted twice". They must not start a new entry for the same purchase. For a longer outage, agree a fallback: note the member's name, phone number and the amount, and record the purchase when the connection returns.

A mistake. Staff cannot undo an entry, and nobody, you included, can add to a card: in the setup form's words, "a balance can never be typed in by hand." A manager or admin opens the full Counter for that member, chooses More tasks, Activity and Correct a staff error, picks the purchase, writes what went wrong and confirms with their own PIN. The correction removes what the purchase gave. It "will be rejected if the value has been used", and then the entry stands. A wrong amount is put right by removing the purchase and recording it again. A reward marked used cannot be put back, so Use reward is pressed with the item in the customer's hand. A customer's refund is not a staff mistake. The same panel says: "Purchase refunds leave earned points and rewards intact."

Use your own membership as the customer. Each colleague takes a turn on their own phone, then on the counter's.

1. On Get ready to serve, choose a password, turn on two-step verification and set a Staff PIN.
2. Sign in with the six-digit code, open the Scanner and allow the camera when the browser asks.
3. Scan the card, record a purchase and watch the screen move on.
4. Watch a manager correct that purchase.
5. Find the same member by typing the member ID, and read the name back.
6. Add a phone number, then find the member by it.
7. Enter one wrong PIN, once, and read the refusal.
8. Turn on flight mode, read the offline message, and turn it off.