Nothing stalls a queue like "transaction failed, try again". If your EFTPOS or POS drops out mostly when you're flat out, the cause is usually your network rather than the terminal itself.
The usual suspects
- Weak or crowded Wi-Fi. Terminals on Wi-Fi compete with every phone in the shop. When it's busy, they lose out.
- Everything on one network. If customers, staff phones and the music stream share a network with your payments, a busy lunch can choke it.
- Terminals out of range. Portable terminals carried to tables or the back of the shop drop off as they move away from the router.
- The internet itself. If the NBN connection drops, everything that relies on it goes too.
- Old network equipment. Ageing routers and switches struggle with lots of connections and need regular restarts.
Quick checks
- Does it only happen at busy times, or at random? Busy-time dropouts point to an overloaded network.
- Does it happen in one spot in the shop? That's a coverage problem.
- Does the internet drop for everything at once? That's the connection.
How to fix it for good
- Plug fixed terminals and registers in with a data cable where you can. Cable beats Wi-Fi for reliability.
- Put payments and the POS on their own network, separate from staff and guest devices.
- Add access points so portable terminals have strong signal everywhere they're used.
- Set up a backup connection. Many terminals can fall back to mobile data, and business routers can switch to a 4G or 5G connection if the NBN drops.
We sort POS and EFTPOS dropouts and set up the network underneath so they don't come back. If the problem is wider than payments, see why business Wi-Fi drops out.