Your first steps

This is the order we suggest setting things up. Your Home dashboard shows a Set up your POS checklist that tracks most of these steps and ticks them off as you complete them, so you can follow along there too. It starts closed — click its header to open the list.

Above it sits Set up payments, with the two things to do before any of the below matters: Start taking payments (confirm your business and bank details so card payments can be activated) and Shop for payment devices (order your card machines, tills and accessories).

That first row tells you where your application actually is, so you never have to open it to find out:

• Start taking payments — you haven't begun.
• Continue setting up payments — you're part-way through. It picks up at your checklist rather than the introduction, so leaving it half-finished costs you nothing.
• Your application is being checked — you've sent it and our payments partner is verifying it. Nothing is required from you, though you can open it to add your payout bank account while you wait.
• Your application needs something from you — the partner has looked at it and asked for something. Open it and the sections they asked about are unlocked, with their reason written next to each one.
• Payments are set up — verification is finished, and the row shows a green tick instead of a button.

See Getting paid: set up payments.

Already taking card payments? Then this card isn't for you — ask support to switch it off and it disappears from your dashboard for good.

Work top to bottom — each step builds on the one before it.

1. 1

   Set your company details

   Go to Account & settings → Account and fill in your trading name, legal entity and VAT details. These print on every digital receipt, so do this first. See Company details.

   Your dashboard's Set up your POS checklist has a Confirm your VAT status step: it stays open until you've either told us you're not VAT-registered OR entered your VAT number. If you start trading with the VAT toggle on but no VAT number set, a red warning appears above the checklist — HMRC requires the number on receipts, so set it in Account → Company details before your next session.

2. 2

   Check your location

   Every account starts with one location. Open Account & settings → Locations, click into your site, and add its address and contact details. See Locations.

   Add a second location later and your Home dashboard gains a Location dropdown that narrows its takings, transaction count, average basket and revenue and transactions charts to one site — see Start here. With one location there's nothing to choose between, so no dropdown appears and the figures are your whole business.

3. 3

   Set your opening hours

   Create an opening-hours profile and set it as your standard hours under Store settings → Opening hours. See Opening hours.

4. 4

   Add your items

   Build your catalogue under Items → Products. Each product has a name, price and VAT rate. See Create a product.

5. 5

   Build a menu

   Group your products into a menu so they're ready to sell. Menus are available on every device by default.

   If your catalogue is still empty, Items → Menus offers three ways to build your first one, and you can use whichever matches what you already have:

   • Upload a photo of your menu — a picture you took of a printed menu, or a PDF. We read it and draft every product and price for you to check before anything is saved.
   • Upload a spreadsheet — our template, or the file you already keep your prices in. See Bulk import.
   • Type it in — three quick questions and you're in the builder.

   All three are available on every account.

6. 6

   Add your branding

   Upload your logo and set your colours under Account & settings → Branding so your receipts and customer pages look like you. See Branding.

7. 7

   Pair a device

   Connect a till or terminal to your account under Store settings → Devices — see Pair a device. Then open it and set three things in its panel: Location, Operating mode, and Receipt printer — see Set a device's mode, location and printer. (You can set up your modes and passcodes before or after pairing — see Modes and Passcodes.)

8. 8

   Set up payment processing

   For a terminal to take cards (not just cash), card processing has to be active on your account. This is set up during onboarding by the Tillable team — there's no toggle in the portal. If a paired terminal only offers cash, contact your account manager. See Set up payment processing.

9. 9

   Take your first sale

   On the paired device, ring up an item and take a payment. It appears back in the portal under Transactions (shown as Tables Served if you use Table Service).

Steps for your enabled features

The Set up your POS checklist also shows a step for each feature that's switched on for your account — so you only ever see setup you actually need:

• Set up your floor plan — table-service accounts (arrange your tables).
• Set up your kitchen display — if Kitchen Display (KDS) is on: create a kitchen station and route your food to it.
• Add your staff — if Staff is on: invite your team and set their till passcodes.
• Set up bookings — if Bookings is on: create a booking setup and attach at least one section to it. This step ticks when a setup can actually seat someone, not when you've named one — a setup with no sections attached takes no bookings.

Each ticks off automatically once you've done it, and the whole checklist disappears when everything's set up.

What's next

• The deeper articles for each step are linked above.
• Prefer a helper to draft your setup? See Set up with AI — it can draft your menu, opening hours, floor plan of tables and a kitchen station for you to review before anything is saved. It is available on every account; it used to need switching on for you.
• Stuck on where something lives? Use sidebar search.
• Once you're trading, make Home your own: Customize → Add widget adds a Transactions chart, Sales by menu and, with a loyalty scheme, Loyalty members — see Start here.