Common promotions: happy hours, category deals, staff discounts

Real-world recipes for the offers merchants run most — and which Tillable feature does (or doesn't) handle each.

This is the quick-answer page for the promotions merchants ask about most. Each recipe says plainly which Tillable feature to use — and, where there isn't a built-in control, the honest workaround so you stop hunting for a setting that doesn't exist.

The short version: discounts are money-off rules staff apply at the till. They have no time window and no product/category filter — they come off the whole bill at checkout. Anything that's really about which hours or which items is usually handled by per-menu pricing, not discounts.

Happy hour (time-based)

"I want 20% off, 4–6pm, every weekday."

There is no built-in time window on a discount — it's either active on every till or not. So a happy hour is run one of two ways:

Staff apply a discount during the window. Create a discount named "Happy hour 20%" and leave it active. Brief staff to add it only between 4 and 6. Turn on Require passcode at checkout if you want it controlled. Simple, but it leans on staff remembering to start and stop.
A separate happy-hour menu with lower prices. Build a menu with reduced drink prices and use it during those hours. The price changes automatically — no discount, nothing for staff to remember. This is the more reliable route for a recurring window.

Note

PAC Campaigns don't do this. PAC Campaigns schedule what shows on a terminal's idle advertising screen by day and time — they never change a price or unlock a discount. Don't use them to run a timed offer.

Drinks-only / food-only deal (category-based)

"Money off drinks, but not food."

A discount applies to the whole bill — there is no "drinks only" or per-category filter on the discount form. To make a category-specific offer:

Per-menu pricing — put the cheaper drink prices on their own menu so the saving is built into the items, not discounted at the till. This is the clean way to do "drinks at happy-hour prices".
Staff applying a variable discount worked out by hand for the relevant items — fine for a one-off, error-prone as a routine.

Staff discount

"25% off for staff, but only with a manager's say-so."

There's no dedicated staff discount type. Build it from the standard pieces:

Create a Percentage (%) discount (a fixed type), e.g. 25%.
Name it clearly, e.g. "Staff 25%".
Turn on Require passcode at checkout and pick a passcode from your passcode library so it can't be applied without sign-off.
If you use staff roles, under Who can apply this untick every role except managers. Then only a signed-in manager sees "Staff 25%" on the till at all — the passcode is the sign-off, the role is who can even ask.

Goodwill / one-off gesture

"Knock something off for a complaint — amount decided in the moment."

Use a variable type (Variable amount (£) or Variable percentage (%)) so the operator types the amount at the till. Name it "Goodwill" and consider a passcode so it needs sign-off.

Which discount type do I pick?

| You want… | Use | | --- | --- | | A consistent percentage deal (student, staff) | Percentage (%) (fixed) | | A consistent flat money-off (£2 off lunch) | Amount (£) (fixed) | | Staff to decide the £ amount at the till | Variable amount (£) | | Staff to decide the % at the till (goodwill) | Variable percentage (%) |

Full detail on each type is in Discount types and passcodes, and the create flow itself is in Set up discounts.

Gift cards and vouchers

Gift cards aren't discounts — they're prepaid value a customer buys and later spends. Selling and redeeming them happens at the till:

Sell a gift card at the till — issuing to a customer.
Redeem a gift card at the till — taking a card as payment.
Gift cards (portal) — the merchant view: liability, statuses, opening a card.
Troubleshooting gift card redemption — what to do when a card won't scan, is expired, or has already been used.

If you trade from more than one venue, the portal now records where each card was sold and lets you filter the list and the liability figure by site. That is reporting only: a card is redeemable at any of your tills, wherever it was bought.

What Tillable does and doesn't support today

Supported: fixed and variable percentage/amount discounts, an optional per-discount passcode, scoping a discount to one site, and selling/redeeming gift cards at the till.
Not supported as a discount setting: time windows / happy-hour scheduling, and product- or category-level discount filters. Use per-menu pricing (or staff applying a discount during the window) for those.