What happens when something breaks.
If you have run a store through a POS outage on a Saturday, this is the page you want before you switch. Here is what is actually built, and what is not.
The register keeps working when the connection does not.
This is the failure every showroom has actually lived through, so it is the one the product was built around.
When the connection goes, the terminal stops trying to reach the server and writes the order to a queue on the device instead. The screen says so, so nobody is left guessing whether the sale saved. Your rep finishes the order and moves to the next customer.
When the connection returns, you upload the held tickets from one screen. Three details matter more than the headline, because they are what separates a queue that works from one that creates a mess on Monday:
- Nothing is stranded. Each held ticket is stored under its own key on the device, so an order caught half-written when the power or the tab died is still there on the next start rather than sitting in limbo.
- Uploading twice does not create two orders. Each ticket carries its own identifier, so if you are not sure whether one went through, uploading it again resolves to the same order rather than a second one.
- It uploads when you say so. Held tickets wait until someone opens Held Tickets and uploads them. That is on purpose: committing a sale should be a decision, not a side effect of switching tabs.
The offline queue protects the register, not everything.
Where the honest answer is a limitation, this page says the limitation.
Your team can still write orders on the floor and they will land when the platform comes back. What waits is everything that needs the server in the moment: live stock across other stores, delivery routing, and outbound texts to customers. There is no status page yet, and no published uptime target. At the size RetailGenie is today you would hear about a problem from the founder directly, which is faster than a dashboard and is the honest description of what you are buying.
Backups are for our recovery. The export is for your peace of mind.
Two different things that vendors usually blur together.
Daily backups
Managed by the hosting platform with a seven-day retention window. This is what we restore from if something goes badly wrong on our side.
Export, any time
Customers, sales history, and products with their stock levels, to CSV, for the whole time you are a customer. Not a parting gift you have to request on the way out.
One number, answered by the person who wrote the code.
There is no support tier and no ticket queue to sit in.
We answer within 24 hours. Published support hours are not set yet, so this page does not claim any. What is true today is that the phone goes to the founder.
Asked plainly, answered plainly.
What happens if the internet drops in the middle of a sale?
You keep selling. The terminal writes the order to the device instead of the server, and the screen tells you it is offline rather than silently failing. When the connection returns, you open Held Tickets and upload them. That is deliberate. An earlier version uploaded on its own the moment the connection came back, and we removed it because simply returning to a tab could commit a sale nobody meant to commit. Each ticket uploads line by line, so one conflict turns that line into a backorder instead of failing the rest. You do not re-key anything.
What if RetailGenie itself is down?
The honest answer is that the offline queue protects the register, not the whole system. If the platform is unreachable your team can still write orders on the floor and they will land when it comes back, but the pieces that depend on the server (live inventory across stores, delivery routing, texting the customer) wait. There is no status page yet. If something is wrong you will hear it from Austin directly, because at this size that is faster than a dashboard.
How are backups handled, and how far back do they go?
The database is backed up daily with a seven-day retention window, managed by the hosting platform rather than a script we maintain. Separately, and more usefully day to day, you can export your own customers, sales history, and products with their stock levels to CSV at any time while you are a customer. Backups are for our recovery; the export is for your peace of mind, and you do not have to ask anyone for it.
If I stop being a customer, do my payments and texts stop working?
No, and that is deliberate. Card processing runs on your Helcim account, texting on your Twilio number, and accounting on your QuickBooks. Those are your accounts with your contracts, connected to RetailGenie rather than resold through it. If we vanished tomorrow, all three keep running and your customers never notice.