What happens to your EPOS when the internet goes down (2026 guide)
A broadband fault on a Friday night is not a hypothetical. Whether your till keeps taking orders, prints to the kitchen and takes cash depends on one design decision the supplier made years before you bought it.
- The three ways an EPOS is built, and which one stops
- What to do during an outage, step by step
- Offline-first EPOS systems from £499 + VAT
Written by the Posso team in Leicester · Reviewed by Paul Robinson, Managing Director · Last reviewed
Short answer
What happens to an EPOS when the internet goes down depends entirely on where the till keeps its data. A cloud-only till stops or degrades within seconds, because every tap is a round trip to a server. An offline-first till keeps a complete copy of the menu, prices and open orders on the terminal, so ordering, cash payment, kitchen printing and kitchen screens carry on, and the day's sales sync when the connection returns. A local-only till never stops but never syncs either. The stakes are not small: a two-hour fault on an 80-cover Saturday at £28 a head puts 80 × £28 = £2,240 of trade at risk. Check the card terminal separately: it has its own connection. Posso is offline-first.
Key takeaways
- Cloud-only tills stop when the connection drops; offline-first tills keep trading and sync later.
- Offline, an offline-first till still takes orders, cash and prints to the kitchen.
- Card terminals connect on their own; a till working offline does not mean cards work.
- Test the claim on the demo by pulling the network cable mid-order.
Takeaway: Ask where the till's database lives: on the terminal means you keep trading, in the cloud means you wait.
Why this question matters more than the feature list
A connection drops somewhere in the UK every minute. Routers reboot, a contractor cuts a cable in the street, a Wi-Fi access point above the pass overheats in August. For most businesses that is a nuisance. For a restaurant at 7:45pm on a Saturday with twenty covers seated and six on the door, it is the whole night's takings.
The mistake buyers make is assuming every modern till behaves the same way. It does not. The sales demo is always run on a stable connection, so the question never comes up, and the brochure says "works offline" without saying what "works" means. Some systems mean the screen stays on and you can view a menu. Some mean you can take an order but not pay for it. A few mean the whole service runs exactly as it would online.
The second mistake is testing the till and forgetting the card terminal. These are two separate devices with two separate connections, and a till that keeps trading offline is still only taking cash if the terminal has gone with the broadband. Owners who have been through one outage will tell you the fix is a 4G backup; owners who have not tend to find out on the busiest night of the year. Our EPOS problems hub covers the other failures that surface at peak; this guide is about the connection.
The three EPOS designs and what each one does offline
Every till on the market falls into one of these three. Work out which one you are being sold before you look at anything else.
Cloud-only means every tap waits for a server
In a cloud-only design the terminal is a browser or thin app. The menu, the prices, the open tabs and the order itself live on a server in a data centre. Every tap sends a request and waits for a reply. On a good connection that reply takes a fraction of a second. When the connection drops, the till either freezes, shows a spinner, or offers a crippled "offline mode" that queues orders but cannot see table 12's running tab. The two margheritas you sent to the kitchen a minute ago may or may not have arrived.
Offline-first keeps a full database on the terminal
An offline-first till holds a complete local database: menu, modifiers, prices, open orders, staff PINs, the lot. The terminal is the system of record during service and the cloud is a copy that receives changes when it can. Pull the cable and nothing visible changes. Orders continue, tabs stay open, the kitchen printer fires, the kitchen screen updates over the local network. When the connection returns, the terminal pushes the day's transactions up and pulls down anything that arrived in the meantime. The trade-off is that the terminal needs real storage and memory, not a consumer tablet.
Local-only never stops but never syncs either
The old-style till from the 2000s stored everything on the terminal and nowhere else. It is immune to internet faults for the simple reason that it never used the internet. The cost shows up elsewhere: no online orders, no remote reporting, menu changes typed at each till separately, and a hard drive failure takes the lot with it. If you still run one, the real question is what happens when the disk dies. Our guide to replacing an old EPOS system covers how to move off one without losing your data.
Offline-first still has a list of things that wait
Honesty matters here. On an offline-first system, four things pause until the connection comes back: new online orders arriving (they sit on the ordering platform until the till reconnects, so turn off online ordering or set a longer prep time if the outage lasts), cloud reports and the owner's phone app updating, menu changes pushed from head office, and loyalty or voucher lookups that validate against a server. Everything inside the four walls keeps going; everything that needs the outside world queues. A ten-minute router reboot costs you nothing; a four-hour outage costs you online orders unless you have a backup connection.
The card terminal is a separate question with a separate answer
A card terminal connects over Wi-Fi, Ethernet or its own SIM, and the till has no say in it. If your terminal shares the shop broadband, it goes down with the broadband regardless of how the till is built. If it has a SIM, it keeps authorising. Some terminals accept cards offline and send them later, with the risk that a decline is only discovered next morning. Ask the payments provider what the terminal does when the Wi-Fi drops, then what it costs to add a 4G SIM. Our guide to card machines for EPOS goes through the options.
A 4G backup turns a crisis into a footnote
A 4G or 5G router with a failover SIM costs a few pounds a month and switches over in seconds when the fixed line drops. Plug the till, the printers and the card terminal into that router rather than the broadband router directly, and the broadband becomes just one of two routes out. For an offline-first till this means online orders keep arriving during a fault. For a cloud-only till it is the only thing between you and a frozen screen, so treat it as part of the purchase price.
What each design costs you during a two-hour outage
A Saturday evening, 80 covers, the connection drops at 7pm and returns at 9pm. Typical UK ranges for each design.
| Cloud-only till | Offline-first till | Local-only till | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taking orders at the table and counter | Stops or degrades | Continues | Continues |
| Kitchen printing and kitchen screens | Stops (no order to print) | Continues over local network | Continues |
| Cash payments | Often blocked by frozen order | Continues | Continues |
| Card payments | Depends on terminal connection | Depends on terminal connection | Depends on terminal connection |
| Online orders arriving | Stops | Queues on platform until reconnect | Not supported |
| Sales reports and owner app | Stop | Update on reconnect | Printed Z-read only |
| Typical hardware cost | £300–£1,500 one-off, often a tablet | £300–£1,500 one-off, proper terminal | Legacy, usually already owned |
| Typical software | £25–£70 a month | £25–£70 a month | Often none |
| Posso | — | Offline-first local database; from £499 + VAT hardware, software from £25 + VAT a month | — |
Ranges are typical UK figures at October 2026; Posso prices are published on EPOS pricing.
What to ask a provider before you sign
Where does the till's database actually live?
This single question sorts the market. If the answer is "on the terminal, with the cloud as a copy", you have an offline-first system. If the answer is "in the cloud, with a cache on the device", ask what is in the cache: a menu for display, or the open orders and tabs too? A cache that holds the menu but not the orders lets you see what you sell and nothing else. Ask them to show you the local database, not describe it.
Can I pull the network cable during the demo?
Open a tab, send two items to the kitchen, then unplug the Ethernet or switch off the Wi-Fi on the demo router. Add a third item, send it, take a cash payment, close the tab. Then reconnect and check the cloud report shows all three items. A supplier confident in their offline mode will hand you the cable. Do the same test with the card terminal.
What happens to online orders while I am offline?
The honest answer from any supplier is that new online orders cannot reach a till with no connection, so ask what the platform does with them. Do they queue and arrive in a batch when you reconnect, or do they auto-accept with a promised time you cannot meet? Can you pause online ordering from your phone? If delivery platforms are a large share of your trade, the real fix is a 4G failover router, and a good supplier will say so rather than claim the till alone solves it.
The Posso approach to offline EPOS
Posso is built offline-first. Every terminal holds a complete local database, so the menu, modifiers, open tabs, table plan and staff PINs are all on the hardware in front of you. The cloud receives a copy and gives you reporting on your phone, but service does not depend on it. Pull the cable mid-order on a Posso demo and the order carries on; the kitchen printer fires and the kitchen display updates over the local network because they talk to the terminal, not to a server.
The terminal is a Windows 11 Pro machine with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD rather than a consumer tablet, which is what makes a full local database practical. A complete system is £499 + VAT, including the touchscreen terminal, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and training, with software from £25 + VAT a month. Hardware is bought outright with a two-year warranty.
Card payments run through Posso Pay, Posso's own merchant service, from 1% + 10p quoted on card turnover, with the same rate in store and online. Teya and Dojo terminals are also supported. Whichever terminal you use, it has its own connection, and we recommend a SIM or 4G failover router if your trade cannot survive a broadband fault. Support is UK-based, Monday to Friday, 9am–9:30pm, with an urgent out-of-hours line for till-down issues.
When the connection returns, the terminal syncs the day's transactions to the cloud and online orders that queued on Just Eat, Uber Eats or Deliveroo come through to the same screen. Systems are preconfigured and shipped plug-and-play.
Where to look elsewhere
If your business is a single market stall or a mobile coffee cart with a card reader and no kitchen, the offline question barely applies: a card reader with store-and-forward and a notebook is a reasonable answer, and a full terminal with a local database is solving a problem you do not have.
If you run a retail shop where stock control across thousands of barcoded lines is the core requirement, a retail-first platform will serve you better than Posso, whatever its offline behaviour. We build for hospitality: our retail POS guide explains where the line sits.
Related guides
Related guides
Slow till system: the fixes in order of cost
Why tills slow down at peak and the fixes, from menu restructure to offline-first software.
Read the guideCloud EPOS vs traditional till
The real differences between cloud and local tills, including what each does when the line drops.
Read the guideSigns you need a new EPOS system
Freezing at peak is one of seven signs. The others, and what replacing the till involves.
Read the guideCard machine fees explained
How terminals connect, what they cost and how to read a merchant services quote.
Read the guideCloud EPOS system
What cloud reporting adds on top of an offline-first terminal, and what it costs.
Read the guideThis is one part of the Posso EPOS system — the same till, kitchen display, ordering and card payments, set up for your type of venue. Every one-off and monthly cost is on the EPOS pricing page.
EPOS offline mode — frequently asked questions
What happens to an EPOS system when the internet goes down?
It depends on the design. A cloud-only till stops or degrades because every action needs a server. An offline-first till keeps a local copy of the menu, prices and open orders on the terminal, so ordering, cash payments and kitchen printing continue and the sales sync when the connection returns. A local-only till never stops but never syncs either. Ask the supplier where the database lives before you buy.
Does EPOS offline mode let me take card payments?
Not by itself. The card terminal has its own connection, separate from the till. If it shares the shop Wi-Fi it goes down with the Wi-Fi; if it has a SIM it keeps authorising. Some terminals store contactless payments offline and send them later, with the risk of a decline discovered next morning. Ask the payments provider what their terminal does without Wi-Fi, and consider a SIM or 4G failover router.
Can I still print to the kitchen if the internet is down?
On an offline-first system, yes. The kitchen printer and kitchen display connect to the terminal over the local network, which still works when the broadband does not. On a cloud-only system the order never reaches the terminal to be printed in the first place, so the kitchen goes quiet. This is one of the clearest differences to test on a demo.
What happens to online orders during an outage?
New online orders cannot reach a till with no connection, so they queue on the ordering platform or delivery app until you reconnect. If the outage is more than a few minutes, pause online ordering from your phone or extend the prep time so customers are not promised food you cannot see. A 4G failover router is the real fix if online orders are a large share of trade.
How much does an offline-first EPOS system cost?
A complete Posso system is £499 + VAT, including the touchscreen terminal, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and training, with software from £25 + VAT a month. The terminal runs a full local database so service continues without a connection. Typical UK till hardware runs £300–£1,500 one-off with software at £25–£70 a month; the price does not tell you which design you are getting, so ask.
Is Posso offline-first?
Yes. Every Posso terminal holds a complete local database, so orders, tabs, cash payments, kitchen printing and kitchen screens carry on when the connection drops, and the day's sales sync when it returns. Online orders queue on the platform until the till reconnects. The card terminal, whether Posso Pay, Teya or Dojo, has its own connection and we recommend a SIM or failover router where trade depends on it.
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