Backup credit card processing

What do others use as a backup when your POS system is down and you can’t process credit card transactions?

Well… are you using Vin65 POS? If the internet goes down, since our ipads aren’t on a cellular connection I will set up a hotspot from my iphone for internet connection to the iPads. If the power goes the iPads have battery but the outage affects our router, so again I use my iphone hotspot.

I haven’t had to go further down the chain than that, but if some bandit came and stole all of our iPads I would use my cell phone or even the web POS on a laptop. In any case where there was a verified problem with POS on the Vin65 end it has been very brief and using the web browser POS or Admin Panel has always worked just fine…

Thanks danjimerson! I was thinking hotspot was the way to go. Good to know you haven’t had many issues!

A dedicated hotspot is an inexpensive option if you don’t want to depend your phone or an employee phone.

Of course all this assumes that you have cellular data coverage at your tasting room…

1 Like

Crucial point. Connectivity issues are really the primary cause of frustration so I would also:

  1. Make sure you aren’t the only person who understands your network setup, and
  2. Run your staff through some real-world drills with examples of internet problems, router rebooting, printer resetting, etc.
  3. Create a troubleshooting document for everybody’s reference.
2 Likes

We have one iPad that has a 4G LTE cell phone connection. It’s great for offsite events and if the internet goes down, it can be a hotspot for all the other iPads in the tasting room.

I also highly recommend to set up two forms of internet in your tasting room if you can, especially if your internet is unreliable, as ours is. Our router is set up to automatically switch to our backup internet source if the primary source goes down. Since we’ve set that up about 3 years ago, the internet hasn’t gone down once, including when the power went out!

Thanks that is critical. I tend to be good at trouble shooting issues but not everyone is.