In most Kenyan shops the majority of payments arrive by M-Pesa, and the problem is rarely taking the money — it is knowing, at the end of the day, which payment belonged to which sale. This guide explains the three ways M-Pesa reaches your till and how a point of sale keeps every one of them tied to a receipt.
The three ways a customer pays
1. STK Push — the prompt on their phone
The cashier taps Pay by M-Pesa, types the customer's number, and a prompt appears on the customer's phone asking for their PIN. When they confirm, the sale is marked paid on the screen and the receipt prints. No Paybill number to read out, no account reference to spell, no SMS to inspect. This is the fastest way to clear a queue.
2. Paybill
The customer goes to Lipa na M-Pesa, enters your Paybill and an account reference, and pays. It suits deposits, invoices and anyone paying from a distance. The reference is what lets you match the payment to the right customer later, so agree on what it should be — an invoice number or a phone number works well.
3. Till number (Buy Goods)
The customer enters your Till number and the amount. It is the simplest for them and the hardest for you, because nothing in the payment says which sale it was for. This is where a till that records the confirmation code against the sale earns its keep.
How the payment gets attached to the sale
Whichever way the money arrives, the sale should carry the M-Pesa confirmation code. With STK Push this happens by itself. With Paybill or a Till number, the cashier types the code from the customer's SMS into the sale before printing. Either way, your day-end report lists each M-Pesa sale with its code, so the count against your M-Pesa statement is a matter of minutes rather than an evening.
When the prompt does not come
Phones go into airtime-less silence, customers mistype a PIN, the network hiccups. A good till lets the cashier resend the prompt, or switch that sale to the manual code without starting again. Train staff to wait for the confirmation on screen — not the customer's word — before handing over the goods.
What this looks like in NodePoint
NodePoint Retail POS supports both STK Push and the typed confirmation code on the same sale, records the code on the receipt, and shows M-Pesa, cash, card and store credit separately in the cashier's cash-up. The same works in the restaurant and at the hotel front desk. Businesses in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda get the same flow with their own mobile money.
Read next: what actually happens between "Pay" and the receipt with STK Push, and how M-Pesa keeps working when the internet does not.