Work the four causes in order (no connection, not paired, power, printer), then switch to a backup reader on mobile data, because about 84% of the value in an Australian till now arrives by card and offline mode expires after 72 hours.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for restaurants, cafes and takeaways in Australia and New Zealand, so we hear what happens on the night a terminal dies: the phone rings harder, nobody can pick it up, and the venue loses the table twice. This page is the operator version rather than the bank version. What the hour costs you, why terminals fail, the four fixes in the order a floor manager should try them, the published limits on offline mode, and the one line to give whoever is answering the phone.
Price it before you panic, because the number decides how hard you fight.
Cash is no longer the backstop it was. The Reserve Bank's 2025 Consumer Payments Survey, published in April 2026, found cash was about 15% of consumer payments by number and about 8% by value. Of in-person payments it was 19% by number and 16% by value. For food retail, dining out and takeaway, the RBA's own graph commentary reads as cash use falling to around 20 per cent by 2025, and that is a chart reading rather than a published point estimate, so treat it as a shape.
Turn that into your till. A venue taking A$4,000 on a Friday night with 16% of value in cash can still collect about A$640 of it if everyone who has cash uses it. The other A$3,360 depends on a working terminal or a working alternative. That is the real exposure, and it is why "we are cash only tonight" is a decision about four fifths of your takings, not a minor inconvenience.
A worked example, and the inputs are yours to change: 60 covers at an average spend of A$55 is A$3,300. If a quarter of those tables walk when told cash only, that is A$825 gone in one service. Skai Solutions uses a figure like that the same way we use the phone: as an input you can replace, not a claim.
Terminal faults come in four shapes and the fix order is different for each. Work through them in this order, because the cheapest and most common cause is first.
Only after those four does it make sense to call your acquirer, and when you do, have the terminal ID and the last approval code in your hand.
Four fixes, cheapest and fastest first. Pick the first one that is available to you rather than working down the list in order of elegance.
| Fix | Time to switch | What it costs you | When it fails |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second terminal from another station | Under a minute | Nothing | You only own one |
| Phone or tablet card reader on mobile data | 2 to 5 minutes | Normal processing fee | Reader not set up in advance, or it is on the same dead Wi-Fi |
| Payment link or invoice sent to the diner's phone | 5 minutes for the first one | Normal processing fee, plus the risk they walk | No mobile coverage at the table |
| Offline mode on the POS | Automatic, if enabled | See the warning below, it is the dangerous one | Card types that cannot run offline |
The single most useful preparation is the second one. A card reader costs tens of dollars, lives in the safe on mobile data, and turns a dead terminal into a five minute problem. Set it up on a quiet Tuesday, not during a Friday service.
Partly, and the limits are published, which is more than can be said for most of this topic. Square documents its offline behaviour precisely, and the numbers are worth knowing whichever system you run, because they show you the shape of the risk.
So offline mode is a bridge for twenty minutes, not a plan for a night. If you use it, reconcile the same evening rather than the next week.
Not a card surcharge, and the rules changed nine days ago. From 1 October 2026 the Visa, Mastercard, American Express and eftpos networks introduced no-surcharge rules for prepaid, debit and credit cards, as the ACCC sets out. The RBA announced the change on 31 March 2026. These sit in scheme rules and merchant contracts rather than in a law the ACCC enforces, and the ACCC is explicit that a business "shouldn't try to avoid the 'no surcharge' rules by describing a card payment surcharge as another type of fee or charge". Weekend and public holiday surcharges in hospitality are unaffected, and so are booking fees.
Going cash only for a night is lawful in Australia for a venue of ordinary size, and our page on the card surcharge ban covers the pricing side. The practical rule is notice: tell people at the door and on the phone before they sit down, not when the bill arrives.
This is the part that gets forgotten, and it is where the money leaks. During an outage your phone rings more, not less, because walk-ins call to check and bookings call to confirm. A venue with a dead terminal and an unanswered phone loses the table twice.
Write one line and give it to whoever is answering: "Our card machine is down for the next hour. We are taking cash, and we can send you a payment link by text if that is easier." Put the same line on your voicemail if you have one. Our page on how to answer the phone at a restaurant has the rest of the script, and how long a restaurant phone should ring covers what happens when nobody picks up at all.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for restaurants, cafes and takeaways in Australia and New Zealand, which means on a night like this the agent can say that line to every caller while your floor staff deal with the terminal. If your phone mostly carries enquiries rather than orders, a basic message-taking plan is the right buy and it is not us.
A terminal that times out and gets run twice creates a different problem a month later, because duplicate processing is one of the easiest disputes for a cardholder to win. Our page on eftpos chargeback rules covers the response windows and the fee.
Then you are trading on cash and goodwill, and the job becomes damage control. Put a sign at the door and one on the counter, both saying cash only and naming the nearest ATM. Take names and numbers for anyone you let leave on a promise, and write the amount on the docket rather than trusting the till. Stop selling the high-value items you cannot afford to lose. Call your acquirer for a replacement terminal and ask specifically whether they can courier one, because many can do it next business day and nobody volunteers it. Then reconcile the same night while the shift is fresh, not on Monday.
And do the one thing that stops it next time: buy the backup reader. Keep a power outage procedure beside it, because the two failures arrive together more often than they arrive alone, and check your merchant fees while you are in the contract.
How exposed you are on the night depends on your own payment mix rather than the national one. Our restaurant cash payments benchmark has the four steps to measure it from a month of end of day reports.
Why is my EFTPOS machine not working?
In a venue it is almost always one of four things: it cannot reach the acquirer (no signal, dropped Wi-Fi, comms error), it is not paired or logged on to the till, it has a power or battery fault, or the printer has failed while payments are still approving. Work through them in that order, then call your acquirer with the terminal ID and the last approval code.
What do I do if the card machine goes down during service?
Switch to a second terminal if you have one, then a phone or tablet card reader on mobile data, then a payment link sent to the diner's phone, then POS offline mode. The reader is the fix worth preparing in advance because it turns a dead terminal into a five minute problem.
Is POS offline mode safe?
It is a bridge, not a plan. Square publishes the limits: Reader and Stand hardware accept offline payments for 24 hours, all offline payments must be uploaded within 72 hours of the session starting, and pending offline payments expire after 72 hours and in Square's words cannot be retrieved or reprocessed. eftpos-only cards, gift cards and buy now pay later do not work offline at all.
Can a restaurant refuse card and go cash only for the night?
In Australia a venue of ordinary size can, and the practical rule is notice: say it at the door and on the phone before people sit down. What you cannot do from 1 October 2026 is add a card payment surcharge, because the Visa, Mastercard, American Express and eftpos no-surcharge rules now apply, and the ACCC says you should not relabel such a surcharge as another kind of fee.
How much of a restaurant's takings are at risk when the terminal dies?
Most of them. The Reserve Bank's 2025 Consumer Payments Survey put cash at 19% of in-person payments by number and 16% by value, so roughly four fifths of the value in your till depends on a card being accepted. On A$4,000 of Friday trade that is about A$3,360.
Should I keep a spare card reader?
Yes, and it is the cheapest insurance in the building. A reader on its own mobile data connection does not share the fault that killed your main terminal, which a second terminal on the same Wi-Fi usually does. Set it up and test it on a quiet day so nobody is learning it at 7pm.