Working with several sole proprietors on one banking terminal: how to avoid choosing the wrong merchant

Multi-merchant mode is functionality that allows you to configure one physical bank terminal to work with several Sole Proprietorships. In Torgsoft, you can link a specific merchant to the corresponding settlement account in the program so that, during payment, funds are directed to the required account.

It is important to understand: this is not fully automatic identification without human involvement, but an automated process that depends on correct settings and the cashier’s actions. If merchants, accounts, or access rights are configured incorrectly, or if the cashier selects the wrong Sole Proprietorship or account during the sale, a discrepancy may occur: the cashless payment is processed on the terminal for one Sole Proprietorship, while the PECR fiscal receipt is created for another. In such cases, funds may be credited to the wrong settlement account.

Reasons for incorrect selection of a Sole Proprietorship or merchant

Desynchronization between the bank terminal and the accounting system most often occurs not because of technical failures, but because of incorrect access settings or cashier errors at the time of payment. Here are the main weak points:

• Human factor when changing the business entity (Sole Proprietorship). If one workstation is used to work with multiple Sole Proprietorships, the cashier may switch to another business entity at the beginning of the shift but forget to change the default settlement account. As a result, cash is recorded for the correct current Sole Proprietorship, while cashless payments go to the merchant of the Sole Proprietorship that was used yesterday.

• Difficulties with mixed sales. If one receipt includes goods from different entrepreneurs, for example alcohol and food products, payment distribution errors may occur.

• Specifics of merchant setup for the «Return» operation. A common situation is when payments for two different Sole Proprietorships are processed successfully, but when trying to issue a return to the buyer, Torgsoft does not show an error, and the return is processed through another Sole Proprietorship. This happens if the bank has configured two merchants for payments on the terminal, but the return merchant (REFUND) is strictly linked to only one specific Sole Proprietorship and is not universal.

• Incorrect merchant index or name. Sometimes the terminal has internal numbering, for example, code 1 for payment and code 5 for return. If auto-identification is not enabled in Torgsoft or the operation code for the selected account is specified incorrectly, the program sends a request to a non-existent merchant, which results in the operation being canceled.

How to configure Torgsoft to avoid merchant selection errors

To minimize the risk of sending funds to the wrong Sole Proprietorship, Torgsoft provides several safeguards that should be configured immediately after connecting the terminal:

1. Using a drop-down list and a default merchant.

If more than one merchant is created for one settlement account, the program allows you to simplify their selection. In the merchant settings, you can set the «Use by default» checkbox. This ensures that the required merchant is automatically inserted into the drop-down list directly next to the «Use connection with bank terminal» checkbox on the payment form.

2. Forced merchant selection dialog: protection against inattention.

For business owners whose sellers often confuse Sole Proprietorships, there is a stricter solution. In the bank terminal settings under Settings – Parameters – Additional functions – Bank terminal, you can enable the «Show merchant selection dialog» option, or «Request merchant» in additional actions. If this setting is enabled, a dialog window will appear with each card payment attempt, and the cashier will have to consciously and manually select which Sole Proprietorship and account the transaction should be processed through.

3. Fixed merchant number setup.

When working with multi-merchant mode, it is better not to use automatic merchant number identification, but to manually specify its sequence number in the Torgsoft settings. This reduces the risk that the program will contact the wrong merchant during payment or return.

Before setup, you need to clarify exactly which sequence number each merchant has in the bank terminal: separately for payment and, if necessary, for return. After that, the corresponding merchant number should be fixed in Torgsoft for the required settlement account of the Sole Proprietorship. This way, the cashier works with a predefined link between the account and the merchant instead of relying on automatic selection.

4. Restricting cashier access rights.

To prevent a situation where the cashier accidentally processes a payment to yesterday’s settlement account, access rights must be clearly separated. Each seller who works with a specific business entity must be assigned the correct default settlement account, and changing accounts and business entities during the sale should be prohibited or restricted.

What to do if a discrepancy has already occurred?

If the cashier has already made a mistake: the payment on the bank terminal was processed for Sole Proprietorship 1, while the fiscal receipt in the program was created for Sole Proprietorship 2. In this case, the problem cannot simply be ignored, because there is a discrepancy between the movement of funds in the bank account and the tax records. You need to:

1. Make a reversal or return the receipt that was incorrectly processed through the wrong PECR.

2. Process the sale again for the correct Sole Proprietorship. If the payment has already been physically processed successfully on the terminal, to avoid charging the customer a second time, you can create the correct fiscal receipt as a cashless payment without using the bank terminal connection by clearing the checkbox on the form.

3. If the problem occurred during a product return due to the absence of a universal merchant, you need to contact your bank’s technical support and ask them to configure the Return merchant for each of the settlement accounts of the Sole Proprietorships linked to the terminal. After the bank makes the changes, the connection with merchants will need to be reconfigured in Torgsoft.