The till is the part of the business where a lapse in attention can prove most costly. Not because the equipment is expensive, but because a tax audit without proper records may result in your turnover being estimated – and estimates rarely work in your favour.
What is required
DE Germany
AT Austria
CH Switzerland
Germany: TSE and mandatory documentation
Since 2020, anyone using an electronic till has been required to have a technical safety device. It signs off on every transaction in such a way that it cannot be altered retrospectively without it being noticed.
They are available as USB sticks, SD cards or cloud-based solutions. For a food truck, the cloud-based option is usually the better choice: it doesn’t require a device that could break or get lost – but it does require a data connection. Anyone who likes going to festivals with no mobile signal is better off with a local TSE.
Distinguish between an open till and an electronic till system. An open till – a cash box with a handwritten till book – is still permitted and does not require a TSE. For electronic till systems falling within the scope of the Cash Register Security Regulation, the relevant requirements apply. Check with the provider regarding the TSE, data export, documentation and reporting obligations.
The obligation to issue receipts
A receipt must be issued for every sale and given to the customer on offer … Whether he takes it with him is up to him – ensuring it was served is your responsibility.
The receipt can be digital: as a QR code, on screen or by email. This saves paper and time. However, it must be available straight away, not just after work.
Obligation to register with the tax office
Every electronic recording system must be registered with the tax office – including the serial numbers of the till and the TSE, the date of purchase and the location of use. This is done electronically via the ELSTER portal.
Austria: Cash register and signature
The requirement applies from €15,000 annual turnover, if cash takings exceed 7,500 euros. Cash takings also include on-site card payments. A business operating solely on card payments is therefore not automatically exempt. Special rules apply to certain types of outdoor trading, and the requirements for these must be checked on a case-by-case basis.
The checkout needs a Signature generation unit, usually as an app or cloud service. Every receipt bears a machine-readable code that verifies the chain of transactions.
The obligation to issue receipts applies regardless of this. Even those who stay below the threshold and do not need a till must provide every customer with a receipt – handwritten from a receipt pad if necessary.
The annual statement
At the end of the year, an annual statement must be drawn up and checked. Anyone who forgets this risks a fine – and many do forget, because there’s nothing to remind them. Make a note of the deadline.
Switzerland: the most liberal regulations
There is no obligation to use a till and no prescribed technology. The requirement is that records must be complete, accurate and verifiable – how you achieve this is up to you.
In practice, this does not mean you can be careless. In the event of an inspection, you must be able to provide evidence of every transaction. Check with your accountant whether your chosen record-keeping, data backup and retention procedures meet these requirements.
What a food truck till system needs to be able to do
The same practical requirements apply regardless of the country:
- Carry on without a safety net. At festivals, the mobile network regularly crashes when ten thousand people are all in the same dead spot. A till that freezes up at that point costs you a whole day’s takings.
- Card payments are integrated. Separate devices mean double the data entry and double the potential for errors.
- Quick and easy to use. When it’s busy at lunchtime, every second counts. Fixed product tiles beat any search function.
- Battery-powered. Not all sales counters have a power supply.
- Robustness. Grease, heat and sweaty hands are the norm.
Please include two payment methods. Card readers can fail, networks can go down, and batteries can run out. If you only accept cards and the terminal fails, you’ll be left with full display cases and no takings. Keeping a cash reserve as a fallback is essential.
How much does card payment cost?
| Posts | Typical scope |
|---|---|
| Terminal, purchased | 200 – 400 € |
| Terminal, rented | €10–30 per month |
| Girocard transaction fee | 0,2 – 0,9 % |
| Credit card transaction fee | 1,5 – 2,9 % |
| POS software | €0–60 per month |
| TSE (Germany) | €50–200 one-off payment or €5–10 per month |
With a daily turnover of 800 euros and twelve days’ operation, a two per cent fee amounts to around 190 euros a month. That’s no reason to stop accepting cards – anyone who doesn’t offer them loses more revenue than the fee amounts to – but it needs to be factored into the calculations.
Storage
Cash register data must be retained in the form in which it was created. A printout is not sufficient: the individual digital data records are required, in a format that can be exported and machine-readable.
Retention periods
DE Germany
AT Austria
CH Switzerland
The most costly mistake: Keep till data only on the device itself. A stolen tablet or a faulty hard drive not only means data loss, but also a failure to comply with data retention obligations. Export the data monthly and store the backups separately.