Notifications & announcements

The notification bell keeps you informed of things that need attention — without interrupting service flow.

The notification bell

The bell icon sits in the top bar (POS and Admin). A red dot means unread items exist.

• The bell polls for new notifications every ~30 seconds.
• Tap the bell to open the notification panel.

The notification panel

The panel shows a scrollable list, sorted unread-first then by time. Each item has a category icon:

Icon colour	Category	Example
Amber receipt	Settlement reminder	"Closing time approaching — Final Settlement not yet completed"
Teal info	Platform announcement	"Scheduled maintenance tonight 02:00–03:00 AEST"
Grey bell	Everything else (open-visit reminders, visa expiry, low stock)	"Staff visa expiring in 7 days — John Smith"

Approval reminders (for example a cash variance awaiting approval) appear only in the Admin bell, never on POS.

Actions on notifications

• Tap an actionable notification (those with a link) to navigate directly to the relevant page.
• Mark as read — tap the checkmark on a single item, or use Mark all as read at the top.
• On POS, marking as read only needs a selected operator — no PIN.
• Platform announcements can be expanded to read the full body text.

What triggers notifications

Trigger	Who sees it	Automatic?
A Visit is still open (one reminder per open Visit per business day)	Store POS	Yes (Celery task)
No Final Settlement shortly before closing time — fires N minutes before the configured close (default 5; store setting notification.settlement_reminder_before_close_minutes), checked every 5 minutes	Store POS	Yes (Celery task)
Staff visa expiring (30/7/1 days)	Store POS + Admin	Yes (Celery task)
Low inventory stock	Store POS	Yes (on stock movement)
Platform announcement published	All stores	Manual by platform admin

Notification lifecycle

• Notifications that are read and older than 30 days are automatically cleaned up.
• Unread notifications older than 90 days are also cleaned up.
• Notifications with an expiry date disappear after that date.
• The same alert is not repeated within 24 hours.
• Nothing is "pushed" to your phone — notifications only appear when POS or Admin is open.

Platform announcements

Platform-wide notices (maintenance windows, new features, policy changes) appear as:

1. A banner across the top of the page (dismissible).
2. An item in the notification panel (expandable for full details).

These are published by the platform team and are not store-specific.

Tips

• Check the bell at shift start — catch open-visit reminders or platform notices.
• Don't ignore settlement reminders — they prompt staff to complete the deliberate Final Settlement on POS; the reminder does not create or close anything automatically.
• Visa expiry notices are a compliance signal — act on them before the deadline, not after.