Key points
- A temporary bill is printed before the customer pays. A paid receipt is printed after the payment is recorded and shows how it was paid.
- The risk sits with cash: a payment that's never recorded, followed by a cancelled order, leaves no difference in the drawer, so check cancellations and Unpaid orders too.
- Hand over a paid receipt every time, limit who approves cancellations, offer QRIS and card, and point a camera at the counter.
- In Kazeer, the Unpaid status marks orders with no payment recorded, cancellations stay visible in the records, and you can see totals per payment method and per cashier shift.
In May 2026, a post about cafe and restaurant receipts drew a lot of attention. It reminded people who eat at cafes and restaurants to ask for a receipt that shows the bill is paid, not a bill that still says it hasn't been. For a customer, that's about proof of payment. For you as the owner, it's about making sure every payment actually gets recorded.
Below: the difference between a temporary bill and a paid receipt, why the risk sits with cash payments, and the controls you can set up, including a daily check before closing.
Note: Kazeer has no connection to the post or to any business whose receipts appear in it.
What the post showed
A Threads post by @carino_mi_amante was reposted by @jkt.feed on 25 May 2026 (opens in a new tab) on Instagram, as eight images along with some of the replies. It shows two receipts from the same table. The first still says NOT PAID under the total and is marked wrong. The second shows the payment, by card through an EDC terminal, and is marked right.
Other users then shared similar receipts saying the bill wasn't settled, even though they had paid, one of them by QRIS. Replies explained how it works: when a customer asks for the bill, the cashier prints a temporary bill for them to check. Once the customer pays, the receipt is printed again as a paid receipt that shows how they paid. Some people who work in the trade also described ways businesses prevent it, and we cover several of those ideas below.
A receipt that says not paid isn't necessarily a sign of fraud. It may simply be a bill printed before the customer paid, with the paid receipt never handed over.
Temporary bill and paid receipt
One order can produce two slips of paper:
| Temporary bill | Paid receipt (closed bill) |
|---|
| When it's printed | When the customer asks for the bill, before paying | After the payment is recorded at the POS |
|---|
| What it shows | The items and the total, sometimes with a note that it's unpaid | The items, the total, and how it was paid: cash, QRIS, or card |
|---|
| What it's for | The customer checks the order and the total | Proof that the payment is on record |
|---|
The wording on each slip differs from one POS app to the next. What matters is that the cashier and the customer can tell them apart at a glance.
In Kazeer, cash, QRIS, and card payments are recorded on the same order, and the Unpaid status marks an order whose payment isn't recorded yet. If your outlet uses a receipt printer, receipts are printed from the POS app.
Why the risk sits with cash
QRIS and card payments leave a trail outside the POS: in the QRIS provider's transaction list and on the card terminal. Cash leaves no trail like that. Replies to the post explained the gap: a customer pays cash, but a dishonest cashier hands over only the temporary bill, keeps the money, and later cancels the order in the system. The sale disappears from the records, and the money never reaches the drawer. The customer loses nothing, having already paid. The loss falls on the business owner.
In a case like that, the cash count at closing can still match, because the sale isn't on record and the money isn't in the drawer either. So matching the cash alone isn't enough. Cancellations and unpaid orders need checking too.
Honest mistakes happen as well. A cashier in a rush can forget to record a cash payment. The order stays Unpaid while the money sits in the drawer, so the drawer holds more than the records show.
Controls you can set up
A paid receipt for every customer
Make it a written rule: once a payment is recorded, the cashier prints the receipt and hands it to the customer, whether they paid by cash, QRIS, or card. If the customer already got a temporary bill, the paid receipt replaces it. Train this from a new cashier's first day, as in the guide to training a new cashier, and keep spare paper rolls so receipts can still be printed when a roll runs out at a busy hour.
Limit who approves a cancellation
Decide who can approve a cancellation, such as you or the shift lead, especially for orders that have been cooked or already billed. Have every cancellation written in a cancellation book: date, time, table, reason, and who approved it.
In Kazeer, cancelled orders stay visible in the records, so you can match the book against the app. Don't lend the owner account to a cashier, because it opens every outlet and every report. Give each staff member access for their task and outlet, as in the guide to staff access.
Handle less cash
With dynamic QRIS, a QR code is made for each transaction and already holds the amount due. Card payments are recorded on the card terminal. Both leave a trail you can match. In Kazeer, dynamic QRIS is included in every plan, and QRIS and card payments are recorded on the same order. Make it a habit for cashiers to offer QRIS and card when customers are ready to pay.
Keep accepting cash. Indonesia's Currency Law (Law No. 7 of 2011) prohibits refusing rupiah as payment unless there is doubt that it's genuine. The goal is to handle less cash, not to turn it away.
A camera over the counter
Point a camera at the counter, the drawer, and the spot where receipts are handed over. Make sure it doesn't capture the card terminal's keypad while customers enter their PIN. Tell your staff where the cameras are and what they're for. A recording helps answer a specific question, such as a cancellation at a certain time, and protects an honest cashier when a customer disputes something. Keep recordings at least until you've finished reading that week's cancellations.
A free-meal sign for missing receipts
Some businesses put up a sign saying the meal is free if the customer doesn't get a receipt. The upside: customers ask for their receipt, so paid receipts get missed less often. The downsides: you pay for every forgotten receipt, you need to write the terms clearly (what counts is the paid receipt, not the temporary bill), and it can lead to arguments at the counter. A lighter option is a sign asking customers to make sure they get a paid receipt.
Be fair to your cashiers
Most cashiers do their job honestly. One not-paid receipt, one cancellation, or one difference in the drawer proves nothing. Clear rules protect them: a paid receipt handed over, cancellations written down and approved, and camera footage let a cashier show what happened. If you see a pattern that looks wrong, check the records and the footage first, then talk with the cashier in private.
A daily check before closing
Run this check every night, before the cashier leaves:
| What to check | Where | What to ask |
|---|
| Unpaid orders | The order list in the POS app | Paid but not recorded? Did a customer leave without paying? |
| Cancelled orders | The order records in the POS app | Is each one in the cancellation book, with a reason and who approved it? |
| Cash in the drawer | The cash total for that shift | Does it match the cash payments on record? |
| QRIS and card | The QRIS provider's transaction list and the card terminal's summary | Do the totals and transaction counts match what's on record? |
Kazeer shows totals per payment method (cash, QRIS, card) and per cashier shift, so the figures to compare against are there without a manual recap. How to count the drawer, record a difference, and match QRIS and card is in the guide to the end-of-day cash-up.
Once a week, read the cancellations by shift and look for patterns, not single events.
Example: Over one week, 6 cancellations are on record. Four of them happened on the evening shift, and according to the cancellation book, all four were orders already served at the table. The other two were on the morning shift, before the orders went to the kitchen. These numbers are only an example. A pattern like that proves nothing yet, but it's reason enough to match the cancellation book against the footage for those hours.
Questions to ask a POS vendor
Every POS app works differently. Ask these questions before you choose an app, or when you review the one you already use:
- Do the temporary bill and the paid receipt look different, and does the paid receipt show how the customer paid?
- Which roles can cancel an order, and can that be limited to the owner or the shift lead?
- Does the cancellation record keep who cancelled, when, and why?
- Can a shift be closed while there are still unpaid orders?
- Can you see totals per payment method and per cashier shift?
Here's what we can confirm for Kazeer: the Unpaid status marks orders with no payment recorded, cancellations stay visible in the records, totals per payment method and per cashier shift can be seen, staff access is set per task and per outlet, and receipts are printed from the POS app. You can ask the rest of these questions directly at a demo with the Kazeer team.
Start this week
- Write the paid-receipt rule down and post it near the counter.
- Set up a cancellation book, and decide who can approve cancellations.
- Run the daily check above every night for two weeks, then read the results.
- If you already have a camera over the counter, check where it's pointing.
- Explain the new rules to all your cashiers at once, along with the reason: these rules protect them too.