Choose how you take money

Cash needs nothing set up: every till takes it, and each cashier counts it at the end of their shift. M-Pesa, card and bank transfers each have their own set-up, from the simplest, which works today with the till number you already have.

M-Pesa with codes

Customers pay your Buy Goods till or paybill as they do now, and the cashier types the M-Pesa code from the customer’s message into the till.

1. Open M-Pesa under Integrations

   Open Administration › Integrations and API. On M-Pesa (“Not set up”), tap Set up M-Pesa.

2. Choose Manual codes

   “Customers pay your till or paybill as they do today. The cashier types the M-Pesa code.” Nothing to set up, Codes checked for reuse, Matched when you import the statement.

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3. Choose Buy Goods till or Paybill

   Under Your M-Pesa number, choose the kind of number you have.

4. Type the number

   Till number or Paybill number: “The number customers pay to.”

5. Tap Save

   Kila says M-Pesa saved: “Cashiers record M-Pesa payments by their code.”

6. Check the M-Pesa card

   It shows Manual M-Pesa codes and the number customers pay, such as Till 5123456: “Kila checks every code for reuse and matches it to your M-Pesa statement when you import it.”

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At the till, M-Pesa then shows the number to pay and asks for the code: see Make your first sale.

Who confirms a till or paybill payment

Under Administration › Settings › Point of sale, M-Pesa paid to your till number or paybill starts on Confirmed by the cashier: “The cashier checks the customer’s M-Pesa message and confirms it at the till.” The other choice is Matched to the M-Pesa statement: “Payments wait as “not confirmed yet” until an M-Pesa statement you import or pull matches them”. Choose that if you reconcile your M-Pesa statement in Kila. Kila does not pull statements from Safaricom yet: download the statement from the M-Pesa portal and upload it.

M-Pesa prompts to the customer’s phone

Prompts through Kila is the level Kila recommends: “Kila sends the prompt to the customer’s phone and Safaricom tells Kila when money arrives.” There is no developer account, but Safaricom must authorise Kila for your number, in three steps Kila lists: Ask Kila to activate your number, Approve with the code Safaricom sends and Paste the passkey that Safaricom emails. Save and connect stays grey until the passkey is there.

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A business that already runs its own Safaricom Daraja app chooses Your own Daraja app and types its consumer key and secret as well.

Good to know

These pages were made on a test copy of Kila, so no real Safaricom account was connected: they stop at the passkey. “Keys and the passkey are encrypted and never shown again in full. Kila staff cannot read them.”

Not available yet

Until Kila’s M-Pesa connection is live, Kila sends no prompt, with Prompts through Kila or with Your own Daraja app. Set up M-Pesa says Prompts are not connected to Safaricom yet: “Kila’s M-Pesa connection is not live yet, so prompts are not sent and payment notifications cannot be turned on. Your settings are kept. Until then customers pay to your till or paybill, and cashiers enter the M-Pesa code.” Once saved, the M-Pesa card says Prompts not connected. Manual codes work either way. See Take M-Pesa.

Card

• On your bank’s card machine. Charge the card on the machine as you do now, then record it at the till with the slip’s details. Money › Card machines lists “Cards paid on the bank’s own machines, by machine and day, until the bank settles them into the bank account.” Add your machines there with Add a machine; “Cards can still be recorded on an unlisted machine.”
• Through a card processor. Integrations and API › Card payments (“Visa and Mastercard through an approved processor”) asks for the Processor, such as Pesapal, DPO or Flutterwave, and the Merchant ID and keys the processor gives you.

Not available yet

Saving a processor under Card payments does not change the till yet: the till charges no card through it. Record cards from the bank’s card machine. See Take a card payment.

Bank transfer

At the till, a bank transfer is recorded with the amount and the bank’s reference. Integrations and API › Bank statement feeds (“Daily statement files from partner banks”) asks for the bank and the account number.

Not available yet

No bank statement comes into Kila by itself yet, whatever is saved under Bank statement feeds. Download each statement from your bank and upload it.

What if

The checklist still shows M-Pesa to do

M-Pesa till or paybill ticks itself off once M-Pesa and eTIMS are both set up: it says M-Pesa connected, eTIMS not connected until you set up eTIMS. To put it aside, open the step and tap Cash and M-Pesa codes for now.

Related

• Make your first sale: taking cash, M-Pesa, card and bank transfers at the till.
• How shifts and cash-ups work: why M-Pesa and card never count as cash in the drawer.
• Take M-Pesa and Integrations and API: the till and the connections in full.

Next: Set up your till.