A layby is a sale that allows you to take a deposit from a customer for a product, set that product aside, and let the customer pay it off at a later date.

Creating layby sales

To place a sale on layby:

1. Create a sale on the sell screen, adding the desired products and ensuring a customer is added to the sale
2. Click Pay
3. If you wish to take a deposit for the layby sale, enter a partial payment amount and choose the payment type to charge the customer with; if you do not require a deposit, skip to step 4.
4. Click Layby.
5. Issue the customer with the receipt

Retrieve a layby sale

You can quickly retrieve a layby sale by searching for its receipt number. To do this:

1. Navigate to Sell > Sales history.

2. Type the receipt number for the layby sale under the Receipt or note section and click Search.

3. Locate your sale from the list of layby sales below and click the Continue sale icon.

4. The sale will load, and lead you to the Sell screen. You can then take payment by clicking the Pay button and selecting the payment type the customer wishes to use.

If the customer is paying off the sale entirely, you can now give them the items in the layby and a final, updated receipt. If the customer is only paying a portion of the remaining balance, process the partial payment and then click the Layby to put the remaining balance back onto layby.

If you do not have the receipt number for the layby sale you're looking for, you can still locate the sale manually. To do this, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Sell > Sales history.

2. Click the Continue sale tab.

3. Next, Select Layby from the Status drop-down and click the search button. This will filter your list of sales by layby only.

4. Locate your sale from the list of layby sales below and click the continue sale icon.

5. The sale will load, and lead you to the Sell screen. You can then take payment by clicking the Pay button.

If the customer is paying off the sale entirely, you can now give them the items in the layby and a final, updated receipt. If the customer is only paying a portion of the remaining balance, process the partial payment and then click the Layby to put the remaining balance back onto layby.

Cancel a layby sale

Sometimes, a customer might need to cancel their layby sale. To cancel the sale:

1. Retrieve the layby sale using the steps above.
2. Add each item to the sale again, but change the quantity to a negative amount to cancel out the original item. This also returns the item to your inventory in Retail POS.
3. Click Pay. You will be prompted to refund the customer the amount they paid.

Once the refund is processed, the sale will be closed.

Dismiss the sale/start over

If you have accidentally continued the wrong layby or on-account sale, you can use the Dismiss sale button to exit. The sale won’t be deleted, and you can go back to it at any time.

Different from on-account sales

While not required in Retail POS, generally, retailers will prefer that their customer deposits part of the sale total when processing a layby sale. The product is then normally put aside or reserved for the customer until the layby has been paid off in full.

This is different from an on-account sale, where the customer might come into your store, purchase a product(s), and be issued a sales invoice to be paid at a later date.

On-account sales will also generate a sales invoice in Xero, whereas layby payments will pass through to Xero in your daily register closure totals.

For more information, read our article What is the difference between On-account and Layby.