How Assignment Works in Practice

Sales Person assignment at the POS is designed to require as little effort from the cashier as possible in most scenarios. For the majority of transactions, the right sales person is assigned automatically before the cashier adds a single item. Manual assignment is available for exceptions, and barcode scanning offers a fast alternative for stores where associates have their own barcodes. This article covers all three methods and explains how assignment behaves through the full transaction lifecycle.

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Auto-Assignment: The Priority Cascade

When a new POS transaction is opened, iVendNext POS runs through an automatic assignment sequence. This cascade evaluates two conditions in order of priority and assigns a sales person based on the first condition that is met.

Priority 1 — Cashier as Sales Person: If the Retail Setting flag "Auto Add Cashier as Sales Person" is enabled and the logged-in cashier has an active Sales Person record linked to their user account that is eligible for the current store, the cashier is automatically assigned as the sales person with 100% allocation. No prompt appears. The sales person widget in the transaction header populates immediately when the transaction is opened.

Priority 2 — POS Profile Default: If the first condition is not met — either because auto-add is not enabled, or because the cashier does not have a linked Sales Person record, or because the cashier's Sales Person is not available at this store — the system checks whether the POS Profile has a default sales person configured. If it does, and that person is eligible for the current store, the default is assigned with 100% allocation.

No assignment: If neither condition is met, the transaction opens with no sales person. The sales person widget shows "No Sales Person" as a placeholder. Depending on the Retail Setting flags, the cashier may see a warning at submission or be blocked from completing the transaction without making an assignment.

If a new transaction already has a sales person from another source — for example, copied from the customer record — the auto-assignment cascade does not overwrite the existing assignment. The cascade only runs when the sales person field is empty at transaction creation.

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Manual Assignment via the Assignment Dialog

At any point before the transaction is submitted, the cashier or a manager can manually add, change, or remove the sales person assignment. This is done by tapping the Sales Person widget in the transaction header, which opens the Sales Person Assignment Dialog.

The dialog presents a single search-and-add field with the placeholder "Type a name to search and add." Typing into this field both filters the list of eligible sales persons and allows the cashier to select a result to assign. There is no separate "Add" button — the search field is the unified entry point for all assignment actions.

When the cashier selects a person from the search results, the assignment behaviour depends on whether "Allow Multiple Sales Person on Transaction" is enabled.

If only a single sales person is allowed, selecting a new person replaces the current assignment entirely. The new person is assigned with 100% allocation and the previous assignment is removed.

If multiple sales persons are allowed, the newly selected person is added to the existing assignment list alongside any already-assigned persons. The system auto-distributes the allocation percentages equally across all assigned persons so that the total always equals 100%. The cashier can then manually adjust individual percentages within the dialog. If any adjustment would push the total above 100%, the system automatically clamps the value to the maximum permitted for that row, with a brief notification confirming the clamp.

To remove a sales person from the assignment, the cashier uses the Remove control on their row in the dialog. If all sales persons are removed, the transaction has no assignment and the widget returns to "No Sales Person."

Barcode Scan Assignment

For stores where sales associates carry personalised barcodes — on a badge, a card, or a wristband — assignment by barcode scan is the fastest method. When the "Allow Sales Person Scanning" flag is enabled in Retail Settings, the POS scan flow recognises sales person barcodes as well as item barcodes.

Each Sales Person record that should be scannable has a Barcode field where the associate's barcode value is entered. When a cashier or associate scans that barcode at the POS, the system checks it against the Sales Person barcode list. If a match is found and sales person scanning is enabled, the matched person is assigned to the transaction header immediately. A brief confirmation message confirms the assignment: "Sales Person [Name] assigned."

If the scanned barcode matches a Sales Person whose Store/Warehouse restriction does not include the current store, the scan is rejected with a message explaining that the sales person is not assigned to this location. The transaction continues without any assignment change.

If a sales person barcode is scanned but the "Allow Sales Person Scanning" flag is disabled, an informational message tells the cashier that scanning is disabled. No assignment is made.

Automatic Mode: Assignment Before the Transaction Begins

When the POS Profile is set to Automatic Sales Person Mode, the Sales Person Assignment Dialog appears at the start of every new transaction — before the cashier adds any items. This makes assignment a mandatory first step in the transaction flow.

If the auto-assignment cascade has pre-populated a sales person, the dialog opens with that person already shown and the cashier can confirm with a single tap. If no auto-assignment applies, the dialog opens empty and the cashier must search for and select a sales person before proceeding.

If the "Mandatory Sales Person per Transaction" flag is off, the cashier can explicitly choose to proceed without a sales person by dismissing the dialog without a selection. If the mandatory flag is on, the dialog cannot be dismissed without making a selection — the transaction cannot begin without attribution.

Commission Display at the Till

Once a sales person is assigned, the estimated commission for that person is calculated automatically and displayed in the transaction. This calculation uses the sales person's commission rate from their master record — or the applicable Commission Rule rate if a rule matches the transaction — applied to the transaction's net total according to the allocation percentage.

The commission figure is informational and read-only in the POS. Cashiers and associates can see it but cannot edit it. It updates dynamically as items are added or removed from the basket. This real-time display is useful in sales environments where associates are actively motivated by commission and benefit from knowing the estimated value of the transaction they are working on.

Assignment Through the Transaction Lifecycle

Sales person assignment persists automatically through every stage of the transaction lifecycle.

Suspend and Resume: When a transaction is suspended, the sales person assignment is saved as part of the suspended draft. When the transaction is resumed — at any till, by any authorised cashier — the assignment is restored exactly as it was.

Void and Cancel: When a transaction is cancelled, the sales person assignment data remains on the cancelled document for audit purposes. The assignment is never deleted from historical records, even for cancelled transactions.

Return Transactions: When a return is created from an original sale, the sales person assignment is handled according to the "Use Original Sales Person on Returns" setting. If set to Original, the return inherits the sales person from the source transaction automatically. If set to Active Cashier, the return uses the standard auto-assignment cascade. In either case, the cashier is not required to manually re-enter the sales person for a return.

A special handling rule applies when a return copies sales persons from an original transaction and one of those persons has since been deactivated. The inactive person is automatically excluded from the return's assignment. The remaining active persons retain their original percentages, but the total allocation will be less than 100% if any rows were dropped. The return cannot be submitted until the allocation is manually corrected to 100% — the cashier will see a prompt at payment time explaining what needs to be resolved.

What Managers See

From the manager's perspective, every submitted transaction carries a clear record of which sales person or persons were responsible, their allocation percentages, and the commission amount attributed to each. This data is accessible through the Sales Person Commission Summary report and the Sales Person-wise Transaction Summary, both of which can be filtered to show POS Invoice data as well as the standard Sales Invoice view. Managers can review performance by individual, by shift, or across a period without needing to export data or use a separate system.