How to get your till ready for the December rush in Nigeria

It is Saturday 14 Nov, and the December bookings are already coming in. Channels TV reported last December that Lagos hotels take bookings from July and are usually full by November. Your restaurant, bar or shop is next in the queue. You have about six weeks. What you fix now costs you an afternoon. What you fix on 23 December costs you a night's takings.

The short answer

The December rush breaks the same four things every year: staff you do not know yet, transfers nobody can confirm in time, stock that runs out at the worst hour, and a network that drops when the room is fullest. Fix those four in November.

In practice, that means seven steps: give every extra hand their own sign-in, agree what counts as a paid transfer, set stock alerts, fix a cash float, count the drawer blind every shift, rehearse the day the network drops, and test everything the week before. The checklist is below.

What actually changes in December

Channels TV reported in December 2025 that Lagos, normally home to about 20 million people, swells during the festive season, and that Eko Hotels, the city's biggest, says December brings 15 to 20 percent of its yearly revenue. That is one hotel, but the pattern holds across hospitality: one month carries a large share of the year.

Three things come with the crowd.

More staff, less supervision. WeeTracker's 2026 report on Nigerian nightlife says staff numbers rise by 30 to 50 percent on peak nights, and that volume peaks between 20:00 and midnight. More people handle money at the hour you are least able to watch.

More transfers. One owner told WeeTracker: "It's rare to see cash." Transfers are most of the trade, so confirming them is most of the work.

More failures. Condia's summary of the CBN Fintech Report 2026 says several fintechs reported surges in downtime and service interruptions on weekends and public holidays. December has both in bulk. Your guests' banks and your own network are both under load.

Fake alerts also thrive in a crowd. ThisDay reported in 2025 that clubs, lounges and restaurants were among the worst hit, and a Lagos operator told the paper: "I assumed it was a temporary network issue and allowed him go."

A seven-step checklist for the next six weeks

1. Give every extra hand their own sign-in. Seasonal staff should not share the manager's login or a single "till" account. Each person gets their own PIN and a role that matches the job: a waiter takes orders, a cashier takes payment, a manager approves refunds and discounts. When something is short, you know whose shift it was.
2. Agree what counts as a paid transfer, and write it down. "The balance in our account went up by the exact amount" is a good rule. A screenshot is not. Put the rule on a card at the till. For the one-minute check, read how to know a fake transfer alert before you release the goods.
3. Set stock alerts on what runs out first. Pick the ten items that sell fastest in December, such as drinks, rice, cooking gas, packaging, and set a low-stock level for each. A sold-out item that stays on the menu becomes an argument at the table.
4. Fix the cash float. Decide how much change each till opens with, in which notes, and who signs for it. Small notes run out faster than anything else in December.
5. Count the drawer blind, every shift. The cashier counts the cash before seeing the figure the till expects, then writes down the difference, whatever it is. Read how to close a shift for the steps.
6. Rehearse the day the network drops. Ask the person on the till what they would do right now if the internet went off. They should know where sales are recorded, and how cash and transfers are handled until it returns. Read what to do when the POS network fails at rush hour.
7. Test everything the week before. Run a practice shift with all of it: a cash sale, a card sale, a transfer, a refund, a shift close, a network drop. Do it with the extra staff, not only with the regulars.

If foreign visitors or returning families will pay by card, note that the CBN directed banks and acquirers in December 2025 to keep ATM and POS services running for foreign cards through the festive season, as Premium Times reported. Your terminal still depends on your own network and your own provider, so test it.

The hidden cost of getting this wrong

Most December losses are not dramatic. A fake alert at 22:40. A seasonal waiter who "forgot" to ring a round of drinks. Two bottles of the same drink that the till said were in stock. A transfer that left the guest's account and has not reached yours, while the queue behind them grows.

Checking harder does not scale. At 30 to 50 percent more staff, the owner cannot watch every transfer and every drawer. The only version that holds is one where the till does the checking and you read the result.

How Jollozi helps you do the seven steps

All of the below is Live in Jollozi POS and Jollozi Table today.

• Sign-ins and roles. Staff PINs, roles and approvals are built into Jollozi POS, and several tills can run in one branch.
• Transfers that confirm themselves. With FlashPay, the payment rail inside Jollozi, the guest approves the payment in their own bank app and the sale marks itself paid on the till. Nobody reads an alert. The money settles into your own bank account.
• Guests who order and pay from the table. On Jollozi Table, guests scan the code on the table, order from their phones, split the bill by items, evenly or by picked items, and pay from the table. Fewer waiters have to carry bills around, and fewer bills get argued over.
• Stock tracking and alerts. Jollozi POS tracks stock and warns you when an item runs low.
• Shifts and a blind cash count. The cashier counts the drawer without seeing the expected figure, and the day close lists cash, transfers and card separately.
• Offline. Jollozi POS works offline and syncs when the connection returns.
• The owner's phone app. You see the day from anywhere, which helps when you cannot be in the room.

The cashier demo on the real till runs a practice shift with a QR order, a sold-out item, a transfer check and a cash sale with change, which is close to a rehearsal for step 7.

Practise before the rush

Try a practice shift on the Jollozi till, with a QR order, a transfer that confirms itself and a blind cash count, at till.jollozi.com/demo.