Taking NQR payments at the counter
How a Nigerian shop gets onboarded for NIBSS NQR, what the customer and cashier each do, and how to record NQR sales at Achekam's till.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Running a business businesses in Nigeria
Plenty of Nigerian customers would rather not carry cash, and not every one of them wants to hand over a card. A QR code on the counter that they can scan with their own banking app is an easy answer, and NIBSS's NQR is built for exactly that. The money goes from their account to yours, with no card in between.
The question for a shop owner is not only how to start accepting NQR, but how to make sure every NQR sale is recorded properly at the till and later found on the bank statement. This article covers both, and is clear about where Achekam's till fits and where it does not.
What NQR is
NIBSS describes NQR as an indigenous QR-code-based payments and collections solution that it powers on behalf of the financial services industry in Nigeria. It is account-based, meaning payments move between bank accounts, and it is based on the EMV QR Code Specification, the international standard for payment QR codes.
NIBSS lists retail outlets among NQR's uses, along with ride hailing and taxi payments, bus fares, tolling booths and vending machines. A shop counter is about as typical a use as it gets.
Getting onboarded through your bank
NIBSS's advice is short: to use NQR, visit your bank to get onboarded. Your bank handles the merchant set-up and gives you the NQR code to display.
NIBSS lists single and bulk merchant onboarding among NQR's features, along with real-time notification to merchants and sub-merchants. If you run more than one branch or till point, ask your bank whether each can have its own code and its own notifications. Separate notifications per counter make the end-of-day check far easier, because each cashier can see their own payments.
Ask your bank, too, what the service costs and how quickly credits reach your account. Those terms come from the bank, not from NIBSS's product page.
The customer's steps and the cashier's
NIBSS describes the flow like this. The merchant presents the NQR code at checkout. The customer scans it with a mobile banking app, checks the merchant details, enters the amount if required, and authenticates. The merchant receives a credit notification.
Two points in that sequence deserve attention at a busy counter:
- "Enters the amount if required." With a static code, the customer types the amount. Customers mistype. The cashier should read the amount back from the credit notification, not from the customer's screen.
- "The merchant receives a credit notification." That notification is the cashier's proof. Until it arrives, the sale has not been paid, however convincing the customer's phone looks.
The till's own QR is not NQR
Achekam's till has a QR option of its own, and it is a different thing. A customer can pay at the till by scanning a QR code for the pay page of a payment gateway the business has set up, and the payment counts only after the server has confirmed it with the gateway. Naira tills offer Paystack and Flutterwave for this, and only when the business has set the gateway up and switched it on.
So a Nigerian shop may end up with two codes on the counter: the bank's NQR code and the till's gateway QR. They run on different rails and settle differently. Train cashiers to know which is which, and to record each one under the right payment method.
Recording an NQR sale at the till
Achekam's till does not connect to NQR. The nearest fit is its bank transfer method, which is built for money paid straight into the business's account. For a bank transfer at the counter, the till shows the business's bank details and a reference, and the sale is refused until the cashier records the bank's reference.
That refusal is a useful discipline for NQR. The cashier waits for the credit notification, enters its reference against the sale, and only then completes it. A sale recorded this way carries the evidence needed to trace it later.
At the counter, in order
- Ring up the sale and choose the bank transfer method.
- Show the customer the NQR code.
- Wait for the credit notification and check the amount.
- Record the notification's reference in the till.
- Complete the sale.
Matching the day's NQR credits
At the end of the day or week, the NQR credits should appear on your bank statement. In Achekam, bank lines are matched by suggestion and a person accepts each match. A line that is not yet in the books becomes a suggested journal a person approves. A reconciliation completes only when nothing is left unexplained.
Where the till recorded a reference for every NQR sale, matching is quick. Where a cashier completed a sale without a real notification, the gap shows up here, as a sale with no credit behind it. Investigate those the same day.
A simple weekly check:
- total NQR sales recorded at each till;
- total NQR credits on the statement for the same days;
- any difference traced to a specific sale, cashier and reference.
NIBSS explains how NQR works, who it is for and how merchants get onboarded on its NQR product page. For the full set of ways a Nigerian customer can pay at Achekam's till, see payment methods at a Nigerian till. A front-desk view of the same problem is in QR payments at a gym front desk. Start by asking your bank for separate notifications per counter; it makes every other step easier.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
