Sandbox

The sandbox is a play copy of your shop. Sell, refund, void, raise invoices, run a campaign, break things — none of it reaches a customer, a card terminal, your accounting file or your own books. Open it from Settings → Admin → Sandbox or the Try it in the sandbox link in your account menu, and the whole suite reloads under the sandbox account.

What is in it

The first time you enter, the sandbox is built from your real account:

• Your stores and staff — the same names, roles and till PINs, so the counter works the way your team knows it. Sandbox staff have no password of their own; you get in from your real login, and the sandbox login list is never shown on the sign-in page.
• Your settings — module settings, invoice and receipt settings, payment methods (with any card-terminal link removed), email templates, and one closed, empty register per store.
• Your catalogue — categories, products (the newest 2,000 if you hold more), repair prices, SIM plans and the POS quick picks.
• A month of made-up trading — fifteen customers, around forty sales, five invoices (one overdue), two gift cards and stock on hand, plus the starter repair tickets for your industry. The customers have example.com addresses and non-routable phone numbers, so nothing could ever reach them even if it tried.

Your real customers, sales, repairs, invoices, gift cards, store credit, stock movements, campaigns, integrations and audit history are not copied in. The sandbox knows what you sell and how your shop is set up; it knows nothing about who you have sold to.

Nothing leaves the sandbox

An orange strip sits across the top of every screen while you are inside. It says exactly what the sandbox promises: no emails, SMS, card charges or accounting sync leave it. Emailing a receipt or an invoice from the sandbox succeeds on screen and sends nothing; customer texts are skipped; a sale never reaches Xero, QuickBooks or MYOB.

A few actions are refused outright rather than silently swallowed, with a message saying the sandbox is why:

• Card payments — through Stripe, a Square, Tyro or Linkly terminal, or Maya. Cash and manually recorded card tenders work as normal.
• Pairing a card terminal or connecting an integration.
• Changing the outgoing mail server or SMS provider credentials.
• Sending a marketing campaign — you can still write and preview one.
• Plan upgrades and billing management.
• Exporting your data or deleting the account.

Everything printed or emailed from the sandbox is titled SANDBOX — NOT A TAX INVOICE, carries no ABN, and its receipt footer says the sale is not real.

Every feature of the top plan

The sandbox runs on the top plan whatever your real account is on, so you can try a module you do not pay for yet before deciding. Sandbox sales, repairs and products never count towards the limits on your real plan, and they never appear in your real reports or dashboard.

Resetting and leaving

Reset sandbox — on the strip or the Settings screen — wipes every sale, repair, invoice and customer created in the sandbox and builds it fresh from your real account again. It cannot be undone, and your real account is never touched. Exit sandbox puts you straight back where you were: same store, same login.

The Settings screen shows when the sandbox was created, last reset and last entered, and how many sales, repairs, invoices and customers it currently holds.