Session billing done right: pause, resume, and overtime
Most POS systems treat time as a single tap. Venues that bill by the minute need pause, resume, overtime, and audit trails. Here is how Venora handles it.
If your venue charges by the minute — snooker tables, pool tables, gaming stations, VR rigs, badminton courts — your billing system needs to do more than a simple start-stop timer.
The four states of a session
Every session has four real-world states:
1. Started — the clock is running, time is being billed. 2. Paused — the customer stepped away, the clock should not run. 3. Resumed — the clock continues from where it left off. 4. Stopped — the session is closed, the bill is final.
Most POS systems skip states 2 and 3. Pause and resume are not edge cases — they happen every day. Without them, your staff either give time away or overcharge regulars, and both will cost you customers.
Overtime is not a billing event
Overtime is a session that ran past its booked window. It should bill at the configured overtime rate, automatically, with the breakdown visible on the bill. If your system asks the cashier to manually calculate overtime, expect mistakes.
Linked orders
When the customer orders food or drinks during a session, those orders should attach to the active session and settle together at the end. One transaction, one bill, one reconciliation.
Audit trail is not optional
Every pause, resume, discount, and refund should be logged per user. If a session was paused for an hour and you cannot say who did it or why, you have a problem.
Venora handles all of this out of the box across snooker, pool, gaming, and sports venues. See it in action on the snooker page or gaming lounge page.