PHPPOS Genie is the AI assistant built into PHP Point Of Sale. Ask questions in plain language and it answers from your store's own data, scoped to your locations. Enable it through your plan or the in-app trial, then choose its model and chat-history behavior under Store Config → AI.

Reports answer the questions someone thought to build a report for. PHPPOS Genie answers the ones nobody did. Genie is the AI assistant built into PHP Point Of Sale: type a question about your store in plain language, and it computes the answer from your store's actual data — no report picking, no filter building.

Genie greets you with: "Hi I'm your PHPPOS Genie! I can provide insights, generate reports, and even help you forecast your inventory. I'm here to help, so ask away!" — and that is an accurate summary of the job.

What Genie can do

Genie works from your store's data, so its answers are about your sales, your inventory, your trends — not generic advice. Use it for:

• Smarter reporting — plain-language questions about sales, inventory and performance, answered with figures computed from your data ("How did last weekend compare to the one before?").
• Inventory insights and demand forecasting — a read on what you're likely to need, based on how your store has actually been selling.
• Trend spotting — patterns you would otherwise only find by running several reports and comparing them by hand.
• Quick operational questions — the "what's our best seller in this category?" kind of question, answered mid-shift.

It complements the classic reports rather than replacing them: running reports is still where the precise, exportable numbers live. Genie is for exploring, asking why, and getting an answer without building a query.

Turn Genie on

Genie is a plan entitlement — whether you have it depends on your subscription. Two ways to get it running:

• Your plan includes it — nothing else to buy. The menu item then appears for every employee who also holds the Artificial Intelligence → POS Genie permission described below.
• Start the in-app trial — when a trial is available, a banner headlined "Bring AI to your store with PHPPOS Genie" appears on the Home dashboard and in Store Config, stating the trial length ("You can start a X-day trial…") with a Start trial button. The same Start Trial button lives in Store Config → Subscription plan → Entitlements, on the PHPPOS Genie row.

Only employees with the Store Config permission can start the trial — others see "Ask a user with Store Config access to start the trial." While the trial runs, the entitlement row counts down the days left, and the banner offers Upgrade Now, which opens the billing portal. When the trial ends, Genie locks again until your plan includes it. How entitlements and trials work in general is covered in billing and your subscription.

On top of the entitlement, access is granted per employee: Genie has its own Artificial Intelligence permission module with a POS Genie action. An employee without it does not see the assistant even when your plan includes it — so you can open Genie to managers without opening it to everyone. Existing employees who already had Reports access keep it on upgrade; new grants are made per employee or per template as usual. See permissions and permission templates.

Open Genie and ask a question

1. Look for POS Genie in the left menu — it has a lightbulb icon and an AI badge, so everyone can see at a glance where the assistant lives. (First-time users also get a dismissible "Meet Genie, your new AI assistant" banner on the dashboard pointing at it.)
2. Click it. The Genie chat panel opens pinned to the lower-right corner of the app and stays with you as you move between screens.
3. Type your question the way you would ask a colleague — how something is selling, what's moving and what isn't, how this period compares to the last — and keep the thread going with follow-up questions on the answer.

Two useful things about how Genie answers:

• It knows where you are. Genie is told your current location, the locations your employee account is allowed to access, and today's date — so "how are we doing today?" means this location, today, and it cannot report on locations you are not assigned to.
• It computes from your store's records through the store's own data interface, the same records your reports run on — figures come from your actual sales and inventory, not from guesswork.

Genie settings

Genie's options live in Store Config, on the AI (Artificial Intelligence) tab:

Changing the model takes effect for new conversations; heavier models can give deeper answers at the cost of speed.

Genie is not the support chat

Genie answers questions about your store's data. The AI support chat bot answers questions about using PHP Point Of Sale itself, opens from your name/avatar menu → Support, and has its own setting (Hide AI Support Chat Bot, under Store Config → Application Settings). Turning one off does not affect the other. For product help, the support bot and the other channels in getting help are the right door.

Common questions

Where do I find Genie? In the left menu: POS Genie, marked with an AI badge. Clicking it opens the chat panel in the lower-right corner of the app.

Why don't I see POS Genie in my menu? Your plan does not currently include the Genie entitlement (or its trial ended). Check Store Config → Subscription plan → Entitlements — if a Trial available badge shows, an employee with Store Config access can click Start Trial. See billing and your subscription.

Can employees use Genie to see data they're not allowed to see? Genie's context is scoped to the locations the signed-in employee is assigned to, and it reads data through the store's own data interface. It is a faster way to ask, not a way around location assignments.

Does Genie replace reports? No. Genie is for exploration and plain-language answers; reports remain the source for precise, filterable, exportable numbers.

Are my Genie conversations saved? Yes by default, so you can revisit threads. To turn that off, check DO NOT save chat history under Store Config → AI (Artificial Intelligence).

Can I choose which AI model Genie uses? Yes — Store Config → AI (Artificial Intelligence) → LLM Frontier Model. Lighter models answer faster; larger models handle harder questions.

Is Genie the same as the support chat bubble? No. Genie (left menu) answers about your data; the support chat (avatar menu → Support) answers about using the product, and is hidden by its own Hide AI Support Chat Bot setting.