Architect & Engineer · Web, POS · 2026

TableKare

An offline-first restaurant POS for Ghana — one pipeline from the waiter's phone to a GRA-compliant receipt.

TypeScript
Node.js
Fastify
PostgreSQL
RLS
React
Astro
Offline-first
PWA

TableKare kitchen display board with live order tickets, timers, allergy notes and an 86 alert

TableKare is a multi-tenant point-of-sale and operations platform built for Ghanaian restaurants, where power cuts and patchy connectivity are normal operating conditions, not edge cases. The POS is the product; QR self-ordering is one input layered on top. I designed and built the whole system end to end — a pnpm monorepo of five apps and shared packages.

The problem

Restaurants in Accra run through dropped connections, cash-heavy service, and a tax regime (GRA E-VAT) most cloud POS systems don't handle. Service can't stop when the internet does, end-of-day has to actually reconcile, and every receipt has to itemize VAT, NHIL and GETFund correctly.

Offline-first architecture

Every device keeps a durable IndexedDB outbox. Each mutation is an idempotent op keyed by a client-generated UUID, so retries and replayed batches dedupe safely with no distributed lock. The till and kitchen keep working offline and sync the moment the connection returns.

Compliance and money

GRA E-VAT receipts print VAT (15%), NHIL (2.5%) and GETFund (2.5%) as three separately-rounded lines behind an invoicing-service interface, with a provisional path for outages that fiscalizes on reconnect. Bills split even, by item, or custom into one fiscal invoice and several payer slips; cash sessions close on a blind count.

Multi-tenant and tested

Tenant isolation is enforced in the database with Postgres row-level security, proven by an executable isolation test that CI blocks merges on. Item-level stock auto-86s across every order source; an owner dashboard reports sales, reconciliation and alerts with a crash-safe end-of-day scheduler. 500+ tests run green across the workspace.

Highlights

Five apps in one pnpm monorepo: staff PWA, kitchen display, QR portal, owner dashboard, Fastify API
Offline-first sync — durable outbox, UUID-idempotent ops, degrade-don't-reject
Ghana E-VAT receipts (Act 1151): VAT + NHIL + GETFund as three rounded lines
Split and mixed payment, blind-count cash sessions, refunds and credit notes
Item-level stock with auto-86 across the till and the QR menu
Multi-tenant Postgres row-level security with an executable isolation gate
ESC/POS thermal printing over WebUSB / Web Serial
500+ tests, typecheck and lint green in CI

TableKare staff till taking an order, with the Ghanaian menu and a Fire round button — The waiter's till — take an order at the table or from a QR scan, both into one queue.

TableKare owner dashboard with sales, orders, average bill and a needs-attention panel — Owner dashboard — sales, cash reconciliation and a needs-attention panel.

A TableKare GRA E-VAT receipt with VAT, NHIL and GETFund lines and a clearance reference — A GRA E-VAT receipt — VAT, NHIL and GETFund itemized, with a clearance reference.

TableKare QR ordering menu on a phone with Ghanaian dishes and prices — QR ordering — guests order from their phone into the same system as the till.

TableKare staff app table map showing table status — The floor — a live table map across the service.