Your cash drawer is driven by the receipt printer. If the receipt printer isn't working, the drawer won't open — so we always start there.
1. Is your receipt printer printing?
Run a quick test: print any receipt.
If the receipt doesn't print, fix that first — follow Troubleshooting The Receipt Printer. Once receipts print, the drawer almost always starts working again.
If receipts print fine, continue below.
2. Restart the receipt printer and reseat the terminal cable
Turn the receipt printer off, wait 10 seconds, and turn it back on.
Unplug the cable going into the credit card terminal, then plug it back in.
Run a cash sale (even a $0.01 test item) and see if the drawer opens.
3. Reboot the card terminal
Hold the power button on the credit card terminal and choose Restart. When it's back up and logged in, try another cash sale.
4. Check the drawer cable
Flip the receipt printer over and open the small panel on the bottom. The cash drawer's cable (it looks like a phone cord) plugs into the port that sits by itself, away from the power and USB cables. A common mistake is plugging it into the port next to the power cord — that's the wrong one.
Make sure it's clicked firmly into the standalone port, then test again.
Drawer opens at the wrong times instead?
If your drawer works but opens too often (e.g., after every sale) or you want it to open automatically on cash sales, that's a setting, not a fault — see Setting Up Checkout Preferences and Open Drawer Button at Checkout.
Still not opening? Message us
Contact support if:
Receipts print but the drawer still won't open after the steps above.
The problem has persisted for days across multiple restarts.
The drawer won't even open with the key (the lock may be physically jammed — and double-check the drawer isn't simply locked).
Include your register number and whether the receipt printer is working — that tells us where to look immediately.
Need cash out right now? Use the drawer key to open it manually while we troubleshoot.