The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, allowed businesses to replace old-fashioned cash registers with digital alternatives in the summer of 2020.
Monobank cofounder Dmytro Dubilet and his partner Andriy Sukhov see a business opportunity in the transition. They founded a startup that developed a mobile application and website that made physical cash registers unnecessary.
Called Checkbox, the app allows businesses to turn any mobile device into a virtual cash register to record sales, save financial reports and even provide receipts — in digital form, but they can be printed out too if needed.
Virtual cash registers like Checkbox are cheaper, quicker and more convenient because they just need a mobile device and an internet connection.
For decades, Ukrainians have avoided cash registers because they meant additional expenses, paperwork – and made it harder to avoid paying taxes. As a result, Ukraine’s starved state budget received less money than it should have.
Affordability and convenience of services like Checkbox, according to Dubilet, may encourage more businesses to use cash registers and hence pay more taxes.
Businesses can install the Checkbox app on a laptop, smartphone or tablet. The monthly subscription costs $5 — much cheaper than maintaining a cash register.
A cash register alone costs nearly $500 and has to be replaced every seven years. According to Dubilet, monthly maintenance costs run about $18.
Foxtrot, one of the largest electronics retailers in Ukraine, has used Checkbox since the service appeared on the market.
The retailer introduced Checkbox in all of its 162 stores across Ukraine. The company could save $3,500 a month when it gets rid of all physical cash registers and replaces them with Checkbox, according to its chief executive Oleksiy Zozulya.
Even with Checkbox, however, businesses will still have additional expenses. Some still need to buy a barcode scanner, receipt printer, cash drawer or card reader to serve customers. The price of each device ranges from $80 to $200.
Virtual cash registers like Checkbox send tax reports automatically — the data synchronizers in cloud storage. It also helps when the device with a virtual cash register breaks — the cashier can install the app on any other device and continue from where she was interrupted, according to Sukhov of Checkbox.
He also pointed out that repairing the traditional cash registers takes more time and it can cause serious delays.
To save even more time, instead of printing out receipts, businesses can send them to customers by email or via messaging app. Customers can later use them to return a product, or make a warranty claim.
Electronic receipts are especially useful for online retailers, according to Dubilet. Online retailers had to keep traditional cash registers in their warehouses, print receipts there and manually send them to customers. With virtual cash registers, businesses can just send receipts by email.
Although electronic receipts are already legal, many Ukrainians still prefer paper ones, said Zozulya. In Foxtrot, for example, customers should scan a QR code to receive an electronic receipt, but many ask to print them out anyway, according to Zozulya.
Another Checkbox’s client, shoe shop Intertop, agrees that the transition to electronic receipts is slow because many Ukrainians don’t trust them.
“Customers that demand paper receipts will stay for now,” said Natalia Andryushchenko, development director at Intertop. “That’s why virtual cash registers are convenient — they allow either to send a receipt via messenger and email or print it.”
