Platform / Sell
Smoke Alarm orchestrates payments. It is not a bank, a card network or a processor.
The register asks for a tender; the orchestrator records it against the sale; a provider adapter carries it to a certified terminal or a bank payment system. Sensitive payment data never passes through Smoke Alarm's application layers, and the core register is not tied to any single provider.
Cash is the tender today. Electronic tender is not available until a processor agreement is in place: the live electronic path refuses, with the exact reason, until a cannabis-lawful processor is contracted and its adapter is built.
POS
PreviewThe register or kiosk asks for a tender against one sale, by its transaction identifier.
Payment orchestrator
PreviewOne contract with six operations for every tender: authorise, capture, cancel, refund, status and reconciliation.
Provider adapter
Requires setupA processor is plugged in behind the contract. Cash is a complete adapter today; a live electronic adapter is written when a processor is contracted.
Certified terminal / bank payment system
Requires setupThe customer's payment credentials go to the certified device or the bank's system, never through Smoke Alarm's application layers.
Tender is recorded against the sale, never beside it.
- Verified
- Checked and agreed at this stage.
- Review
- A person needs to decide.
- Blocked
- The workflow stops here until it is resolved.
- Pending
- Waiting on a step that has not happened yet.
One checkout, several financial rails, each with its honest status.
The status words are the ones the checkout itself reads. Only cash is connected. Nothing here names a payment network, because no contracted provider accepts the mainstream networks for cannabis sales.
| Rail | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Cash | connected | Accepted at every register. |
| PIN debit | integration_ready | Coming through supported debit providers. |
| Pay by bank | designed_for | Designed for supported pay-by-bank partners. |
| ACH | designed_for | Built to support ACH settlement. |
| Other approved provider | designed_for | Additional compliant rails can be added without rebuilding checkout. |
- connected
- A working adapter in the register today.
- integration_ready
- The contract is built on our side; the provider's adapter arrives with the agreement.
- designed_for
- The checkout is architected to accept this rail; no adapter exists.
A payment is never left without a sale, or a sale without a payment.
Idempotent by construction
Every attempt carries an idempotency key. A provider must treat a repeat with the same key as the same payment, so a retried request can never charge or record twice.
- Preview
Cash in one transaction
The counted tender, the payment record and the commit of the sale happen inside one database transaction. Cash is reconciled by the drawer count at the blind shift close, not by a processor statement.
- Requires setup
Electronic in three steps
Record the pending payment; ask the provider; record the outcome and commit when the sale is fully paid. A provider call never sits inside a database transaction, and a split with cash is supported.
Uncertain means review
A timeout or an unanswered request is recorded as uncertain and checked with the provider before anything else happens. If a commit fails after money was captured, the payment is refunded automatically and the sale is marked for review.
Settlement reconciled
Every adapter reports its settlements between two instants so they can be compared with the register's records. Payment amount against sale amount is one of Audit Shield's named controls.
A TEST rail that moves no money
A deterministic test provider lets a store rehearse approvals, declines, timeouts and refunds before a processor exists. Every screen that shows it says TEST, and it is offered only behind a flag.
What Smoke Alarm never does with payment data.
Payment credentials do not pass through unnecessary application layers. That is a design rule of the platform, not a setting.
No card data in the application
Sensitive payment data goes from the customer to the certified terminal or the bank's system through the provider's adapter. Smoke Alarm records the outcome, the amount and the provider's reference, not the credential.
No unlawful processor
The live electronic path refuses any processor not lawfully able to accept cannabis sales. Until one is chosen, contracted and built as an adapter, the register says so and takes cash.
Terminals through adapters only
Certified third-party payment terminals connect through a provider adapter, never through proprietary Smoke Alarm hardware. The Integrated Store kits list a payment terminal only where a provider configures one.
Processing fees are separate from the Compliance Technology Fee.
Two different things appear near a payment, and the platform keeps them apart.
Payment processing
Set by the contracted provider under its own agreement with the dispensary. Smoke Alarm does not set, collect or mark up processing fees, and publishes none, because no processor agreement is in place.
Compliance Technology Fee
Smoke Alarm's fee of $1.50 per completed qualifying retail transaction, disclosed before the transaction completes. It is not a processing charge, not a charge from any payment network and not a government fee, and it is the same whatever the tender.
Tax treatment configurable per location and merchant agreement — not yet confirmed. Read the full terms on the Smoke Alarm POS page.
Example checkout
Simulated- Products
- $87
- Compliance Technology Fee
- $1.50
- Applicable cannabis taxescalculated according to the location's configured tax rules
- at checkout
- Total
- calculated at checkout
The Compliance Technology Fee is Smoke Alarm's fee, separate from payment processing and from any cannabis tax. It applies per completed qualifying retail transaction, is disclosed before the transaction completes, and its checkout presentation and tax treatment follow the merchant agreement and the location's configuration.
Illustrative example checkoutIllustrative amounts. How the fee appears at checkout follows the merchant agreement and the location's configuration.
Cash in pilot. Electronic waiting on a contract.
- Available
- Available features still require store setup and authorized data. This is not a connected-account status.
- Preview
- Explore with illustrative data. Not generally released for customer use.
- Requires setup
- Provider credentials, a partner agreement or approval may be needed before use.
- Planned
- Not available yet.
Cash tender, change, drawer events and blind shift close.
Waiting on: Same go-live gate as the register.
A payment boundary that refuses any processor not lawfully able to accept cannabis sales; debit, pay-by-bank and ACH are added through a contracted provider's adapter.
Waiting on: A contracted, cannabis-lawful pay-by-bank partner chosen with counsel, its adapter under src/integrations/payments/smokepay/partners/, and its credentials.
Choosing a processor? Talk to us first.
The adapter contract is written and the register refuses anything that does not meet it. If you have a cannabis-lawful provider in mind, we will show you exactly what its adapter has to do and what the register records.