🤖 Settings

AI Assistant

AI Assistant is BazaarPOS's built-in AI helper — a chat panel you can ask questions in plain language, plus small "helper" tools that quietly sit on individual screens: camera scanners for invoices and bills, smarter search at billing, product entry suggestions, and ready-made business insights like reorder alerts and offer ideas.

📍 Menu path: Settings → AI Features (setup) — the AI Assistant panel and page helpers then appear across the app

👤 Who uses it: Admin-only to turn AI on and connect a provider (Settings → AI Features); once enabled, every staff role can use the AI Assistant panel and the on-page AI helpers wherever they already have access to that screen

Overview

AI Assistant is really two things working together: a floating chat panel (click the round AI button, usually bottom-right) you can type or speak questions into, and a set of small "helper" widgets docked onto specific pages — a camera-scan button here, a smarter search box there — that only appear once AI is switched on.

It is a paid Advanced plan feature. Even on a plan that includes it, nothing shows up until an Admin turns it on and connects an AI provider under Settings → AI Features; individual capabilities (ask-your-data, product help, smarter search, daily digest, message drafts, unusual-activity alerts, help copilot, business insights) are each their own toggle, so you can turn on only what your shop wants.

You choose which AI provider answers your questions — OpenAI, Claude (Anthropic), Google Gemini, Groq, or Ollama (a model that runs on your own computer). Picking Ollama with Privacy: Local Only means nothing about your shop ever leaves your device — the same "everything runs locally" promise the rest of BazaarPOS makes.

AI never changes your data by itself. Every scan, suggestion or draft comes back as something you review and confirm — a purchase order draft you check before saving, a category suggestion you can edit, a WhatsApp message you can rewrite before sending.

Answers about your sales, stock or customers are always real numbers pulled fresh from your own database at that moment — never guessed. Every such answer has a "how was this calculated?" toggle showing the exact query behind it, so you can trust the figure or double-check it yourself.

A mic button lets you talk instead of type, both in the AI Assistant panel and in the smart-search box at billing — it follows whatever language you have set as your Interface Language.

Where the AI helpers show up (once their toggle is on): a floating AI Assistant panel everywhere in the app; a smarter search + voice box and a receipt scanner on Sales and Quick Bill; duplicate-customer warnings on Customers; product suggestions, a product-label camera scanner, and duplicate-product warnings on Products; a bulk invoice-photo scanner on Purchase Orders; a business-card scanner on Suppliers; a bill-photo scanner and category suggestions on Expense Reports; and message-drafting help on Communication.

Before You Start

Your subscription plan must include the ai_assistant feature (Advanced tier and above) — on a lower plan, AI Features and every AI helper stay hidden or greyed out.
An Admin must open Settings → AI Features, switch AI on, pick a provider, and paste that provider's API key (or, for Ollama, the local server address) before any AI helper appears anywhere in the app.
At least one feature toggle (Ask My Data, Product Assist, Smart Search, Daily Digest, Message Drafts, Unusual Activity Alerts, Help Copilot, Business Insights) must be turned on — the master switch alone does not enable any specific helper.
If your shop's AI service is not running (desktop) or is temporarily down, AI helpers fail gracefully — they simply do not appear, or show a short "AI is unavailable right now" message; nothing else in the app is affected.

Step-by-Step Guide

1 Turn AI on for your shop

One-time Admin setup under Settings → AI Features.

Go to Settings → AI Features and turn on Enable AI.
Pick a Provider — OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Groq, or Ollama for a fully local/offline model — and paste its API Key (skip this for Ollama; enter its server address instead, e.g. http://127.0.0.1:11434).
Choose a Model (a small, fast model is usually enough and keeps costs low) and a Privacy Mode — Local Only (Ollama, nothing ever leaves your device) or Cloud OK.
Turn on just the features you want: Ask My Data, Product Assist, Smart Search, Daily Digest, Message Drafts, Unusual Activity Alerts, Help Copilot, Business Insights.
Optionally set a Monthly Token Budget to cap AI usage cost — leave at 0 for unlimited.
Click Save. AI helpers with an enabled toggle start appearing across the app immediately for every staff member, no page reload needed.

💡 Admin-only tab. Unlike the very first version of this tab, keys are now saved securely on the server (encrypted, masked as sk-…abcd when shown again) — they work the same on every device you log in from.

2 Ask a question about your shop in plain language

Click the round AI button (usually bottom-right of the screen) to open the AI Assistant panel.
Type a question — e.g. "What did I sell yesterday?", "Which items are low in stock?", "Who hasn't paid?", "Top 10 customers this month" — or tap the mic and speak it.
The answer appears as a real table or card (not just text) pulled from your live data, with an "Open in [screen]" link to jump straight to that page.
Tap "how was this calculated?" to see the exact query behind the number if you want to double-check it.

💡 Costs, purchase price and other sensitive fields are automatically hidden from roles that should not see them (e.g. Cashiers never see cost price in an AI answer), the same as everywhere else in the app.

3 Get help using the app itself

Open the AI Assistant panel and switch it to Help mode.
Ask something like "How do I create a credit note?" or "Where do I set up GST e-invoicing?"
The answer is drawn from BazaarPOS's own help documentation (this Help Center) with step-by-step instructions and a link to the relevant page.

4 Use the one-tap quick chips

A row of quick-action chips appears in the empty AI Assistant panel once the matching feature is on.

Tap Today's summary for a plain-language morning digest: yesterday's sales vs. usual, cash vs. UPI split, low-stock alerts and dues collected (needs Daily Digest).
Tap Anything unusual? to check for unusual voids, discount spikes, cash-drawer variance or after-hours billing (needs Unusual Activity Alerts).
Tap What sells together?, Offer ideas or Cash next week for combo suggestions, personalised loyalty offers and a 7-day cash-flow outlook (needs Business Insights).
Tap Check my GST rates to scan your whole catalogue for missing HSN codes or products whose GST rate looks out of line with similar items (needs Business Insights).

💡 These four are all worked out directly from your own sales/stock/customer data with plain arithmetic — no AI guessing involved, so they cost nothing against your token budget.

5 Find products faster while billing, by typing or speaking

On Sales or Quick Bill, use the smart-search box (needs Smart Search) to type a loose description — "blue cotton shirt 40", "sugar-free biscuits" — and matching products show up even when the words don't match exactly.
Tap the mic in the same box to speak the item instead of typing it.
Tap a result to add it straight to the cart.

6 Catch duplicate customers or products before you save

While saving a new Customer or Product, if something very similar already exists, a card appears — e.g. "This looks like existing customer Ramesh Kumar (98765…)" — right after you save (needs Product Assist).
Open the suggested existing record to confirm whether it is really the same one, or ignore the card if it is genuinely different.

7 Get suggestions while adding a new product

On Products, type just the product name and open the AI suggestion helper (needs Product Assist).
Review the suggested category, HSN code, GST rate, unit, brand, description and tags, then copy in whichever ones you want with one tap.

8 Scan a printed invoice, label, card or receipt with your camera

One shared camera-scan pipeline powers five different scanners, each on the page where it is useful.

Purchase invoice (Purchase Orders): upload one or more photos/PDFs — they queue and process one at a time with a progress counter — and each becomes a ready-to-check purchase draft matched against your product catalogue.
Product label (Products): snap a packaging photo to get name/brand/category/MRP/unit/pack size/barcode/HSN/GST suggestions.
Expense bill (Expense Reports): snap a bill photo for amount/date/paid-to/bill number/GSTIN plus a suggested category and GST-input-credit hint.
Supplier business card (Suppliers): snap a card photo for name/company/phone/email/GSTIN/address, all copy-ready.
Customer receipt (Sales/Quick Bill, for returns and warranty checks): snap the customer's printed receipt to pull the bill number, date, total and items, then copy the bill number straight into Returns to find the original sale.

💡 Every scan reads the text with OCR first; AI only steps in to fill gaps OCR could not read clearly (e.g. a smudged total). The photo itself is never sent to the AI provider — only the extracted text is, and only when needed.

9 Draft a customer message

Open the Message Draft helper on Communication (needs Message Drafts).
Pick a purpose — payment-due reminder, promotion, festival greeting — and a customer.
Review the drafted WhatsApp/SMS message (written in that customer's language, with their real due amount or points already filled in), edit if needed, then send.

Every Field & Button, Explained

Field / Button	What it does
`AI Assistant floating button`	Opens the chat panel from anywhere in the app; hidden entirely if AI is off or your plan does not include it.
`Ask / Help modes`	Ask answers real questions about your sales/stock/customers with live data; Help searches BazaarPOS's own documentation for how-to answers.
`Mic button`	Speech-to-text input in the AI Assistant panel and the billing smart-search box; follows your Interface Language; hides itself if your browser/device has no working speech service.
`Quick chips`	Today's summary, Anything unusual?, What sells together?, Offer ideas, Cash next week, Check my GST rates — one-tap common questions shown when the panel is empty.
`"How was this calculated?" toggle`	Shows the exact query behind a data answer, so you can verify or learn how the number was worked out.
`Smart search + voice (billing)`	Finds products by loose description instead of an exact name match, on the Sales and Quick Bill screens.
`Duplicate warning card`	Appears after saving a Customer or Product that looks very similar to an existing record.
`Product Assist suggestions`	Suggested category, HSN, GST rate, unit, brand, description and tags from just a product name, with copy-to-fill buttons.
`Camera-scan buttons`	One per screen — Purchase Orders (invoices, bulk), Products (labels), Expense Reports (bills), Suppliers (business cards), Sales/Quick Bill (customer receipts).
`Settings → AI Features: Provider / Model`	Which AI company answers your questions and which of that provider's models is used; smaller/cheaper models are usually enough for day-to-day use.
`Settings → AI Features: API Key`	Your own account's credential for the chosen provider; stored encrypted on the server and shown masked once saved. Not needed for Ollama.
`Settings → AI Features: Privacy Mode`	Local Only (Ollama, nothing leaves your device) or Cloud OK (uses your chosen cloud provider).
`Settings → AI Features: feature toggles`	Ask My Data, Product Assist, Smart Search, Daily Digest, Message Drafts, Unusual Activity Alerts, Help Copilot, Business Insights — each independently turns its matching helpers on or off app-wide.
`Settings → AI Features: Monthly Token Budget`	Optional monthly cap on AI usage; 0 means unlimited. Once hit, AI answers pause until the budget resets or is raised.

Tips & Best Practices

Start with Ollama and Privacy: Local Only if you want to try AI without any shop data ever leaving your computer — it works fully offline, though answers may be slower or simpler than a cloud model.
Turn on only the feature toggles your shop will actually use at first — you can always enable more later, and it keeps the AI Assistant panel's quick chips focused.
Set a Monthly Token Budget when using a paid cloud provider so a busy month cannot run up an unexpected bill.
Use "how was this calculated?" whenever a number surprises you — it is the fastest way to build trust in (or catch a problem with) an AI answer.
The five camera scanners all read text first with OCR and only call AI for the parts OCR could not read — a clear, well-lit, flat photo gives noticeably better results than a blurry or angled one.
For bulk invoice scanning, upload all your photos at once — they queue and process one by one, with a checkmark or error shown per file, rather than needing you to upload and wait for each one individually.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

The AI button/helpers don't show up anywhere.

Check three things in order: your plan includes the ai_assistant feature (Settings shows an upgrade note instead of the AI Features form if not), Settings → AI Features has Enable AI switched on with a provider and key saved, and at least one feature toggle underneath it is on.

One specific helper (e.g. Smart Search on billing) is missing but the AI Assistant panel works fine.

Each helper has its own feature toggle on Settings → AI Features — the master switch alone is not enough. Turn on the specific toggle for that helper (e.g. Smart Search) and save.

I get "AI is unavailable right now" or nothing happens when I ask something.

The AI service may be temporarily down or your provider's API key may have expired/run out of credit. Everything else in BazaarPOS keeps working normally — retry in a minute, or check your provider account and the API key saved in Settings → AI Features.

AI answers stopped after working fine earlier this month.

You may have hit your Monthly Token Budget. Raise it or set it to 0 (unlimited) on Settings → AI Features, or wait for it to reset next month.

A scan came back with missing or wrong fields.

The photo may be blurry, angled or poorly lit — OCR could not read it clearly and AI could only fill in what the extracted text actually contained. Retake the photo flat and well-lit, or fill in the missing field manually; the scanner never invents values that were not present in the text.

The mic button is missing from the AI Assistant panel.

It only appears when your browser/device has a working speech-recognition service, and hides itself automatically after a hard failure (e.g. permission denied) — this is common on some desktop/Electron builds. Typing still works exactly the same.

Will AI ever change my data on its own?

No. Every scan, suggestion or draft is something you review and confirm yourself — a purchase draft you check before saving, a suggested category you can edit, a message you can rewrite — AI never writes to your sales, stock or customer records directly.

Does using Ollama really keep everything offline?

Yes, when Privacy Mode is set to Local Only and you are using Ollama as the provider — the model runs on your own machine and nothing about your shop is sent anywhere else.