RedBox

From a new account to your first real sale, plus the two external processes that run in parallel without holding you back.

This guide takes you from signup to your first real sale. The part that depends on you takes about a day. There are also two processes that depend on third parties — Azul and electronic invoicing — worth starting early because they are slow, but which do not stop you from selling while they run.

Before you start

You need an email address you can access right now, because we send a code during signup. For the last step you also need at least one RedBox terminal powered on and connected to the internet.

The steps

Create your account

Sign up at redbox.do/onboarding. You choose your trading name and the address of your booking and payment page, which becomes booking.redbox.do/your-business.

If you have your RNC at hand, enter it: we look it up at the DGII and fill in the legal company name for you. It is not required to sign up — you can add it later under Settings → Business information.

You will need that address again

It is the website link Azul asks for. Choose it for your business, not as a test.

You confirm your email with a code inside the same form, so by the time signup finishes you can already sign in.

Set up your establishment

Name, address, phone, currency, taxes and daily closing time. The timezone is what groups your end-of-day reports and orders your reservations.

Load your catalogue

You can create categories, modifiers and items by hand, or move much faster with the catalogue file: download the export and upload it filled in. The export doubles as the template because it carries exactly the format we expect, across four sheets.

Sheet	What it holds
Categorías	Name and parent category
Modificadores	Option groups and their prices
Artículos	Code, name, category, price, tax, image, printers
Ventanas	Which preparation window each thing goes to

Uploading the file never deletes anything

We update by code or by name. Anything not in the file stays as it is, and an empty cell does not clear a value you already had. To delete something, do it from the panel.

Set up your reservations

If you take reservations, they are configured separately from the catalogue, in your reservation settings. Mark the establishment as available for reservations and define:

Your service hours, which is when tables can be booked.
The areas of your establishment and the capacity of each one.
The duration of each reservation and how far in advance people can book.
The minimum party size, the minimum spend per guest and the service charge, if you apply any.

If you only sell at the counter, you can skip this step entirely.

Activate your licence

You have not paid anything up to this point. Creating the account, setting up the establishment, loading the catalogue, reservations, contacts and reports are all available on the free plan, on purpose: we want you to see the system with your own data in it before committing to a charge.

To pair devices and turn on integrations you do need a paid licence. You enter your card from Billing and the bank confirms it is yours in one of two ways:

3-D Secure authentication, your bank's normal flow.
Amount verification, when your card does not support 3-D Secure.

Amount verification is not a charge

We place a hold for a small, random amount and ask you to confirm it by checking your statement. Confirming it releases the hold immediately; if something fails along the way, it clears on its own when Azul's hold period expires. Either way you are never charged.

Pair your devices

Pair your terminals, printers and kitchen displays with the account. Each terminal consumes a licence; printers and displays do not.

If you loaded your catalogue with preparation windows, this is where each printer takes its place in the flow.

Your first sale

Open a shift, take an order and close it. Check that the receipt prints where you expected and that the sale shows up in your reports.

At this point you are operating. What follows adds value, but does not hold you back.

In parallel: what depends on third parties

Two things are left that cannot be resolved inside RedBox because they depend on other people: Azul, to take card payments online, and electronic invoicing, to issue fiscal receipts. They are the two slowest parts of the whole setup, so start them early — but do not wait for them to open.

Neither one stops you from selling

The point of sale runs on the terminal, not on the internet. Without Azul you still sell, you just do not take payments online. Without electronic invoicing you still sell, you just do it without fiscal receipts. You can start today and complete both later.

Azul — taking card payments online

This is the longest process and, at the same time, the one that adds the most value: it is what lets you charge for reservations and orders online, without the customer having to stand at the terminal.

The process starts with you: write to your Azul representative and ask them to enable online payments. Azul will come back asking for three things:

The link to the website where payment is taken.
An example of the receipt the customer receives, and a capture of the payment page.
The PCI (SAQ-D) compliance form, filled in and signed.

We prepare that package for you. Under Integrations → Azul you fill in the request once with your business and contact details, and upload a photo or scan of your signature. From that we generate the PCI form already filled in and signed, and email you the complete package with the evidence Azul asks for, including the link to your payment page.

You forward that email to your representative. If you prefer, you can give us their address directly and we send it there.

Your signature is kept, you do not upload it twice

If something fails while generating the document, you can retry it or resend the package from the same page without filling in the request again.

When Azul replies with your credentials — the merchant ID and the two keys — you enter them on that same page. From that moment you are taking payments online and the request disappears from the screen, because it has done its job.

The full walkthrough — what Azul asks for, what we prepare, and what to do if something fails — is in Online payments with Azul.

Electronic invoicing (e-CF)

You are not on your own here: someone from our team gets in touch to walk you through it. RedBox issues your electronic receipts through SSPointFE, which acts as the bridge to the DGII.

If your business is already authorised to issue e-CF, it is a matter of connecting.
If not yet, there is a DGII procedure to complete first. It is the longer of the two paths, which is why it is worth starting from the beginning.

Optional to start, not forever

You do not need electronic invoicing to open and sell, and many small businesses start without it. But until you have it you will be selling without fiscal receipts, and that can become a liability later on. Our advice is to start the procedure early and sell while it progresses.

The full walkthrough — what the DGII asks for, the digital certificate, and what to configure in RedBox — is in Electronic invoicing (e-CF).

Need help?

Get in touch at any point in the process. The most common questions are about Azul or the DGII, and we have walked customers through both many times.

Getting started