What's new.

The back office was born white and stayed that way for years. Yet much of the work done in it — checking the weekly settlement, chasing a transaction that does not add up, replying to a customer — happens after the shop closes, often late at night with the lights off. A white screen in those conditions tires the eyes within minutes.

There is now a dark mode, switched on by a button on the main page, next to your name. The button toggles: a moon to go dark, a sun to come back to light.

It is optional and per person. The choice is stored in the browser of whoever made it and does not spread to anyone else — on the same computer, each person signing in with their own account sees the theme they picked. Anyone who never touches the button keeps seeing the back office exactly as they always have.

A note for the sharp-eyed: the status colours were not inverted. A busy machine is still red and a paid machine is still orange, with exactly the same meaning. Only the brightness was adjusted to sit on a dark background — they read the same as they always did.

We found that some users were landing on the invoice screen without really wanting to — and that we had no explicit way out. The only exit was the arrow in the top corner, which underneath ends the session with no document, but says so nowhere. Anyone who tapped “Yes” by mistake was left staring at a form, not realising they were under no obligation to fill it in.

There is now a “No invoice” button, visible as soon as the screen opens. The arrow stays exactly as it was — someone who taps back really does want out, and a confirmation prompt would only add one more tap.

At the same time, opting out now leaves a trace: when someone does not ask for an invoice with their tax number, we record which way they left — answered “No” at the question, left by the arrow, tapped the new button, or tried a tax number the system rejected. Without storing anyone’s data and without a single extra request to the server: the information travels in the exit link itself, which was going to be requested anyway.

This tells apart what used to be indistinguishable. A screen people open by mistake and a screen people get stuck on call for different fixes — and until now there was no way of knowing which of the two we were looking at.

None of this touches the service: the machine always starts, invoice or no invoice.

A cash top-up involved three parts talking to each other: the kiosk screen, the computer that talks to the coin mechanism, and our server. If the store Wi-Fi coughed at the wrong moment — and three seconds were enough — the screen gave up. The money was already in the safe, but the customer was not credited.

The server, not the screen, is now the authority on the money. The top-up session is recorded on the server before the first coin goes in, with a note of whom it belongs to. From then on, whatever goes in is credited even if the screen dies halfway — and a periodic sweep picks up any session left unclosed. Crediting can only happen once: even if the instruction arrives by two different routes, the money is not counted twice.

On the kiosk side, every coin and every note is now acknowledged. The kiosk computer sends the amount and waits for the server to say it saved it; whatever is not acknowledged is written to a local log that survives a power cut. Before, a lost message was lost in silence and only turned up when counting the safe.

And then there is the stuck note. The note validator never lets a note go on its own: if nobody gives the order, it stays hanging — it has stayed there for minutes, with the customer walking away. Now, if after ten seconds no decision is possible — because the link dropped, because the session died, whatever the reason — the note is returned. The principle is simple: do not take money you cannot credit or turn into service.

The kiosk also gained a watchdog over its own connection, which tries to bring the Wi-Fi back by itself, and a log of its own that resists the power being pulled. None of this is visible to the customer — and that is exactly the point.

Article 17 of the GDPR gives you the right to ask us to erase your personal data, and you do not have to say why. Just write to info@scapp.pt or use the contact form inside the app. What changes now is the path that request follows — it is always the same one, and it is written down.

First we confirm it was really you. Once the request arrives, we send an email to the address registered on the account saying that we accepted it and from what date we will proceed. It is a simple precaution and it makes all the difference: an erasure request can come from someone who got hold of your phone, and deletion cannot be undone. If the request did not come from you, you reply to that email and everything stays as it was. Until that date the account works normally — and if you want us to go ahead right away, you only have to reply to confirm.

Then we erase what identifies you: name, email, phone number, tax number, address, date of birth, login credentials, cards stored for future payments and notification subscriptions. The account is closed and can no longer be used to log in.

What we cannot erase are the financial records — the uses of the services and the balance top-ups. Tax law requires us to keep them for ten years, and the GDPR itself provides for that limitation to the right to erasure. But all that remains of them is the date, the amount, the store and the payment method: your name is replaced and they no longer identify you. It is the honest answer to a question that always comes up — no, the transaction history of someone who asked for an invoice cannot be erased; yes, everything that says who you are is.

And your balance comes back to you. It is refunded through the same method you used to top it up — to the same card, to the same MB WAY number, or in cash at the store where you topped up — and you receive a second email detailing what was refunded and how. If you still hold store credit, that money sits with the partner laundry and not with us: we forward your request to them and tell you that we did.

People with Google Pay or Apple Pay on their phone had no idea they could use them here. The buttons existed, but only appeared after the customer had already chosen how to pay — so they chose blind and found out afterwards. Both wallets are now visible right at the choice, next to “pay with a card without saving it”.

And that option now comes first for anyone with no saved card. With the wallets working, it is the fastest route: two taps and it is paid, without typing a single number.

One address for every shop. Until now, each shop had to be registered and verified separately with the bank to accept Apple Pay. There is now a single secure address — pagar.scapp.pt — serving the whole network. Fewer moving parts, and a new laundry accepts wallets from day one.

Your balance works across the network. This was always true, but it was written nowhere, and many assumed the money was stuck at the shop where they topped up. It is not: one top-up, every SCApp laundry. Top up near home, use it near work.

It covers every digital payment. Card, MB WAY, Google Pay or Apple Pay — whichever you choose in the app, the balance is yours and it follows you to any laundry in the network.

The theme calendar had a big hole: after the Santos Populares in June, there was nothing until Christmas. Half a year of the same kiosk, precisely in the months when most people come through the shop. Summer fills that in, covering July to September.

The look is Mediterranean, not the beach of any one country: a sky opening from turquoise into deep blue, a striped café awning across the top bar, and a stretch of sand with an irregular tide line — crests of different widths, some broad and shallow, others narrow and deep, so it does not look drawn with a compass. Resting on the sand are a striped sun umbrella swaying in the wind, a sandcastle with its little flag fluttering, a canvas deckchair and a few shells. Far out on the horizon a sailboat drifts past — it takes close to two minutes to cross, so you barely notice it.

• Nothing falls from the sky. That was the rule that changed the theme halfway through. The first version had beach balls and ice creams falling like snow, and it was not believable — on a beach nothing falls. Everything that moves became what the wind does: a beach ball rolling across the sand in little bounces, sometimes one way, sometimes the other; a straw hat tumbling along; gusts of sand skimming the ground. In the sky, only slow clouds and gulls remain.
• It speaks eight languages. In August it is tourists using the laundry, so the welcome screen messages are in all eight languages the kiosk offers. Someone arriving from France or Germany reads bonnes vacances or schönen Urlaub in their own language.
• It protects the screen. On quiet days the kiosk sits on the welcome screen almost all day, and a still image for hours burns the display. So each prop drifts slowly at its own rhythm, the grain of the sand slides, the sky breathes in brightness — and every eight minutes the props actually swap places on the beach. After half an hour the sun umbrella has already been in four different positions.

It is applied with one click in the back office, like the others, and each shop picks its own. Available from today.

When no one is using it, the payment kiosk shows its welcome screen: the laundry logo and the phrase “tap here to start”. Until now it was a still image. Now that screen has come alive — and teaches, on its own, what to do.

• Invitation to tap — the phrase is no longer alone: it alternates with an animated finger. First the phrase, then the finger, in a gentle loop that catches the eye of anyone passing by.
• Motion that simulates a tap — I gave the logo and the phrase/finger a movement of their own that mimics a tap: the elements press down slightly, with the same feel as when you push something. No one has to touch it first — the animation itself performs the gesture, showing the person visually that they should tap the screen to start.

For the customer, it is immediately clear what to do, even for someone who has never used the kiosk — the screen stops looking static and starts demonstrating the gesture. For the owner, it is a more polished first impression and less hesitation right at the entrance of the shop — and, since the screen never sits on a fixed image, it also helps avoid burn-in and extends the life of the display.

Every app user now has a complete ledger of balance movements in their SCApp account. Every credit (cash top-up at the kiosk, card top-up, loyalty bonus, voucher) and every debit (machine payment, refund, adjustment) is recorded with date, value, source and resulting balance.

Under the hood the operation is hardened: the ledger entry is written in the same database transaction that updates the balance, with row locking — the balance cannot drift from the movement history. Every operation carries a unique identifier that lets us audit, reconcile and, if needed, safely reverse it.

For the customer, this means full transparency: every cent has a reason. For the owner, it is another layer of financial robustness for the shop.