Tabs disappearing should certainly be a rare occurrence. But there are a couple of scenarios to be aware of - especially if you have multiple iPads running Bustle.
If a tab has disappeared off the iPad, head to your Bustle Hub and go to the History tab as it will likely have been recorded there.
To locate a missing/left open tab
Select the correct date and click Orders on the top right.
Go through the list to locate any orders that don't have a payment type.
compare the two images below: the first one isn't paid off whereas the second one is
There is no way to get these tabs back onto the iPad if they are gone - you will need to either take payment outside of Bustle or recreate the tab in the Bustle iPad app and take payment.
So, why do tabs go missing? There are three main scenarios...
Scenario 1 - All Tabs need to be settled or saved as Account - daily
Customer tabs in Bustle are not supposed to be kept open past the daily cash up. Keeping them open can cause issues reconciling your stock (items ordered) to cash up (Sales) and can even cause the tabs to disappear as Bustle goes through its cleaning processes.
If you have open tabs at the end of a day that can't be dealt with, you need to create an Account and assign the tab to that account before cash up for settlement later.
Scenario 2 - Logging in to the same Bustle till on more than one iPad
This is a very rare scenario but one that can occur. When you are logging in to the Bustle app on the iPad, be careful to log in to the correct till device. If you have multiple tills set up, you select the till to log into. If you select a till that is already logged in you will kick out the till. This can cause issues with data and syncing.
Scenario 3 - iPads are out of sync with each other
Your iPads require up to 15 seconds to refresh and sync up with any orders and transactions made on another iPad. This is especially important when dealing with lots of open tabs, which is why it's important to close each tab after every transaction (which saves the change across all other iPads).
An example
You have 2 iPads and have opened a tab with a few items assigned to it.
On the first iPad, you leave the tab open on screen. On the second iPad, you open the tab to pay it off, which closes off the tab as complete.
Now, say someone else sees the tab open on the first iPad, assigns an item to it and then closes it off - the item will search for the tab, find it closed, and the order will be placed onto the closed tab and the order disappears.
Scenario 4 - iPad is left idle, and used while trying to catch up.
If you decide to use an iPad that was left idle (Bustle is not live on screen), it is best to give it a couple of minutes to sync with your other iPad(s) when you first turn it on.
When left idle, the iPad doesn't continuously sync with the other iPad(s) which is why it needs a bit of time to catch up with all the transactions processed.
Not being on top of these things may lead to variances over multiple days. See this article on why there is a variance in your sales report.