The short answer
A complete sales register for an Ethiopian restaurant is a six-figure purchase in birr: the software, the computer it runs on, a receipt printer, a cash drawer and backup power. Easymaz Core is 224,200 ETB with VAT included, paid once, for the licence and the mini PC; you bring the screen, the printer, the drawer and the UPS. Turnkey brings everything, installed, with the equipment quoted after a visit. Support is optional, at 17,250 ETB a month.
What any other quote is worth depends on which of the five charges below it includes. That is the rest of this guide.
Why the numbers do not compare
A sales register in Ethiopia is sold in one of three shapes. A stand-alone machine is bought once and does the one job of printing a fiscal receipt. A rented system costs little on the first day and a fee every month for as long as the restaurant trades, usually with the hardware on top. A bought system charges for the licence and the equipment once, and makes support a separate choice.
Any of those can be the right answer. What they cannot be is compared on the first number in the quote, because that number is a different share of the total in each case.
The five charges a quote should name
- The equipment: the computer or terminal, the receipt printer, the cash drawer, and whatever keeps it running through a power cut. Ask which of these are in the price and which you buy yourself.
- The software: a one-off licence, or a fee by the month or the year. If it is a fee, ask what stops working when you stop paying it.
- Installation: whether somebody comes to the restaurant, sets it up and tests it with you, or whether the box is delivered.
- Support: what it costs, how it is billed, and whether it is optional.
- VAT: whether the figures include it. A quote with VAT and a quote without it differ by 15%.
A charge the quote does not name is a charge you learn about later. The usual ones are the POS terminal or screen the cashier works on, and somebody entering the menu.
Compare over three years, not on the first day
Add every one-off charge to thirty-six months of every monthly one. For a rented system that is the fee times thirty-six, plus the hardware. For a bought one it is the licence and the equipment, plus whatever support you choose to take. Three years is long enough for a monthly fee to show what it adds up to, and short enough that the hardware is still the hardware you bought.
Then ask the question the arithmetic cannot answer: what you own at the end of it. A licence you have paid for keeps working. A subscription you stop paying does not, and the sales records may go with it.
The three-year arithmetic, worked
Easymaz Core over thirty-six months, every figure with VAT:
- Without support: 224,200 ETB, paid once. Nothing more falls due.
- With support for all three years: 224,200 + (17,250 × 36) = 845,200 ETB.
- Either way, plus the POS terminal, printer, cash drawer and UPS you buy yourself.
For a rented system, do the same sum: the monthly fee times thirty-six, plus any setup fee, plus the hardware. To take a round number that is nobody’s actual price, a fee of 10,000 ETB a month is 360,000 ETB before the hardware, and nothing is yours at the end. Put each quote you receive through the same lines and the totals compare.
Which kind suits which restaurant
- One counter, no waiters, no kitchen tickets: a stand-alone fiscal machine may be all the law and the business need. A full system is more than this restaurant will use.
- Unsure the restaurant will trade for three years, or short of cash this month: renting asks less on the first day, and that can matter more than what it costs by the third year.
- Waiters, a kitchen, and a plan to stay: a bought system pays for itself against a monthly fee, and it is the one that records who took which order and which payment.
The cheapest register is the one you buy once
Directive 1142/2026 approves sales register systems and the suppliers behind them, and Article 19(1) puts the duty to issue a valid invoice on the restaurant rather than on the company that sold it the machine. A register that cannot be accredited is not a saving. It is a second purchase, with the menu entered again and the staff retrained.
Article 29 leaves the start date to a schedule the Authority has not yet published for restaurants, so nobody is late today. That is an argument for choosing carefully, not for choosing cheaply. Our guide to checking a supplier’s accreditation lists the six questions to put to anyone quoting you.
What Easymaz costs
Our own price, laid out the way this guide says every quote should be.
- Core: the licence, 124,200 ETB, and a mini PC with Easymaz installed, 100,000 ETB. 224,200 ETB in all, paid in full at signing. You bring the POS terminal, an 80 mm ESC/POS printer on USB or Ethernet, a cash drawer that opens through it, and a UPS.
- Turnkey: the same licence, 124,200 ETB, paid in full at signing. All the equipment, a 15-inch POS terminal included, surveyed, installed and tested, quoted on the day.
- Equipment is paid in full before it is ordered.
- Support: 17,250 ETB a month and optional, bought three, six or twelve months at a time. Over three years it adds 621,000 ETB. The register keeps selling without it.
- Every figure includes VAT.
Where Easymaz is not the right answer
- It is paid in full at signing. There are no instalments, so a restaurant that needs to spread the cost should rent, or wait.
- Core leaves the equipment to you. If nobody at the restaurant can buy a printer and a drawer that work together, Turnkey or another supplier will cost less trouble.
- Support over three years adds 621,000 ETB; the licence and the mini PC are 224,200 ETB. It is optional, but if you expect to call often, count it.
- We survey, install and support in Addis Ababa. Outside the city, ask us before you plan on it.
- Registration under Directive 1142/2026 switches on when the Ministry of Revenues publishes its technical specification. Until then, nobody’s register is registered under it, ours included.
The MRC on a receipt, and how to check it
MRC is the machine registration code: the number that ties a receipt to the registered sales register that printed it. It sits on every fiscal receipt beside the TIN, the VAT number and the FS number.
To check a register before you buy it, ask the supplier for a printed sample receipt and look for all four. A quote for a machine that cannot print them is a quote for something you cannot use.
Sales register suppliers in Ethiopia
Most suppliers are in Addis Ababa, and each sells one of the three shapes above. Whoever you ask, get the five charges in writing, and ask about accreditation under Directive 1142/2026 before you sign. The six questions below cover it.
Prices are Easymaz’s as of October 2026. This guide is written by Easymaz, which sells and installs the register it prices, so weigh it accordingly. It is for restaurant owners comparing quotes, not legal or tax advice; your accountant or the Ministry of Revenues is the authority on how the directive applies to your business.