I run Thirsty Aztec on the San Antonio Riverwalk. We're a Shift4-merchant bar, which means every credit card swipe goes through Shift4's gateway and ends up in their Lighthouse Business Manager dashboard. Lighthouse is fine. It's also useless on a Saturday night when I want to know - right now - whether the $340 tab that just closed was real or a fraud test.
So I built an alert system. Total time: two hours. Total cost: zero. Stack:
- Python + Playwright (logs into Shift4 Lighthouse on a 5-minute cron)
- SQLite (dedupe transactions so I don't get the same alert twice)
- Telegram Bot API (push to my phone)
- A $6 DigitalOcean droplet (because everything I ship goes on its own droplet)
Why this matters for SA hospitality
Three things any Shift4 venue should be watching in real time, not the next morning:
- High-value tabs. Anything over $200 - I want to know it cleared. If it bounces later, I want to call the customer that night, not 36 hours later.
- Voids and refunds. Bartender training tool - if I see 4 voids in an hour from one register, something's off.
- Closeout deltas. Reported tips vs. system tips. The discrepancy is the number you actually need for payroll, and Lighthouse buries it three menus deep.
What it looks like
Every 5 minutes, a Telegram message lands on my phone:
[Thirsty Aztec - 9:47 PM] - Tab #4421 closed: $284.50 (Visa **4329) ✓ - Tab #4423 closed: $96.00 (Cash) ✓ - Tab #4424 VOIDED: $112.00 - check bartender 3 - Hourly: $1,847 / $1,240 last week same hr (+49%)
What I'd build for you
If you run a Shift4 venue in San Antonio and want this exact alert system pointed at your dashboard, that's a $400-600 build (1-time). I can install it in an afternoon. Add a custom dashboard or daily PDF email digest - another $400.
Email audit@thirstyai.live or text iMessage.