I haven't played Sims 2 in a while, just getting back to it. Maybe I've forgotten something...

I seem to remember that if one of my sims owned a shop in town, I could send other sims there when I was playing their lots and the owner would be there ringing up sales if my sims wanted to buy something from another sims store.

I had a flourishing sort of economy once upon a time.

Now, I am playing the Mac App version and I have a sim with a robot shop. When I sent another sim to his shop to go buy a servo, the owner sim was wandering his shop arguing with customers, lounging on the sofa etc. and such but NOT tending that cash register despite his gold cash register badge.

No one bought anything, even the sim I was playing threw down his bag in frustration and did not end up buying a servo from that shop.

Is there something I did not do in setting up this business? I set everything for sale, the shop worked perfectly fine when i was playing the sim who owned it.

This sometimes happens with businesses. The game tends to remember the last setting you had the sim at. I usually restock with a sim before I leave and if I forget to put them back on the till before we leave the lot, they will be restocking when I return with another sim. Another alternative is to make sure one of your employees in on the till before you close up.

What you can also do is make the sim temporarily selectable and put them on the till.

I frequently get this and it's because I restock before leaving and forget to go back to the till. I do the make selectable trick.

Get the poor owner to hire a cashier. I'd be grumpy too and argue with the customers if I were the Sim and had to it all by myself.

Whenever I visit an owned business, I always make the owner selectable. Saves me a lot of frustration.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I did in fact, leave the owner with restocking as his last action when I was playing him and he did not have any employees.
Justpetro, ha! The owner is grumpy already by nature, I'm sure running a robot shop with no help is sending him over the edge of civility.

I will try some of the suggestions listed here.

I find it doesn't matter what the owner's last assignment is - whatever it is, he has to stop doing it to close the business, and then he's not assigned anymore. I just hired a cashier. But I haven't played a business under AL, so perhaps that changed?

PS: All my business owners thus far have been male, hence the pronoun.

If you don't mind using a hack and running sims (active sims), you can try Business runs you (BRY).
It lets you assign tasks to the owner and the employees. When a customer visits the business, the owner is doing what (s)he's supposed to do.

I hope it is ok to update this to tell what worked: I did have my owner hire an employee for register and had him close the business at days end with that sim still assigned to register. When I next sent a playable there to shop, employee was restocking (why?) and owner was still being an ass but EVENTUALLY the employee got on task and rang up customers. So, solved. Thanks all.

The employee should not be restocking if he was assigned by the owner as a cashier. I think making the owner selectable and telling him to get himself over to the till is still the oldest and most reliable method.

Glad you found a solution
For others a smaller hack than BRY is the fairly paid regulator. (a sign that allows you to control employers when you are shopping) http://modthesims.info/d/142863

joandsarah77, I first wanted to try a way that would better reveal to me if that aspect of running a biz had become borked with the version of Sims 2 I am now playing. But the suggestion to make the biz owner selectable is a good back-up thing to keep in mind if I get tired of waiting for the employees to do their job. And you are right in that the employee should not be restocking if that was NOT what he was assigned to do. Still puzzled about that.
I have Merola's mind control mirror I will place on that lot.

Biz Runs You and other hacks I will consider when there are more businesses in town..for now its just this one, infrequently visited store. (not a lot of the families I am playing can afford robots at the moment)

I clicked helpful for all responses.

The business runs you sign has a reassign employee option, and yesterday I had to reassign an employee twice. She was also supposed to be on the till but was on restock. The sign is to me the only part of that mod worth having, but your millage may vary.