Daily Operation

One order, end to end: a customer taps Confirm, the kitchen cooks it from a ticket or a screen, a staff member carries it out, and the cashier takes the money. Every screen updates live, so nobody has to shout.

Customers place an order

1. The customer scans the QR code on their table. Your menu opens on their phone with the table already attached — the table name is shown at the top.
2. They browse by category. A sold-out dish is greyed out and can't be ordered.
3. They tap a dish, choose a quantity, and can type a note for the kitchen — "no onions", up to 200 characters. Once a note is typed, + Add another with a different note puts more of the same dish on a line of its own with its own note, so the kitchen knows which plate is which.
4. In the cart they see the subtotal, any price add-ons, and — if you enabled tipping — the tip buttons and the final total. They can add a note for the whole order, up to 300 characters.
5. They press Confirm.

What happens next depends on your Pay on Order setting. With it off, the order goes straight to the kitchen and the customer sees "Your order has been sent to kitchen". With it on, the customer pays first on a Stripe or Square payment page, and the kitchen only sees the order once the payment succeeds. Before they confirm, they are told how long they will have to pay — your Time to pay — and an order not paid by then is cancelled. After paying, they see their receipt, with a link that saves it as a PDF. See What "Pay on Order" means.

An order can hold up to 300 dishes. If a dish sells out while it sits in a customer's cart, they are told when they confirm, and it is taken out of their order.

Customers who order on a MenuBaton Station — the tablet your staff set up at a counter or table — follow the same steps on the tablet, and pay on its card machine or by card on its screen. See MenuBaton Station.

Order History and Receipts

Two buttons on the customer's menu keep track of what they ordered, on that phone only:

• Order History counts the orders placed from this phone in the last 24 hours, at any of your tables or as takeaway. Each one shows its number, when it was placed, its dishes, and whether they are Preparing or Served, with Refresh to look again. Dishes are Served once they are marked served, or once their order is completed or times out. An opened order also shows the customer's notes: each dish's, and the one for the whole order. Customers can't remove an order from it.
• Receipts counts and lists the receipts of the orders they paid online. Each opens the receipt, to save as a PDF, for 24 hours after the order; after that it says "Expired — the restaurant can give you a copy", which you can, from the order's Show receipt.

Takeaway customers

Takeaway customers order the same way from your takeaway QR code or your general menu link. In the cart they see their pickup time, if you use pickup times — and, with Pay on Order on, can choose a later one — and can leave a phone number. When they press Confirm, a box asks for a first name and last initial, and Place order sends the order — or, with Pay on Order on, takes them to pay first. They then see "Order placed, Ann!" and "We'll call Ann when your order is ready." While you have takeaway paused, they can browse the menu but not order.

Chef: cooking from the kitchen display

Once a chef has signed in (Restaurant Portal → Team Sign In → Chef, or the phone app), the kitchen display shows the orders to cook. New orders arrive live, with a chime, and the counters at the top show how many dishes the whole kitchen has pending and cooking.

The display has two views, switched at the top and remembered on that device. Dish Mode is a board of single dishes in two columns:

Order Mode shows one box per order, with every dish in it coloured by stage: waiting, cooking, ready to serve, delivering, served or cancelled. It shows only the orders a chef can still do something in — a dish waiting to be started, or one they are cooking — so the chef sees each whole order without the ones already past the kitchen.

Each card shows the table, counter or takeaway name, the order number, the pickup time if it has one, the dish, the customer's note for that dish (⚠) and any note for the whole order (📝), and how long the order has been waiting — amber after 10 minutes and red after 20. A takeaway order with a pickup time is queued by that time instead, turning amber in its last 10 minutes and red once it is due.

How a chef takes and prepares a dish:

1. Find the dish in Incoming and press Start Cooking. That claims one portion for you: it disappears from every other chef's Incoming column and moves into your Cooking column, so two chefs never cook the same plate. If someone beat you to it by a second, you'll see "Fail! the dish may be cooked by other chef" and the board refreshes.
2. If the customer ordered three of the same dish, the board shows three separate cards — chefs can share them, one card each.
3. Cook it. When it's plated, press Mark Ready on that card. It leaves your board and appears instantly under Ready to Serve on every staff member's screen, with your name on it.
4. Nothing else is needed from the kitchen — staff take it from there.

Run out of a dish? The Menu tab beside the title (on a phone, the menu icon at the top) lists every dish. Click a dish's Available cell and choose For 4 hours, Rest of today or Until I turn it back on — customers see it greyed out and can't order it — and Back In Stock when it is back. All Sold Out and All In Stock do every dish at once. A new order still chimes while you are on the Menu tab, and the Kitchen tab shows how many have come in; Kitchen takes you back to the board. The Menu is there only while the manager lets chefs mark dishes sold out (Settings, Kitchen Screens, Chefs can mark dishes sold out); with that off, the board is the kitchen app's only page.

Staff: delivering & serving

Once a staff member has signed in (Restaurant Portal → Team Sign In → Staff), the staff display shows two columns and a sidebar with Serving, Served History and Order. Only staff accounts carry dishes out: a chef's job ends at Mark Ready.

1. Ready to Serve lists every dish any chef has finished, oldest first, with the table, order number, dish name, the chef's name and any customer note.
2. Press Mark Serve on the dish you're carrying. It moves into your Delivering column — only you see it there, so two people don't run the same plate. If a colleague claimed it first you'll see "Failed! This dish will be delivered by other staff".
3. Take the dish to the table, then press Mark Served and confirm in the box that appears. The dish is logged in your Served History with the dish, table, chef and time. Each staff member's Served History shows only the dishes they served.

When the last dish of an order is marked served, the order completes by itself. Nobody has to close it, and completed orders drop off the kitchen and staff boards so only live work is on screen. On the phone app, staff press Take It instead of Mark Serve.

Staff: taking an order at the table

Staff can also order on a customer's behalf — useful for guests who don't want to use their phone. In the staff display, open Order in the sidebar, tap dishes to build the cart, add a note to any line or to the whole order, choose the table from the dropdown, and press Confirm Order. The order goes straight to the kitchen.

Orders taken this way are never paid online, even when Pay on Order is on — they're created unpaid, so the cashier collects at the counter.

Cashier: taking payment at the counter

Once a cashier has signed in (Restaurant Portal → Team Sign In → Cashier, or the desktop or phone app), the cashier screen has three tabs: Orders, Menu and Take Away.

1. Find the order. Orders lists every order of the last 90 days, a page at a time, with the number of orders above the list. Choose how it is sorted under Sort: — unpaid first, say — or jump to a day with Go to date and Go; Latest goes back to the newest. Each card shows where the order is for (a table, a counter, or takeaway with its pickup time), its number, whether the food is in progress or completed, Paid or Unpaid, its kitchen ticket, how many items it has, the total and the time. The list updates on its own.
2. Open it. The order's page lists every dish with its own status (waiting, cooking, ready to serve, delivering, served or cancelled) and notes, the add-ons, the tip if there is one, and the total.
3. Take the money, then press Mark as Paid and confirm. The order now shows Paid (marked) — paid at the counter, in cash or on your own card machine.

Orders that customers already paid online arrive showing Paid by themselves — the cashier never has to touch them. A cashier can also:

• Show receipt on a paid order — Print, QR for the customer to scan, or Download as a PDF. See Set up receipt printing.
• Complete order, Complete dish and Complete all orders, the same as the manager — see below.
• Print, reprint or cancel an order's kitchen ticket — see Kitchen ticket status.
• Mark dishes sold out on the Menu tab, and pause takeaway or turn Kitchen busy on and off on the Take Away tab.

Cancelling a dish and refunds are for the manager.

Manager: orders

The Orders page lists every order of the last 90 days, 100 to a page — older orders are kept in the desktop app. It updates live: new orders appear on their own.

• Sort — one choice at a time from Sort:: Incompleted First (the default), Completed First, Unpaid First, Paid First, Kitchen Unprinted First, Kitchen Printed First, Oldest First or Newest First. It sorts all 90 days, not just the page on screen; orders that tie come newest first. Sorting never hides an order.
• Go to date — pick a day and press Go: the list opens on the page with that day's first order and rings it. A day with no orders goes to the nearest one. Latest goes back to the newest.
• Each row shows when the order was placed; a mark for a table, a counter or takeaway (with its pickup time); the name and number; its status — In Progress, Completed, Timed Out or Cancelled; Paid, Unpaid or Paid (marked); its kitchen ticket; the number of items and the total. A paid order's row also has Show receipt.
• Complete all orders — first counts the orders it will complete, then, if you go ahead, finishes every order still in progress or timed out: dishes not yet served count as served, and the orders leave the kitchen and staff screens. Pre-orders not yet due stay open.

Kitchen ticket status

Each order on the Orders page, and on the cashier's list, says where its kitchen ticket is:

For 24 hours after an order is placed, its row offers the buttons that fit: Force Kitchen Print prints whatever hasn't printed — a cancelled ticket, or a pre-order ticket now instead of later; Cancel Kitchen Print stops a ticket that hasn't printed yet; Kitchen Reprint prints a printed ticket again.

An order's page

Open any order to see each dish, its status, who cooked it and who served it, every note, and the money: subtotal, add-ons, tip, total, and — when they apply — Refund Due and Refunded. From there you can:

• Cancel a dish — press Cancel next to it and confirm. The dish is marked cancelled and the order's total is worked out again, add-ons and tip included. If the order was already paid, the difference shows as Refund Due.
• Refund — give money back to the card the customer paid with. See Refunds.
• Complete a dish or the whole order — Complete dish and Complete order count dishes as served and take them off the kitchen and staff screens, for a kitchen that cooked from the ticket or a dish served without anyone pressing Mark Served.
• Mark the order as paid — the same action the cashier has, for when you settle an order yourself.
• Kitchen Reprint and Show receipt.

When an order times out

An order is finished when its last dish is marked served, or when you or a cashier complete it. One that nobody finishes doesn't stay open for good: once it has been unfinished for the time set under Time out unfinished orders after in Settings — 4 hours unless you change it — it is finished by itself and marked Timed Out. The time counts from when the order was placed or, for a takeaway pre-order, from its pickup time. Every dish not yet served then counts as served.

So with the 4-hour timeout, a dinner order placed at 8pm that nobody finishes is Timed Out at midnight, and a customer who opens Order History the next morning sees it as Served.

To mark a Timed Out order completed, open it and press Complete order, or use Complete all orders on the Orders page. If you print orders only, an order doesn't wait for the timeout: it is completed — and its customer sees Served — as soon as its kitchen tickets have printed. One whose tickets don't print times out like any other.

Manager: the Dashboard

The Dashboard summarises the day live:

• your Restaurant URL, with Copy, and the state of your trial or subscription;
• Menu Items Today — dishes waiting, cooking, ready to serve, delivering and served;
• Orders Today — in progress, complete and paid, and Revenue Today, paid and pending;
• History — each day's orders, cancelled orders, revenue and dishes over the last 30, 90 or 365 days;
• the latest orders, and your Customer Menu Link with Copy and Open.