The kitchen

The Kitchen Display

Kitchen (KDS)

Kitchen (KDS) is the screen for the kitchen itself. Put it on a monitor the cooks can see and leave it open.

It has three columns: New Orders, Preparing and Ready to Serve. Each card shows the order number, whether it is dine-in, takeaway or delivery, the table, the time it was placed and how long ago that was.

It refreshes itself every few seconds, so a new order appears without anybody touching the screen. A Refresh Now button is there if you want it immediately.

It needs Settings → Modules → Kitchen Display System (KDS), which is on to start with.

Moving an order along

Kitchen (KDS)

An order arrives in New Orders. Start Preparing moves it to the middle column.

Mark Ready moves it to Ready to Serve, which is the cue for the floor to pick it up.

Served / Complete clears it off the board. That button needs the Complete / Bump Orders permission, so a cook can be allowed to cook without being allowed to close an order.

Because clearing it off the board also settles the bill, it asks how the guest paid first — Cash, Card or Bank — and for card or bank, which account it landed in and the slip number if you want one. The sale is then posted in that method, so the Sales report, Cash Flow and the drawer cash-up all agree.

Where the payment method carries its own tax rate, the total is worked out the moment you choose — which is why the figure is shown back to you when the order closes.

The order can only move forwards, one step at a time — the board cannot be shuffled backwards by a mis-tap.

Bumping an order to Served / Complete from the kitchen settles the bill as well as clearing the board. If the table is going to pay at the counter, let the till take the payment instead and that is what completes the order.

How deals appear to the kitchen

Kitchen (KDS)

A deal on the kitchen screen is expanded into its actual contents — the fixed items and whatever the customer chose from each choice group — so the cooks see the dishes rather than a combo name.

The same is true on the printed kitchen ticket.

The printed kitchen ticket

Settings → Thermal Receipt

The kitchen ticket carries the order number, the type, the table, the time, and every item with its size, its quantity and any note. It has no prices on it at all.

If you have switched on Split the kitchen ticket by category, the order comes off as two slips — the ticked categories on one and everything else on the other.

The changes-only slip

When an order that the kitchen already has is edited, the slip that prints lists only what changed — the items added and the items removed.

That way a cook who has already started never re-fires the whole order because two extra naan were added.

An order the kitchen has never seen in full always prints as a whole ticket instead.

Running without a kitchen screen

Settings → Modules

Plenty of kitchens work off paper alone. Switch Kitchen Display System (KDS) off under Settings → Modules and the sidebar link disappears.

Orders are then run entirely from the POS Order Tab and the Orders page, and the kitchen works from the printed ticket.

The Wastage Log stays available either way.