Setting up the menu

Categories come first

Categories

A menu item has to belong to a category, so build the categories before anything else. Categories are also the tabs the cashier taps along the top of the POS, so name them the way your staff think — Burgers, Karahi, Drinks, Desserts.

Add Category asks for a Category Name, a Color, a Sort Order and an Icon (Font Awesome class). The colour and icon are what make a busy POS readable at a glance.

Sort Order decides the left-to-right order on the till. Put your fastest sellers first.

Active can be switched off to hide a whole category without deleting it — useful for a seasonal menu.

1. 1 Open Categories from the sidebar.
2. 2 Tap Add Category.
3. 3 Type the name, pick a colour, and set a sort order.
4. 4 Tap Save Category.
5. 5 Repeat for every section of your menu.

The icon box takes a Font Awesome class name — the screen suggests fa-utensils, fa-coffee, fa-pizza-slice and fa-ice-cream as examples.

Adding a dish

Menu Items

Menu Items is where the dishes live. Add Menu Item asks for a Category, an Item Name, an optional Description, a Price, a Sort Order and an image.

The description is optional and is shown to customers on the QR menu and the online store, not on the kitchen ticket.

Sort Order works the same way as it does for categories — it decides the order the dishes appear in on the till.

1. 1 Open Menu Items from the sidebar.
2. 2 Tap Add Menu Item.
3. 3 Pick the Category and type the Item Name.
4. 4 Type the Price.
5. 5 Tap Add Item.

Sizes and variants

Menu Items

If a dish comes in more than one size, tick Has Variants / Sizes. The single Price box is replaced by a Variants list where each size gets its own name and its own price.

Use it for Half and Full, Small and Large, or 3 Pcs, 6 Pcs and 12 Pcs.

At the POS, tapping an item that has variants asks the cashier to choose one before it goes into the cart, and the chosen size is printed on both the kitchen ticket and the receipt.

Add Variant adds another row. There is no limit.

Taking a dish off the menu for the day

Menu Items

Every menu item has an Available for sale tick. Untick it and the dish disappears from the POS, the QR menu and the online store immediately, without being deleted.

That is the right way to handle "the fish is finished". Turn it back on tomorrow and all its history, its recipe and its sales figures are still there.

Deleting a menu item is not the same thing. Untick Available for sale for something you will sell again.

Photos

Menu Items

Item Image takes a photo up to 2MB. It is shown on the POS tile, on the QR menu and on the online store.

Photos are optional. They help enormously on the QR menu and the website, where the customer is choosing with their eyes, and they slow the till down slightly on a weak connection.

Deals and combos

Deals

A deal bundles several menu items at one special price. Deals appear on the POS behind the Deals button and on the QR menu under their own Deals tab.

Create Deal asks for a Deal Name, a Description, a Deal Price and an image, then lets you pick the items that make up the deal from a panel on the right.

The Deal Price is what the customer pays, whatever the items add up to individually. That is the whole point of a deal.

On the Deals list each deal has a switch to make it active or inactive, so a weekend offer can be turned on and off without being rebuilt.

1. 1 Open Deals from the sidebar.
2. 2 Tap Create Deal.
3. 3 Type the Deal Name and the Deal Price.
4. 4 Search on the right and click each item that belongs in the deal.
5. 5 Save the deal.

Deals where the customer chooses

Deals → Create Deal

Choice Groups make a deal flexible. A group has a name, a number of picks, and a list of options — and the cashier makes the pick at the POS.

Each option can carry an extra charge, so an upgrade inside a deal can cost a little more.

A group needs at least two options.

The kitchen ticket lists exactly what was chosen, so the cooks see the real contents of the deal rather than just its name.

Importing the menu from a spreadsheet

Import Data

Import Data, under Menu Items in the sidebar, bulk-adds categories, menu items and customers from a spreadsheet. It reads .csv and .xlsx files.

Each of the three cards has a Download Format button that gives you a ready-to-fill sample with the right columns and a couple of example rows.

The first row of your file must be the header — the column names.

Rows are matched against what you already have, so re-importing the same file updates your records instead of creating duplicates. For menu items, a category that does not exist yet is created automatically.

Menu item columns are name, category, price, description, is_available, sort_order and variants.

Format the phone column as Text in Excel before importing customers, or long numbers get mangled by the spreadsheet.

Chinese and Arabic names for the QR menu

Menu Items

Once Chinese menu (English / 中文) or Arabic menu (English / العربية) is switched on under Settings → Modules, Categories, Menu Items and Deals each gain a name field for that language, and every size gets a column of its own.

Switch both on and both sets of fields appear, side by side. A dish can be worded in one language and left to translate itself in the other.

You do not have to fill any of them in. With Translate the menu automatically on, the software translates your menu for you.

These fields are an override: type your own wording and the guest reads yours instead of the automatic translation.

Switching a language off hides its fields; what you typed in them is kept, and comes back exactly as it was if you switch that language on again.