The kitchen feature sends what you sell to where it is prepared: a kitchen screen, a ticket printer, or both. Turn it on in Settings > Sales and taxes > Features > Kitchen.
Stations
A station is a preparation place, such as the kitchen or the bar. Two are created with your business: “Kitchen” and “Bar”.
- To create another, go to Menu > Stations tab > Add station.
- On each product, choose its Preparation station. If you choose “Not prepared (does not go to the kitchen or bar)”, that product isn’t printed and doesn’t show in the kitchen.
- On printers, tick the Stations it prints. See Printers and hardware.
- On each kitchen tablet, choose the stations it handles (if you tick none, it sees all of them).
Sending to the kitchen
On the sales screen tap Send to kitchen. The register shows Sent to the kitchen. One ticket per station goes to the printers set for that station. If there is nothing new, it says “There is nothing new to send to the kitchen.” When you charge, anything not yet sent goes to the kitchen automatically.
A line that was already sent can’t be changed: “That line was already sent to the kitchen and cannot be changed.” To remove it, void the sent item (see Selling); the station gets a VOIDED notice.
Setting up a tablet as a kitchen screen
- Install the app on the tablet. See First start and linking.
- Join it to the location and, under What this device is for, choose Kitchen or bar. You can change it later in Settings > Location and devices > What this device is for.
- Choose the Stations of this device.
- Optional: turn on Enter without a PIN so the kitchen can get in without typing a PIN. It only works with a role that sees only the kitchen; if it stops being valid, the app says “Entering the kitchen without a PIN is no longer available. Log in with a PIN.”
The kitchen tablet doesn’t turn off or lock while it is on the kitchen screen. For devices to see each other they must be on the same Wi-Fi. See Several tablets.
The kitchen screen
It has two tabs:
- Preparing (N): pending orders.
- Ready (N): finished orders waiting to be handed over.
At the top are filters: All and one chip per station. You also see figures such as Pending, Late, Longest wait and Average prep time today. An order counts as late once it has been waiting 15 minutes or more.
How an order moves
- When an order arrives, it appears under Preparing.
- Tap a line to mark it done (Done). If you make a mistake, tap Undo.
- When everything is ready, tap All ready: the order moves to Ready.
- When it is handed over, tap Delivered on the Ready tab.
When there is no work you’ll see “There are no pending orders.” or “There are no ready orders waiting to be delivered.”
Sound
The Sound switch turns the new-order chime on or off on this kitchen screen (only on this tablet). The chime repeats every 15 seconds until you touch the board, for 3 minutes at most. It does not affect the online store order alarm. If the tablet’s alarm volume is very low, you’ll see The alarm volume is very low: you will not hear the orders.
Alerts for the waiter and cashier
Other devices receive alerts from the kitchen flow:
- “(name) asked for the check”.
- “(name): order ready” or “Order for (name) is ready”.
- “(name): (name) ready” when a line is done.
Printing tickets that arrive from other devices
A tablet with the Kitchen or bar role can print orders that come from other devices. Turn it on in Settings > Location and devices > What this device is for with Print orders that arrive from other devices.
- It prints orders for that device’s stations from the last 10 minutes, and never prints the same one twice. It also prints voided items.
- If the register also has a printer for the same station, you’ll get two copies. The app warns you.
- Kitchens print in the language of the device that prints.
Online store orders
When you accept an order from your online store and Kitchen is on, the ticket goes to the kitchen. See Online orders.