Managing orders that are made in advance - sending dockets to kitchen / fresh kds

[Cottiers]

We are operating a click and collect take away service Friday - Sunday. A lot of our customers pre-order early in the week when we are closed.

If I use a system like fresh kds would an order put in on Monday for pick up on Friday evening appear on my KDS on Friday with the required prep time when the chef is in the kitchen? Or will it be sent through as soon as the orders placed when there isn't anyone at the venue?

I've noticed that on bumpkds the dockets are being pushed through when the order is made by the customer and not on the day it's been scheduled for pick up. 

Any help would be appreciated!

Lil

[Sam_400º]

I've not got a definitive answer, as I've noticed some 'quirks' in how my tickets print off. (But my system isn't running half the week & think that has something to do with it). 

The ticket should automatically print at the time the food needs to be prepped (according to the global or item prep time set in your store). As far as I know/remember KDS runs as a printer from the square pos side right? 

While I'm trading this all works perfectly - but I'd defiantly keep an eye on the orders that have come in during the week for them showing up correctly. If you needed to (not ideal....) you can push them through again by clicking on them & tapping 'print' from the square app. 


Can you let me know how it goes - as will mean I know if mine is doing something funny or if it is just a quirk of the system! 

[coffee101]

I can't help with your query, but can I ask how you have set it up so people can order while closed for later in the week - and choose a particular day and it still gives the chef the prep time required?

I am struggling to set mine up:

I would like to set the lunch items up so we have the order in by 5pm the day before the customer requires it (so we can gauge how much to order in/make up the next day). And they can pick up any time after 11 or so the next day. So 5pm Tues for Wed 11am onwards collection; 5pm Wed for Thurs 11am onwards etc.

But to achieve that I have to set a long prep time up and if the customer orders at 4pm on a Fri they are only being given Wed as the next available collection. (we will be open Wed-Sat 10am-2pm) as it is counting the prep time from the hours we are open, so it 'jumps'.

Any help would be great!

Thanks

[tranguyen]

Hi @Cottiers, thank you for reaching out! It took a bit of digging, but from our understanding, the KDS system should work based off how order printing work.

Orders should be printed at the correct time including prep time, since the KDS is basically taking the order information and turn it into a digital ticket. As such, orders where the customers choose ASAP pickup will be print immediately, but if an order is schedule to be picked up at 6pm, for example, and the location prep time is 30 minutes, then the ticket should be display at around 5:30pm in order to be ready.

[Sam_400º]

@tranguyen 

For me, when I’m open it works just as you say. 

But if someone orders when I’m closed (& so the ipad isn’t on either) it rarely prints at all, let alone at the right time.
They could order for any time during the next evenings service but it doesn’t normally auto print - so part of my evening set up is going through & printing all the orders in the screen. I then sometimes end up with two tickets where it does print some at the right prep time. 

It’s actually really hard to manage! 

[tranguyen]

Hi @Sam_400º, thanks for flagging that! I check in with our team about this and they explain the iPad will need to be active for tickets to be auto print. They also note that if you have auto-printing for online orders set up, the ticket will print when it transitions from upcoming to new.

For example, if the pickup time is Friday at 2:00pm with a 15 minutes prep time, the order will transition from "upcoming" to "new" at 1:45pm. This is when the ticket will print as long as the iPad is turn on.

I hope that makes sense! 

[Sam_400º]

@tranguyen That sounds great in, but it’s not working in practice. 

I’m closed today, but I’ve got 3 orders that have come in for tomorrow. 

My prep time is set to 15 minutes, but two orders have been categorised as ‘new’ & one is showing as ‘upcoming’. All have over 21 hours until collection....