Prioritizing orders on Square KDS

[Bac930]

I run a small but very busy pizza & sandwich takeout spot. We do a lot of walk-in and phone call orders and we just added online pickup & delivery through Square. We used to use the square KDS before we jumped in volume and it worked fine. The only issue with the square KDS is that it does not prioritize the times we put in for phone calls and walk in orders. Although, for online orders it does prioritize the time. We go off of a specific time sheet, and in order for everything to come out on time and for the kitchen not to get backed up, we need to space out orders correctly. I guess my question is, is there a way for the POS orders to look like the online orders?

[Donnie-M · Accepted solution]

@Bac930 You may want to look at order creation on the point of sale.  I think this will put them in line just like an online order and you can specify your prep/cook times that way more conveniently.

I understand though the orderly flow of orders is essential to making online ordering not a pain in the bottom.

Another thing you could look at is just prioritize your orders like you always have and set your online prep times to match and print out at the appropriate time.  If you have a pizza say ready in 30 minutes.  Your prep time is 20 minutes.  You would want the order to print out 20 minutes before it is due and it will print based on that time.  The 30 minute prep will set the online order out 30 minutes so for 10 minutes the "ticket" won't show up on the kds and then it will pop in a more orderly flow.  The key is to match your actual cook times/prep times and add that buffer to the online order.  You will get overloaded at times, but you increase your prep times temporarily in the kds or pause orders for a time from online.