Overview
Every order moves through a series of statuses as it is prepared. The exact sequence depends on the order type, because a delivery order has to be dispatched, a collection order has to be picked up from the counter, and a dine-in order has to be carried to a table.
Dine-in covers two order types:
- Table orders — placed at the table, by your staff on the POS or by the customer scanning a QR code.
- Eat In orders — placed at a self-service kiosk, or on the POS, where the customer is eating in but still waits at the counter.
Both now follow the same shape as collection orders: the kitchen finishes the food, the order becomes Ready to Serve, and a member of staff marks it Served once it has reached the customer.
Note: Before this change, a dine-in order jumped straight from In Kitchen to Served the moment the kitchen bumped it, so it never appeared under the Ready filter on the POS. If your team told you table orders "disappear into Completed", that is what was happening.
The status sequence for each order type
| Order type | Statuses, in order |
|---|---|
| Delivery | To Prepare → In Kitchen → Ready to Dispatch → Assigned → On the Way → Delivered |
| Collection / Take Away | To Prepare → In Kitchen → Ready to Collect → Collected |
| Table | To Prepare → In Kitchen → Ready to Serve → Served |
| Eat In | In Kitchen → Ready to Serve → Served |
What happens when the kitchen bumps a dine-in order
- The order arrives and sits at In Kitchen.
- Your kitchen team prepares it and bumps it off the KDS. If you use an Expo screen, the order advances when it is bumped from the Expo, not from an individual station.
- The order moves to Ready to Serve and appears under the Ready filter on the POS, alongside your collection and delivery orders that are ready.
- A member of staff carries the food to the table (or hands it over at the counter for a kiosk Eat In order) and taps Served on the POS.
- The order moves to Served and drops into Completed.
Step 4 is deliberate. The order waits in Ready until somebody confirms it has actually reached the customer, exactly as a collection order waits in Ready until somebody taps Collected.
Taking payment
Nothing about payment changes. A table order can still be paid at any point in the sequence — including while it is Ready to Serve and after it has been Served — whether you take cash, a card on a WisePOS E reader, or split the bill across several payments. The usual eat-then-pay flow is unaffected.
Collection Displays
If you run a customer-facing Collection Display, kiosk Eat In order numbers now move out of the Preparing column when the kitchen bumps them, the same way collection orders do. See Setting up a Collection Display for how to set one up.
Where to check your setup
All of these are at Store level — select a store in the store switcher first, or the menu items will not be available.
| What you want to check | Where |
|---|---|
| Which KDS screens exist and which is the Expo | Setup > In-Store > KDS |
| The customer-facing screen at your counter | Setup > In-Store > Collection Displays |
| Your tables, table areas and QR codes | Setup > Online Ordering > Table Service |
| Your kiosks | Setup > In-Store > Kiosks |
Troubleshooting
Table orders still go straight to Completed. Check that your POS app is up to date. The back office sets the Ready to Serve status, but the POS needs a matching version to show it under the Ready filter and to offer the Served button.
A bumped eat-in order doesn't appear anywhere. Confirm the order was bumped from the Expo screen rather than left on a station screen. If your store has an Expo display configured, only the Expo bump advances the order status. See Multiple Expo displays.
Orders reach Ready to Serve but staff never mark them Served. Orders left in Ready stay visible on the POS rather than being tidied away, which is intentional — it makes an unserved table obvious. If you would rather they cleared automatically, contact support and we can talk through the options.