Label Printers — multi-printer setup with kitchen-category routing

Overview

Each store can now configure multiple label printers, each restricted to a set of kitchen categories. When the POS prints labels for an order, it sends each item to the label printer that matches the item's category — so a pizza item goes to the Pizza Station printer and a burger item goes to the Burger Station printer, automatically.

This is the per-item label equivalent of the kitchen-printer routing you already use in Setup > In-Store > Kitchen Printers.

Note: This feature requires a POS app version that supports multi-label printing. If your POS is older, it will continue to print to whichever single label printer is configured locally on the device.

Before you start

You should already have your Kitchen Categories set up. Categories are managed under Setup > In-Store > Kitchen Printers (the same Kitchen Categories are shared between kitchen printers and label printers).

Add a Label Printer

1. Make sure the store you want to configure is selected in the store switcher at the top of the page — Label Printers are a per-store setting and the menu item is hidden at company level.
2. Go to Setup > In-Store > Label Printers.
3. Click Add Label Printer.
4. Fill in:
   • Name — e.g. Pizza Station or Burger Station. The name is what staff will see when mapping the printer to a local IP on the POS.
   • Print 2 copies per item — turn on if you want a duplicate label per item (e.g. one for the bag and one for the receipt).
   • Kitchen Categories — tap each category whose items should print to this label printer. Items whose product category matches one of the selected categories will be routed to this printer.
5. Click Save.

Repeat for each printer (e.g. one for the pizza station, one for the burger station, etc.).

How items get routed

The Back Office tells the POS which label printer to use for each item, based on:

1. The product's Kitchen Category (set on the product in Setup > Menu).
2. Each label printer's selected Kitchen Categories.

If a product's category matches one of the printer's selected categories, that printer will print the label for that item. A product whose category isn't selected on any label printer falls back to the POS's legacy single-printer setting (if configured).

Mapping the printer to a physical device

The Back Office defines which label printer should handle which items. The POS settings on each terminal define where that printer physically lives on the network (its local IP). See the matching POS article for the device-side setup.

Fallback behaviour

• No Label Printers configured for the store — the POS keeps using the existing single label-printer setting on the device. Nothing changes.
• Label Printers configured but a category isn't covered — items in that category fall back to the POS's single label-printer setting.
• Same item matches multiple label printers — the POS will print to each of them. Use this only intentionally (e.g. a duplicate label sent to two stations).

Tips

• Give each printer a name that maps cleanly to a physical station — staff will see this name when mapping IPs on the POS.
• If you add a new Kitchen Category later, remember to come back and tick it on any label printer that should handle it. New categories are not auto-assigned.
• The Label Printers list is store-scoped: if a category is a company-level category (shown with (C) in the picker), you'll see it on every store's Label Printer form, but each store still chooses independently whether its printer handles items in that category.

Verifying sidebar paths

These instructions reference Setup > In-Store > Label Printers and Setup > In-Store > Kitchen Printers. Both items are storeOnly in app/frontend/lib/navigation.ts — they're hidden when you have no store selected. If you can't see them in the sidebar, select a store in the company switcher at the top of the page.