Overview
Orders due ASAP — counter takeaway orders, online orders for immediate preparation, and paid kiosk orders — are sent to the kitchen immediately. The kitchen ticket prints and the order appears on the Kitchen Display (KDS) within moments of the order being placed, sent, or paid.
Orders scheduled for later (for example, an online order placed at 2pm for 6pm collection) stay in the Scheduled tab and are sent to the kitchen automatically when their preparation time arrives.
When each order type fires
| Order | Sent to kitchen |
|---|---|
| Counter order (staff press Send) | Immediately |
| Online order due ASAP | Immediately on arrival |
| Kiosk order paid by card at the kiosk | Immediately on arrival |
| Kiosk order paid at the counter | Immediately when payment is taken on the POS |
| Order scheduled for later | Automatically at its kitchen send time |
What to check if orders aren't reaching the kitchen
- Check the terminal that sends orders to the kitchen is on. In Back Office, go to Setup > In-Store > POS Terminals and click the pencil icon next to each terminal. The one with Send Orders to the Kitchen turned on is the terminal that sends orders to the kitchen. Make sure it is switched on, connected to the internet, and the POS app is open. Only one terminal per store should have it on, or every ticket prints twice.
- Check kitchen printing is enabled. The same terminal needs Kitchen Printer turned on for kitchen tickets to print automatically, and Dispatch Printer for dispatch slips.
- Check the order isn't an unpaid kiosk order. Kiosk orders where the customer chose Pay at Counter are held until payment is taken — see Kiosk Cash Orders: Why They Wait for Payment Before Going to the Kitchen.
- Check the kitchen printer. If the order shows as In Kitchen in Order Hub but no ticket printed, the printer may be offline or out of paper.
After the order connection reconnects, POS checks the server for scheduled orders that may have arrived during the interruption. It reads every page before processing the result. Periodic server checks also continue: normally every five minutes while connected, and every 30–120 seconds while disconnected. A failed check is retried on a later poll.
If Order Hub is open, reconnect also refreshes its first page using the currently selected tab and filters. Use Load more orders again to view later pages.
The separate 30-second kitchen sweep also reads scheduled orders from the server before checking preparation time, so an old cached order cannot override a cancellation missed during an outage. If that read fails, it waits for a later check. Neither a connection indicator nor an automatic check proves that a paper ticket printed. If an order is overdue or a ticket is missing, inspect Order Hub and the printer before deciding to reprint.