The system runs the daily life of your hotel from a single screen set. A reservation made at the front desk becomes a room to prepare for housekeeping, a folio for accounts, a guest profile for the CRM and a line on tonight's night audit, without anyone re-typing anything.

• Operations: Bookings, Rooms, Housekeeping and Maintenance keep the house running.
• Guests & team: Guests (CRM), Staff (rota, attendance, leave) and User Roles (who may do what).
• Revenue: Payments & invoices, the POS terminal, Restaurant & kitchen, and Inventory.
• Insights & system: Reports & exports, Notifications, the Audit log and Settings.

Everything is multi-tenant: your hotel's data is isolated at the database level, and each person signs in with a role that decides which modules they see and whether they can view, edit or fully manage them.

The guide has four parts:

1. 1
   Start here

   Signing in, moving around quickly, and what your role can do.
2. 2
   Your day

   One walk-through per kind of job, in the order a real shift runs: the front desk, the till, the pass, the rooms, and the manager's week. Signed in, you see the one written for you.
3. 3
   Modules

   One chapter per sidebar entry, in sidebar order. Each covers purpose, who uses it, the screen, workflows, statuses, fields, permissions, tips and the errors you may see.
4. 4
   Reference

   Offline mode, speed tips, troubleshooting for every error message, and a glossary.

Conventions used throughout:

• ⌘K / Ctrl K style keys mean “press together”. The shortcuts that exist: ⌘K / Ctrl K focuses global search, ? opens this guide, Esc closes what is open, and inside the guide / focuses the guide search while [ and ] page between chapters.
• Role tags next to a heading show who the section is mainly for. Anything marked Full needs full access to that module.
• Status diagrams show every state and the arrows between them, if an arrow is not drawn, the system will refuse that move.

• Press ? on any screen, click the book icon in the top bar, or choose User guide at the bottom of the sidebar.
• Every chapter has its own address, for example /guide/bookings. Use the link icon next to a heading to copy a link to that exact section and paste it to a colleague.
• The guide is public: share /guide with new staff before their account exists. Signed-in users see it inside the app; everyone else gets a light frame with a Sign in button.
• Use Print in the chapter header to save a chapter as PDF for the staff room, the layout switches to a clean single column.

Email and password

1. 1
   Open the app address

   The address your administrator gave you for your hotel, e.g. operations.yourhotel.com. On the public demo the sign-in form is at the top and the demo role dropdown sits below it.
2. 2
   Enter email and password

   Passwords are set by an administrator in Staff → Accounts, and you can change yours later in Settings → Account.
3. 3
   You land on your screen

   The desk and the managers open on the Dashboard; a waiter opens on the till, the kitchen on the kitchen display, a room attendant on the housekeeping board. The sidebar shows only the screens your role can open, and a one-screen role has no dashboard at all.

Staff PIN

Busy front desks share a hotel PIN of 4 to 8 digits. Pick your name from the staff list, type the PIN on the keypad and you are in. The PIN can never sign in as a Super Admin or Hotel Manager, those accounts always use email and password, and only a Settings-Full user can change the PIN.

The first time you sign in, a welcome card offers a three-minute tour written for your job. It walks your own screen control by control, spotlighting the real buttons: the shift pill, the menu grid, Send and Pay for a waiter; the shelves and station tabs for the kitchen; the board and the checklist for housekeeping; the pipeline, the folio and the reports for the desk and the managers. It moves between screens as it goes and ends with a short practice list.

1. 1
   Start the tour, or Skip the tour

   Skipping records that you have seen it; nothing else changes.
2. 2
   Move with Next and Back, or → ←

   Press Esc at any point to skip the rest. Each module card has an Open link that takes you straight there.
3. 3
   Finish

   The last card lists practice tasks for your job, such as opening an order on the first table and taking cash for it, or creating a walk-in and checking them in.

There are 13 standard roles. Each one has a level for each of the 13 permission modules; the matrix below is the default; administrators can adjust it in User Roles.

• View: open the module, read everything, export nothing. A small lock icon marks view-only modules in the sidebar.
• Edit: create and change records (new booking, mark a room clean, add a menu item).
• Full: also delete, approve, refund, export and change configuration.

Some screens map to a module you might not expect: Housekeeping and Maintenance sit under Rooms; POS, Restaurant and Inventory under Payments; User Roles, the Audit log and hotel-wide Settings under Settings. Security officers can always read the Audit log.

On the demo host the sign-in page shows a Demo role dropdown under the form. Pick a role and pressEnter demo to sign in as that role inside a sandbox that only your browser can see, pre-loaded with rooms, guests, hundreds of bookings, invoices, POS tickets and stock. Change anything, nobody else sees it. A purple Demo chip in the top bar shows how long the sandbox has left; Reset throws it away and starts a fresh one.

• Dark mode: click the moon/sun icon in the top bar, or Settings → Account. The choice is remembered per browser.
• Install as an app: in Chrome or Edge choose Install app from the address-bar menu; on a phone use Add to Home Screen. Installed, the app opens without browser chrome and keeps the front-desk screens available when the connection drops (see the Offline chapter).
• Device alerts: Settings → Notifications → Device alerts asks for permission to show system notifications for new alerts even when the tab is in the background.

Keyboard: ⌘K global search, ? this guide, Esc closes any drawer or dialog.

The breadcrumb always names the module you are in. The bell shows a live count of unread alerts; click it for the last few and a link to the full feed.

1. 1
   Press ⌘K (or Ctrl K)

   Focus jumps to the search box in the top bar.
2. 2
   Type at least two characters

   Booking codes (BK-1042), guest names or phone numbers, room numbers, invoice codes.
3. 3
   Pick a result

   Results are grouped; choosing one opens that module. Esc clears the box.

• The address bar is the source of truth: /guests?q=ann&tier=Gold&page=2 can be bookmarked, shared or reopened with Back/Forward.
• Typing in the search box waits a moment before querying, so you can keep typing.
• Live updates refresh the page you are looking at when someone else changes a record.

• Inline cells: click a status, priority or assignee cell to change it. It saves on change; Esc reverts; an error shows a toast and rolls the cell back. A guest's tier is a read-only badge in the list; change it in the guest drawer form.
• Kanban cards: drag a card to the next column; the card's drawer offers the same moves as buttons. Moves the system does not allow are refused with a message.
• Roles matrix: each cell is a dropdown from 0 to 3 (None, View, Edit, Full). Pick the levels for a row, then click that row's Save button. Changes bite within seconds for signed-in users.
• View-only roles see the same cells as plain text.

• Drawer (slides in from the right), a single record with its actions: a booking, a guest, a work order. The list stays visible behind it. Esc or the × closes it.
• Dialog (centre), wizards and confirmations: the new-booking wizard, check-in, taking a payment, supervisor authorisation. Destructive actions always confirm first.
• Page: the POS terminal, kitchen display, reports and settings tabs, which need the whole screen.

1. Start
   Sign in on the till

   On the till screen choose Staff PIN, pick your own name from the list and type the hotel PIN. The terminal opens straight away: there is no dashboard for you, the till is your whole screen. Never pick a colleague's name: every sale you ring prints with the name you signed in as, under Served by.
2. Start
   Check the shift pill

   The pill at the top says Shift open with a code, or No shift open. A shift is the cash drawer for the outlet: it opens with a float, closes with a count, and every sale in between lands on it. At your hotel the supervisor or manager opens it; if the till refuses money with “No shift is open on this outlet”, ask them.
3. Order
   Start an order and pick the table

   Press the plus on the Open orders strip, or just tap a dish. Press Pick table and choose where the food goes: a table such as T4, or Room for a guest eating in. Set Covers to how many people are eating. Several tables can be open at once; the strip lists them all and a tap brings one back.
4. Order
   Add the dishes

   Pick a category on the left, tap a tile once for one and again for two. A dish with options asks for them first (how it is cooked, what comes with it). Type a note for the kitchen on the line: “no onions”, “well done”. A greyed tile is sold out: the kitchen turned it off, so you cannot sell it by mistake.
5. Order
   Food and drinks on the same bill

   Both menus are on this one screen. The list on the left is grouped by menu, and the switch at the top of the screen moves between All menus and one of them; the search finds a dish or a drink wherever it lives. Ring the round on the table's own order: you never open a second order for drinks and you never merge two bills at the end. Each line says who makes it, Kitchen or Bar, and goes to that board when you press Send.
6. Order
   Send to the kitchen

   Press Send. The lines go to the boards that make them, and the till says which (“2 to the kitchen and 1 to the bar”); the ticket shows how many are still to send. Lines already sent stay put: add more and press Send again for the next round. A line you added by mistake can be voided before it is sent; once it is with the kitchen, voiding needs a reason, and the record says you voided it and why.
7. Ready
   The bell rings for you

   When the kitchen marks your order Ready, the bell in the top bar rings, a chime sounds on your device and the alert names the table. The ticket itself says where each dish stands: in kitchen, ready or servedbeside every line, and “2 of 3 ready” at the top while the pass is still working. If you are not sure which table, Restaurant / POS shows the pass. You read it; only the kitchen moves the cards.
8. Bill
   Print a bill first, if asked

   A guest who wants to see the bill before paying gets the ticket printed as a BILL (not yet paid): press Print bill under the total. It shows every line with its price and the total; nothing is settled until money is taken. After payment the same button prints the receipt again, and the Tickets tab on Restaurant / POS can open or download any ticket's bill or receipt.
9. Pay
   Take the money

   Only the cashier and the managers take money. A waiter sees Print bill where Pay would be: print the bill, give it to the guest and take it to the cashier. The cashier opens the order and presses Pay. Cash: type what the guest gives and the drawer works out the change. Mobile money: pick the network and type the transaction ID from the SMS the hotel phone received (letters and numbers both work; the same ID is never accepted twice). If Settle stays grey, the line under the balance says what is missing. Card: the slip number. Room charge: pick the guest's room and the whole bill goes onto their hotel folio, to be paid at check-out. A bill can be paid in parts, by two people or by two methods; the ticket closes by itself when the last part settles and the receipt prints, with your name as the server. One rule first: the till takes no money for food the kitchen has not marked ready. If a dish is unsent or still cooking, Pay says so and names it; ask the pass to mark it ready (drinks never hold a bill). The outlet manager can take the money anyway, and that is recorded against their name.
10. Pay
    Splitting a table

    Split has three ways. Evenly: choose the number of guests (it starts at the covers and can differ) and each gets an equal order. By amount: type what each guest pays; every amount becomes an order of its own and guest 1 keeps the food and whatever is left on this order. By item: tick the lines that move to a new order. Do it before any money is taken. The split tickets keep your name as the server and pay only once the pass has finished the food.Merge folds another open ticket (a bar tab) into this bill.
11. Any time
    When the internet drops

    The till keeps selling. An Offline pill appears in the top bar; the orders you take are saved on this device and sent, with the money, the moment the connection returns. Do not clear the browser or sign out while the pill shows. One thing waits for the connection: a room charge, because the guest's folio must be checked first.
12. End
    Closing up

    Settle every open order or hand it over by name. The supervisor closes the shift: the till shows the cash it expects (float plus cash sales minus change) against what was counted, and prints the over or short. Then sign out. A till left alone signs itself out after the hotel's idle minutes (a one-minute countdown warns you first), so the next person never rings under your name.

• Take the payment: the cashier or a manager settles every bill. Press Print bill, hand it to the guest, and take it to the cashier.
• Open or close a shift: the outlet supervisor or a manager, with full Restaurant access.
• Remove a tender taken by mistake: full access, while the ticket is still open. After it closed, it is a refund: you can start one from Restaurant › Tickets, but a manager has to approve it with their PIN.
• Change a price or turn a dish off: the menu is the manager's. If something has run out, tell the kitchen or the supervisor and it greys out on every till.
• Sell something that is not on the menu: you can, once. Press Add a meal next to the search, type what the guest asked for and its price, and choose Kitchen or Bar. It goes on the bill with your name on record and does not take stock. If it sells every day, ask a manager to put it on the menu.
• Charge a room whose guest has checked out: the till refuses (“has no open folio”). Take cash, card or mobile money.

Ticket

One order: the lines, the table or room, the covers and, once paid, the tenders. Its code reads TKT-…

Shift

The cash drawer for one outlet between an open (with a float) and a close (with a count). Sales land on the shift open at the time.

Tender

One payment against a ticket: cash, mobile money, card or room charge. A ticket may take several.

Room charge

The bill goes onto the folio of a guest staying in the hotel and is paid at check-out.

Sold out

A dish the kitchen or manager turned off; its tile is greyed and it cannot be sold.

Served by

The person who opened the ticket, taken from the name you signed in with. It follows the ticket through a split.

Cashier

The person who took the money, printed on the receipt when it is not the server.

Ready

The pass marked the dish plated. Every line shows in kitchen, ready or served; a bill printed before payment prints the same word.

Share

A guest's named amount from a bill split by amount: an order of its own with one line, paid like any other.

The POS terminal is the screen a server stands at. Each hotel has one or more outlets (a restaurant, a bar; a small hotel has just the one) with their own menu, tables and service-charge rate. An outlet is a menu and a bill; where the work is done is the station on the dish, kitchen or bar. The till shows every menu at once, so a table's food and its drinks go on one ticket and each line reaches the board that makes it. A sale is a ticket of lines; lines are sent to the kitchen, adjusted, voided with a reason, discounted, split, and finally settled by one or more tenders, cash, mobile money, card, or a charge to an in-house guest's room folio. Several orders stay open side by side: the Open orders strip under the outlet switch lists every open ticket in the hotel (naming the outlet when more than one has orders open), and a tap brings it back onto the panel, so a waiter can work three tables at once.

The terminal sits under the Restaurant permission module. Anyone with Restaurant at Can edit (a Waiter, a Chef, the Receptionist) can ring, send and print the bill; Restaurant at View only sees the ticket and totals but no buttons. Settling a bill (taking cash, mobile money, card or a room charge) is Restaurant at Full: the Cashier, the Restaurant Manager and the managers. A waiter sees Print billwhere Pay would be and takes the bill to the cashier. Cancelling an order that already went to the kitchen, editing the menu and closing a shift also need Restaurant at Full. A flagged discount or a refund asked for by somebody without that level opens an Approve dialog: pick a manager from the list and they tap their own four-digit approval PIN. Nobody signs out, and the audit row names both people. Voiding a line the kitchen already has needs no manager: anyone who can ring gives a reason, and the audit log records who voided it and why.

If the hotel has no outlet the page shows “No POS outlet configured for this hotel.” Outlets, tables and menus are seeded per hotel; the per-outlet service % and the discount and void-reason lists are edited in Settings → Ops config.

A shift (code SHF-…) is opened per outlet with an opening float and closed with an optional cash count. Only one shift can be open per outlet at a time, the server locks the outlet while it checks, and a database constraint backs it up, so two managers opening at once get one shift, not two.

1. 1
   Open

   Open shift (Restaurant · Full access, next to the outlet chips) asks for the opening float, the cash in the drawer before the first sale. The terminal then shows the green shift chip with the code and who opened it; without one it reads “No shift open”.
2. 2
   Trade

   Every ticket that closes on the outlet is stamped with the shift. By default the till still sells without a shift; Settings → Hotel → “Require an open shift to take money at the till” makes cash, card and mobile money refuse (“No shift is open on this outlet”) until one is opened.
3. 3
   Close

   Close shift opens the drawer count: a row per note (50,000 down to 100 shillings) with a count, plus closing notes. If tickets are still open the close is refused and offers “Close the shift anyway”, in which case their money rolls to the next shift and the report says so.
4. 4
   Read the Z-report

   Tickets (and refunds), gross sales, discounts, voids, a line per tender method, the opening float, the cash expected in the drawer (float plus the net cash taken, change and refunds already netted), the cash counted, and Balanced / Over / Short. The same report is stored with the shift and audited.

1. 1
   Start

   Tap a menu tile, click Pick table, or click New ticket. If no open ticket is selected, the first tap creates one (TKT-…, 1 cover) on the current outlet. The terminal reopens the most recent open ticket for the outlet when you return.
2. 2
   Table or walk-in

   Pick table opens the floor by zone; each tile shows the number, seats and status. Choose a table, or Walk-in / no table. The table turns “open”; moving the ticket elsewhere frees the old table.
3. 3
   Room service

   A ticket created against an in-house room (roomId) is linked to that guest's booking and shows a Room N · guest banner. The link is also made at payment time if you choose Charge to Room.
4. 4
   Add items

   Tapping a plain item adds one straight away (“Added <name>”). Items with options open the modifier sheet.
5. 5
   Quantities

   Use the − / + stepper on a line (1–99). Taking an unsent line to zero deletes it; taking a sent line to zero opens the void dialog instead.
6. 6
   Covers

   The Covers stepper (1–20) sets how many guests; it also decides how many ways Split evenly divides the bill.

The modifier sheet

Titled with the item name and “Choose options · UGX … base”. Each modifier group is a row of chips; a group marked · required must have a choice (single-choice required groups preselect the first option), · choose any allows several. Price deltas show as +2K / −1K on the chip. Below is theKitchen / bar note (“e.g. allergy, no peanuts”), a quantity stepper and the running unit × qty price. Add to ticket stays disabled until every required group has a choice.

Send

1. 1
   Check the badge

   The ticket head shows “N to send” in purple while unsent lines exist; once everything is fired it shows the kitchen status instead.
2. 2
   Click Send (N)

   All unsent, non-voided lines are marked sent; the ticket's kitchen status moves from new to preparing if it was new. Toast: “N items sent to kitchen”. The kitchen sees it on the Restaurant order board immediately.
3. 3
   Add more later

   New lines start unsent; Send fires just those. A second course on an order the kitchen already marked Ready or Served puts the ticket back into Cooking on the kitchen display. Send is disabled when nothing is waiting (“No unsent lines” if forced).
4. 4
   Watch each line come back

   Every sent line carries a word from the pass: in kitchen, ready or served; the header badge reads “2 of 3 ready” until the last plate is up, then the ticket's kitchen status. The open-orders strip shows “ready” on a ticket whose food is all up. Print bill prints the same word beside each item.

Void a line

Click the bin icon on a line (or step a sent line to zero). The Void item dialog shows “2 × Chicken curry · UGX 48,000” and the reason list from Settings (defaults: Guest changed mind · Wrong item rung · Item sold out · Quality complaint · Duplicate entry · Manager comp).Keep item cancels; Void item confirms.

Discounts

The select under the lines lists the hotel's discounts (defaults: No discount · Staff meal 30% (auth) · Happy hour 20% · Loyalty member 10% · Manager comp 100% (auth)). A discount applies to the whole ticket subtotal and shows as a red line with its label; the ticket copies the label and % so later edits to the list do not change old tickets.

1. 1
   Pick a discount

   Ones without “(auth)” apply immediately, and so do the flagged ones when you hold Restaurant at Full yourself.
2. 2
   Ask a manager

   Ones marked “(auth)” open the Discount authorisation dialog. Approved by lists everyone who may sign this off and has an approval PIN set, and the field below takes their PIN. Approve sends the name and the PIN with the request.
3. 3
   Server check

   The approver must be an active user of this hotel holding Restaurant, Payments or Settings at Full access, and the PIN must be theirs. On success the toast says “Discount applied”; the audit row names you and them.

Merge bills

Merge (next to Split) lists every other open ticket in the hotel, the same table or room first: the bar's tab, a second kitchen ticket, room service. Tick the ones that belong to this guest and they fold into this bill with their lines, sent state and station intact; the other tickets are cancelled with the note “Merged into TKT-…”. A ticket that already has money on it cannot be merged until its tenders are removed. One bill, one receipt, one payment.

Split bill

Split opens “Split bill · TKT-… · table · UGX … due” with three modes.Evenly asks for the number of guests (it starts at the covers, 2 to 20, and can differ from them) and divides every line that many ways, creating one child ticket per extra guest with the same table, room and discount; guest 1 stays on the original, which keeps the odd shillings. By amount lists guest 2 onwards with an amount box each (Another guest adds a row, Equal shares fills them evenly): every amount becomes a ticket of its own carrying one “Share of TKT-…” line, and guest 1 keeps the food and whatever is left, shown live at the top; the amounts must leave something for guest 1. By item lets you tick lines and Move to new ticket; the panel shows what goes and what stays. Each child is a normal ticket paid separately; a share ticket cannot be edited, only paid or cancelled, and it pays only once the pass has marked the parent's food ready.

Pay (enabled once the ticket has a live line) opens the Take payment drawer. With the hotel settingTake money only after the kitchen marks the food ready (on by default) the drawer first lists any kitchen dish that is unsent or still cooking, and the server refuses the tender (“2 items not ready: … still in the kitchen”) until the pass marks them ready; drinks never hold a bill, and Restaurant · Full access may take the money anyway, which is written to the audit log. The drawer shows: “TKT-… · table · outlet”, the bill card (total, paid so far, balance due), the tenders already taken on this bill, four tender tiles, and a right-hand panel that changes with the tender. The amount defaults to the balance; type a smaller figure to take part of it, and the drawer reads “Take UGX … · UGX … left”.

1. 1
   Choose the tender, the amount and fill its field

   The button stays disabled until the tender's rule is met. A partial amount reads “Take UGX … · UGX … left”.
2. 2
   Take UGX …

   A tender row is written for what was applied to the bill (never more than the balance), the ticket stays open with the balance on the panel, the audit log gets pos.tender.taken, and the drawer lists the tender under “Taken on this bill” with an × to remove it if it was a slip.
3. 3
   Settle UGX …

   The tender that brings the balance to zero closes the ticket: its table goes to “needs bussing”, the audit log gets pos.ticket.closed with method, total and the number of tenders. Two guests paying their halves are simply two tenders.
4. 4
   Print the bill first

   Print bill on the ticket panel opens the ticket as a BILL (not yet paid) to take to the table; nothing is settled by printing. The Restaurant page's Tickets tab has the same Bill or Receipt button on every row, plus a Download that saves the PDF.
5. 5
   Receipt

   The receipt PDF opens in a new tab (/api/pos/tickets/<id>/pdf), laid out for the paper set in Settings (an 80 mm roll by default): the hotel and its TIN, the outlet, the ticket code and time, table or room, covers, Served by (whoever opened the ticket) and Cashier (whoever settled it, when that is someone else), each line with its unit price, discount, service, VAT, total, every tender and the change, then the hotel's own footer. A second print says Reprint. Toast: “Bill settled” or “Posted to guest folio”.
6. 6
   Stock

   Every live line with a recipe depletes its stock items. Stock never goes below zero: the decrement is clamped to what is on hand, the movement records what was actually taken, and any shortfall raises the notification “Stock short: <item>” (“TKT-… needed 6 but only 4 was on hand · count and adjust”). The sale itself is never blocked.

Every edit, lines, covers, table, void, discount, split, send, needs the ticket to be Open; a closed ticket answers “Ticket is closed”. Cancel on the ticket head cancels an open order nothing has been paid on: anyone who can ring up may cancel a ticket the kitchen has not seen; once items were sent, only Restaurant at Full may, and every sent line is voided with the reason. A cancelled ticket keeps its code and disappears from the open orders strip. Closing a ticket with a kitchen status of new moves it topreparing so the kitchen still sees it. The kitchen flow itself (new → preparing → ready → served) is driven from the Restaurant & kitchen boards.

The terminal itself only writes free, open and bill; seated and dirtyexist for the floor picker's colours and for seeded data.

• See the terminal, menu, tables, tickets, shift and receipts: Restaurant · View only.
• New ticket, add/adjust/remove unsent lines, table, covers, Send, void any line with a reason, discount, split, merge, Print bill, cancel an unsent ticket: Restaurant · Can edit (the Waiter).
• Settle a bill (Pay: cash, mobile money, card, room charge), open and close shifts, remove a tender, cancel a sent ticket, rename or resize tables, refund a closed ticket: Restaurant · Full access (the Cashier, the Restaurant Manager, the managers). A refund can also be approved by somebody who holds it, with their PIN.
• Kitchen status (Start cooking / Mark ready / Mark served): Kitchen · Can edit or Restaurant · Can edit.
• Approve an “(auth)” discount: the name picked in the dialog needs Restaurant · Full, Payments · Full or Settings · Full, and an approval PIN set in Staff → Accounts.
• Approve a refund: the name picked needs Restaurant · Full (the Restaurant Manager, the Cashier, a manager).
• Edit discounts, void reasons and outlet service %: Settings · Can edit, in Settings → Ops config.

Outlet

A selling point (restaurant, bar) with its own menu, tables, service % and shifts.

Ticket

One bill (TKT-…): lines, discount, totals, one tender. Open until settled.

Cover

A guest at the table; sets how many ways Split evenly divides.

Sold out

Off the menu for now (kitchens call it 86'd). A sold-out dish cannot be rung and is hidden on the till until it is back on sale.

Tender

How a ticket is settled. The terminal offers Cash, Mobile Money, Card and Charge to Room; the shared tender enum also lists cash, momo, card, room, voucher, staff for reporting.

Room charge

A tender that posts the ticket to the in-house guest's open folio; settled at check-out.

Shift

An opened/closed trading period per outlet (SHF-…) with a float and a close report.

Rung twice, wrong table, a guest who sent the dish back after paying: the bill has to come back out of the till, and the books have to show it. Restaurant → Tickets shows a Refund button on every closed ticket that was paid at the till.

1. 1
   Click Refund

   The dialog “Refund TKT-…?” asks for a Reason (required, it goes on the audit trail and the receipt) and whether to Return the ingredients to stock (ticked by default; untick when the food actually left the kitchen).
2. 2
   Confirm “Refund UGX …”

   Every tender on the ticket is mirrored as a negative tender of the same method, the ticket is stamped refunded with who did it, and the toast reads “TKT-… refunded”. The row shows a Refunded badge and the ticket drops out of Sales today, the reports and the night audit.
3. 3
   Hand the money back

   The receipt (Print) now carries a REFUNDED band and the negative tender rows; give it to the guest with the cash. A shift cash-up nets the refund against the day's cash.

Restaurant / POS is where orders are cooked and the menu is managed; the ringing and paying happens on the POS terminal. Tickets flow from the till onto the Order board here, the kitchen advances them through preparing and ready, and the waiter marks them served. The Menu tab lists every category and item for the selected outlet with a sold-out switch, and shows supervisor notes left over from the menu import.

Like the terminal, this screen is guarded by the Payments module: View only reads the boards, Can edit advances tickets and changes menu items.

• Outlet switch: the same buttons as the terminal; the board and menu show one outlet at a time.
• Tickets (the default): every open ticket of the outlet plus the recent closed ones in one table (ticket, table or room, guest, covers, items, total, kitchen status, opened). Tap a heading to sort; the Kitchen heading filters by status; the last column advances an open ticket, and tapping an open row opens that order on the till.
• Order board: four kanban columns; cards can be dragged one column to the right or advanced with the button.
• Menu: the outlet's items as a paged list (Table, Cards or By category), searchable and filterable by category, availability and popular; inline cells for category, price, popular and 86; a drawer for the full item; Add item and Categories dialogs; and, when any exist, a MENU_NOTES side card of unresolved supervisor flags with a Resolved button.
• Tables: the floor as status cards (Free, Seated, Order open, Bill out, Needs bussing) filtered by state and zone. Free, Seated and Needs bussing are set by hand; Order open and Bill out follow the ticket, and closing a bill leaves the table at Needs bussing until it is cleared.
• Kitchen display (the first tab and the default): the screen at the pass. Three shelves, To make, Ready to serve and Today, a station switch (Kitchen, Bar, All stations) carrying the number of items each board still owes, a Sound on / off chip, and large cards that show every line for that station with its accompaniments and notes, a Ready button per line (Undo once pressed), how long the order has waited, and one big button for the next step. A new order chimes; an order nobody has started taps every minute. Shares from a bill split by amount and the copies an even split keeps for billing never appear here.

Without an outlet the page shows “No POS outlet configured for this hotel.”

1. 1
   The ticket appears

   As soon as a waiter creates a ticket at the till it shows under New Orders with “No items yet” until lines are added. Room-service tickets are labelled Room N; table tickets Table N; walk-ins by code.
2. 2
   The till sends

   Send on the terminal marks the lines sent and moves a new ticket to Preparing. Lines added afterwards show up on the card as they are sent.
3. 3
   Start cooking (kitchen)

   If the ticket is still in New Orders, e.g. lines were rung but never sent, the kitchen presses Start cooking. This marks every line on the ticket sent and moves it to Preparing.
4. 4
   Ready, one plate at a time

   On the kitchen display each line has a Ready button; the line turns green on the till at once. When the last kitchen line is ready the ticket moves to Ready by itself and the waiter is told. Undo puts a line back to cooking (and the ticket back to Preparing).
5. 5
   Mark ready

   Food is plated: press Mark ready (board or kitchen display) to stamp every line at once. The Ready to serve KPI counts these. The till takes no money for a kitchen dish until it reads ready.
6. 6
   Mark served

   The runner delivers and presses Mark served on the board. The card sits in Served until the ticket is settled at the till, which takes it off the open-ticket board.

It is the first tab of Restaurant / POS and the screen the page opens on. Each card is one order: where it is (Table 4, Room 07, walk-in), its code, covers and guest, the outlet, and a timer that counts from the moment the first line was fired (green, then amber after 15 minutes, red after 30). Underneath, every line the station has to make, as the cook reads it: 2× Stir Fry Chicken, then the accompaniments on their own line (“+ Chips, Extra sauce”) and any note from the till in amber (“no peanuts”). Lines the waiter has not sent yet are shown faded with a “not sent yet” tag, so nothing is cooked early.

“Nothing to make” means the pass is clear. The timers keep moving without a refresh; new orders and changes arrive live from the till.

Categories and items

Each outlet has ordered categories (Mains, Breakfast, Snacks, Drinks… each with an icon) and ordereditems inside them. An item carries a name, description, whole-shilling price, an availableflag and a popular flag (the star on the till and the Popular rail). Modifier groups, required or optional, single or multi-choice, each option with a price delta, are attached to items and shown on the till's modifier sheet.

Finding and editing items

1. 1
   Open the Menu tab

   Pick the outlet. The list is paged (50 a page, Table by default; Cards or By category from the layout switch) and searches name, description and category as you type; the Category, Availability and Popular filters and the sortable headings live in the address bar.
2. 2
   Quick edits in the row

   Category, price, Popular and the Available / Sold out switch save on change. A sold-out dish vanishes from the till at once (“<name> is sold out”) but stays on tickets that already sold it.
3. 3
   The item drawer

   Click the item name: rename, describe, re-price, move category, flip availability and popular, tick the modifier groups the till should offer, and see the recipe. Payments · Full access can delete an item that was never sold.
4. 4
   Add item and Categories

   Add item asks for name, price, category, description, flags and modifier groups. Categories renames, re-orders (the till follows this order), sets icons, adds and, when empty, deletes categories.
5. 5
   Several at once

   Tick rows to mark them sold out or back on sale, popular, or move them to another category in one go.

Recipes → stock

An item can hold a recipe: up to 20 lines of stock item + quantity per portion. When a ticket is settled at the till, every live line depletes its recipe quantities from Inventory (a consumemovement referencing the ticket). Stock is clamped at zero and a shortfall raises “Stock short: <item>” so the storekeeper counts and adjusts, the sale is never blocked. Items without a recipe simply do not touch stock.

MENU_NOTES

When a menu was imported, the importer may have left supervisor flags (section, item, issue). Unresolved ones show in the side card “MENU_NOTES · Supervisor flags from menu import” so the manager can fix the item; the Resolved button on a note closes it.

There is no separate floor map on this screen. Tables are defined per outlet (number, zone, seats) and are assigned to a ticket on the terminal with Pick table, which groups them by zone and colours them by status (free · seated · open · bill · dirty). The order board uses that assignment to label cardsTable N and tag them Dine-in; a ticket linked to an in-house room shows Room N andRoom Service; anything else is a Walk-in shown by its code.

Room-service tickets can be settled with Charge to Room at the till, which posts the food, service charge and VAT onto the guest's folio, see Payments & folios.

The KPI tiles derive from these: In kitchen counts preparing, Ready to serve counts ready,Orders today counts tickets created today (any status), Sales today sums today's closed tickets. The board shows open tickets only; a settled ticket leaves the board whatever its kitchen state.

• Open the screen, read boards, tickets, menu, notes, recipes: Restaurant · View only (the Chef, the Accountant).
• Start cooking / Mark ready / Mark served, Ready on a line, drag cards: Kitchen · Can edit (the Chef) or Restaurant · Can edit (the Waiter, the desk). Marking an order ready, by the button or by its last line, sends a personal “Order ready” alert to the waiter who took it, with a chime on their device.
• Mark sold out / back on sale, resolve notes: Restaurant · Can edit.
• Create or delete dishes, change prices, names, categories or options, set recipes, add or rename categories: Restaurant · Full access (the Restaurant Manager).

Receptionists (Restaurant · Can edit) can ring a room-service order and move a card; they cannot change the menu.

KDS

Kitchen display system, the kitchen status on a ticket and the screens that show it.

Sold out

Off the menu for now (kitchen slang: 86'd). A sold-out dish is hidden on the till and cannot be rung.

Pass

Where plated food waits for a runner; the Ready column.

Recipe

Stock item quantities consumed per portion of a menu item; depleted when the ticket settles.

Room service

A ticket linked to an in-house room; can be charged to the guest folio.

Inventory tracks every consumable the hotel holds, kitchen ingredients, bar stock, linen, cleaning supplies, spare parts, stationery, grouped by department and category. Each item carries a quantity on hand, a unit and a reorder level. When the quantity falls to the reorder level the item turns amber; at zero it turns red, and the people who restock get a notification.

Inventory has its own permission module, so the Restaurant Manager, Accountant and managers work here while the front desk stays out of stock entirely, even though it can take money. Kitchen sales reach stock automatically: when a POS ticket closes, the ingredients linked to each menu item are deducted.

Two extra cards appear when they have something to say: an amber banner “N items need attention across all departments” with a Reorder all button, and a Pending purchase orders card listing orders that are still on order, each with a Receive stock button. Selecting the Kitchen department also shows how many perishable ingredients have tracked expiry dates.

1. 1
   Open the dialog

   Click Purchase order in the page head (all low/empty items ticked), Reorder all on the amber banner, Reorder on one row, or Order N on a supplier.
2. 2
   Tick the items to reorder

   The “New purchase order, Restock items below their reorder level” dialog lists only items that are low or out of stock, each with its department tag and current quantity. Untick anything you do not want yet. If nothing is short you see “No items need reordering”.
3. 3
   Choose Supplier and Deliver to

   Supplier defaults to Auto (from items), the first ticked item's supplier is used. Deliver to offers Main Store, Kitchen Store or Bar Store. Expected date is optional.
4. 4
   Click Create order (N)

   One order per supplier is created straight into On order with a PO-… code (a basket from two suppliers becomes two orders); the toast reads “PO-12 created (3 items)”. Each line tops the item up to its par level (twice the reorder level unless set otherwise), never below one reorder quantity. The orders appear in Pending purchase orders and on the suppliers' drawers.

1. 1
   Find the order

   Stock tab → Pending purchase orders card, or Suppliers tab → open the supplier → Recent purchase orders.
2. 2
   Click Receive stock (or Receive in the drawer)

   Every line that still has quantity outstanding is received in full. Each item's quantity on hand goes up and a stock movement with reason receive and the PO code is written.
3. 3
   The order becomes Received

   Toast: “PO-12 received into stock”. The KPI tiles, department badges and status badges refresh immediately.
4. 4
   A short delivery: Receive part…

   Type what arrived on each line (defaults to what was expected). Received quantities go into stock at once; the order stays Partial and Receive stock books the rest when it comes.
5. 5
   An order that will never arrive: Cancel

   Confirm “Cancel order”. Anything already received stays in stock; the order is filed as Cancelled and can no longer be received.

The Suppliers tab opens with four tiles, Suppliers (active ones; the tile notes how many are inactive), Need an order (suppliers with at least one low or empty item), Open purchase orders and Items they cover: department chips, a Show inactive chip, the Add supplier button (Payments Edit), and a filter bar (“Search supplier, contact, category, item…” plus an Attention dropdown: Any status / Needs an order / Open purchase order / Inactive).

• Table columns: Supplier (with the contact name or “2 open POs” underneath), Category badge, Contact (phone and email are tap-to-call / mail-to links), Departments, Items (the number of connections), Stock (“3 out”, “2 low”, In stock, or a dash when the supplier is not primary for anything), Last order (or Never), and an Order N button when something is short.
• Inactive suppliers are hidden by default. Turn on Show inactive (or pick Inactive in the Attention dropdown) to list them; they carry an Inactive badge and no Order button.
• Supplier drawer: click a row. The header shows the name with an Active / Inactive badge and the category; the sub-line lists its departments (or “No stock items linked”). Inside: Contact, Phone, Alternative phone, Email, Website, Payment terms and Lead time cards, Address and Notes when set, Linked items / Preferred / Need reorder counters, Recent purchase orders (up to eight, newest first, each with a status badge and a Receive button while open) and the Connections table. The footer offers Close and Order N items.
• Connections: one row per item the supplier can deliver, with the supplier's SKU, the last quoted unit cost, the lead time in days, the item's stock and status, and a Preferred badge where this supplier is the item's primary source. An item can be connected to several suppliers but has at most one preferred.

1. 1
   Add supplier

   Click Add supplier above the filter bar. Name is required (2 to 80 characters); Category, Contact name, Phone, Alternative phone, Email, Website, Address, Payment terms (type or pick a preset such as Net 30), Lead time in days (0 to 365) and Notes are optional. Save supplier creates it and opens its drawer.
2. 2
   Edit the profile

   Open the supplier and click Edit. The same form updates any field; clearing a field removes the value.
3. 3
   Manage items

   In the drawer, click Manage items. Every stock item is listed by department with a search box; tick an item to connect it and fill in Supplier SKU, Unit cost (whole currency units) and Lead time (days). Tick Preferred supplier to make this supplier the item's primary source, which is what Order N and Auto (from items) use on purchase orders. Unticking an item removes the connection. The footer counts “14 items linked, 9 preferred”; Save connections replaces the supplier's list.
4. 4
   Deactivate or reactivate

   Deactivate (with a confirmation) hides the supplier from the directory and from the Supplier dropdown on new purchase orders. Its profile, connections and order history are kept, and Reactivate restores it.

• In stock: quantity above the reorder level. Low stock: at or below it. Out of stock: zero. The Level bar shows quantity against roughly one-and-a-half times the reorder level.
• Movements are written for every change: receive (from a PO, referenced by its code), consume (a closed POS ticket) and adjust. The adjust movement is exposed by the API (PATCH /inventory/items/:id/adjust, Payments Edit) but there is no adjust button on this screen yet. There is no movement history screen either.
• Low-stock notifications fire the moment a movement takes an item from above its reorder level to at or below it: “Tomatoes low stock, 4 kg remaining (reorder at 5)” or “Tomatoes out of stock, Reorder level reached. Create purchase order.” in the Operations category, linking to this page.
• POS recipes: each menu item may list the stock items and quantities it uses. When a ticket closes, those quantities are deducted (never below zero). If there is not enough on hand the sale still goes through and a “Stock short: …” notification asks the kitchen to count and adjust. Recipes are set per menu item through the menu API; there is no recipe editor screen in this version.
• Expiry: an item with an expiry date shows “Expires 2026-09-30” under its name, and the Perishable / tracked expiry tile counts items that carry a date. Nothing is auto-removed on expiry; the date is a reminder for the kitchen.

• View: summary, item list, suppliers and purchase orders.
• Edit: Purchase order, Reorder, Reorder all, Order N, Receive stock / Receive, and stock adjustments via the API.
• Full: nothing extra on this screen.

Stock used to share the Payments module, which meant a hotel could not let the front desk take money without also letting it raise purchase orders. They are separate levels now: the Receptionist has Payments = Can edit and Inventory = No access, and menu-item recipes still follow Payments, because they are part of the menu.

Reorder level

The quantity at which an item is flagged Low stock and included in Reorder all.

PO

Purchase order, a list of items and quantities requested from a supplier, coded PO-…

Stock movement

One dated change to an item's quantity with a reason: receive, consume or adjust.

Recipe

The stock items and quantities a menu item consumes when its ticket closes.

Connection

A supplier-to-item link with the supplier's SKU, last quoted unit cost and lead time.

Preferred supplier

The one connection per item that makes that supplier the item's primary source on purchase orders.

Notifications tell the team what just happened: a new booking, a payment, a room turned dirty, a stock item running out, an export ready. Most entries are hotel-wide, and each person sees those that belong to a module they can open: a waiter sees kitchen and order alerts but not “Payment received on INV-…”, an accountant the reverse. Personal ones (“Order ready: Table 4” for the waiter who took the order, your test notification) reach one person only, on every device they are signed in on. Read state is per person: marking an alert read for you does not clear it for a colleague.

There is no permission gate: the feed, the bell and the preferences are available to every role, because the feed only tells you where to look, the module you click through to still enforces its own access.

The bell

• The bell in the top bar carries a live unread count. Clicking it opens a panel, a popover on desktop, a bottom sheet on phones, titled Notifications with the twelve most recent entries, Mark all read, a close ×, and View all to open this page.
• New alerts are prepended to the panel as they arrive. Esc or clicking outside closes it. When empty it reads “Nothing new. Events appear here as they happen.”

The feed loads the latest 100 entries. Empty states: “No payments notifications.” when a chip filter has nothing; otherwise “Nothing here yet. Bookings, check-ins and payments will appear as they happen.” or, if you have not turned on device alerts in a browser that supports them, a prompt to do so with an Open notification settings button.

1. 1
   Open Settings → Notifications

   Or click Preferences on the feed page.
2. 2
   Click the chip beside a category

   It toggles between On (green) and Muted (dimmed). The change saves immediately and rolls back with a toast if it fails.
3. 3
   Muted means gone from every channel

   “Muted categories are hidden from your feed, badge, toasts and device alerts, for this account only.” The rows are still written for the hotel, so un-muting brings history back.

• Tab focused: a toast slides in with the title, body and a link; the bell count goes up by one. No OS banner.
• Tab open but hidden (another tab, minimised), with Device alerts on, the browser shows a system notification from the live event. Clicking it focuses the app and opens the linked module. This path needs no server configuration.
• App closed or phone locked: the server sends a Web Push message to every device you enabled; the service worker shows the banner unless a focused app window already exists. This needs VAPID keys on the server, Settings tells you when they are missing: “OS banners work while a tab is open. Ask your admin to set VAPID keys for alerts when the app is closed.”
• All three respect your category mutes.

1. 1
   Open Settings → Notifications → Device alerts

   The card reads “Off for this browser” or “On for this browser” with a hint that explains what will happen on this device.
2. 2
   Click the Off/On chip

   The browser asks for notification permission. Allow it. When server push is configured the device is registered too. Toast: “Device alerts on, you will get banners when the app is in the background” (or “…on for this browser (server push is not configured yet)”).
3. 3
   Click Send test

   A “Test notification, Device alerts are working on this browser.” entry is written to your personal System feed and pushed to your devices even if System is muted. The toast says “Hide this tab (or lock your phone) to see the OS banner as well.” when the tab is visible, or “Check your notification tray.” when it is not.
4. 4
   Turn off any time

   Click the chip again: the device is unregistered and you see “Device alerts off for this browser”. The setting is per browser and per device, not per account.

Clicking marks the alert read first (optimistically, the page does not wait for the server), then navigates. OS banners and Web Push banners carry the same link and open it in the app.

Toast

The small in-app message that slides in while the tab is focused.

OS banner

A system notification shown by the browser or phone outside the app window.

Web Push

Server-sent notifications that arrive even when the app is closed; needs VAPID keys on the server.

Device alerts

The per-browser switch in Settings → Notifications that enables OS banners and Web Push.

Settings has six tabs: Account, Hotel, Branding & locale, Ops config, Notifications and Numbering. Account and Notifications are personal and open for every role. The other four describe the hotel and need Settings access: View to read, Edit to change most fields, Full for the handful that can break things, currency, timezone, the front-desk PIN and the numbering counters.

By default only the Super Admin has Settings = Full. The Hotel Manager has Edit, the HR Manager has View, and everybody else sees just Account and Notifications. Every hotel-level change is written to the audit log as a settings.* event.

Deep link a tab with /settings?tab=notifications (ids: account, hotel, branding, ops, notifications, numbering); the Preferences button on the Notifications page does exactly that.

1. 1
   Click Change password

   Three fields unfold: Current password, New password (min 8) and Confirm new password.
2. 2
   Click Update password

   The page checks “New password must be at least 8 characters” and “Passwords don't match” before sending. The server verifies the current password.
3. 3
   Other devices are signed out

   Toast: “Password changed. Other devices were signed out”. Every other session's refresh token is revoked; this browser gets a fresh one and stays in. The change is audited as user.password.changed.

Appearance: Light or Dark. “Theme is saved per device”, meaning it lives in this browser, not on your account, and the moon/sun icon in the top bar toggles the same setting.

Edit any field and click Save changes (top right; Settings Edit). Toast: “Settings saved”.

Amenities on offer is the list the room-type picker shows (M9.1). Press the box, tick what this hotel has: the dropdown is grouped and every row is a checkbox, and each ticked one also appears as a chip with its icon and an x. Leave it empty and every amenity the system knows is offered, which is what a full-service hotel wants; a lodge narrows it to the handful it has. Taking one off the list never strips it from a room type that already carries it. It saves with Save changes.

Rate plans lists every plan (code, name and kind, BAR, weekend, promo…) with its percentage adjustment; change the number and click Save on that row (toast “WKND saved”). New plans are created from the rate-plan API, not here. The bin deletes a plan no booking was quoted on.

Logo

• “PNG, JPEG or WebP. Downscaled to 512px; max 200KB after that.” Click Upload logo, pick a file; the browser scales it to 512 px on the long edge and saves it at once (toast “Logo updated”). Remove clears it (“Logo removed”). Settings Edit.
• Too complex an image after scaling gives “Logo too large even after downscaling. Try a simpler image”; an unreadable file gives “Could not read that image”.
• The logo is stored with the hotel profile (no file server) and appears in the sidebar and on exports. The audit log records “(image updated)”, never the image.

Theme

• Theme picks the colour set and the display font for every screen and every PDF letterhead; the change applies as soon as you save (toast “Theme saved”).
• Tagline is the headline on the sign-in page of a live hotel (up to 140 characters); leave it empty for the standard line.

Locale

• Timezone (IANA): a list of every zone the browser knows (Africa/Kampala, Africa/Nairobi…). It defines the hotel's business date for check-ins, night audit, reports and the audit log.
• Currency code: three capital letters (UGX, KES…). Client check: “Currency must be a 3-letter code like UGX or KES”.
• Both need Settings Full: the fields are disabled otherwise and the note adds “Changing currency or timezone needs full Settings access.” Click Save locale (toast “Locale saved”); the sidebar and money labels refresh immediately.

Everything on this tab needs Settings Edit. Rename fields save on blur or Enter; the + button beside each “New …” box adds a row.

• POS discounts: “Deactivate rather than delete. Tickets copy label & %”. Each row: label (2–60 chars), whole-number % (0–100), an Auth chip (amber when the discount “Requires supervisor authorization” at the till) and Active / Off. Add with “New discount label” + “%”.
• POS void reasons: “Offered when a ticket line is voided”. Label (2–80 chars) with Active / Off. Add with “New void reason”.
• Housekeeping checklist: “Template applied to every new cleaning task”. Steps with Active / Off; add with “New checklist step”. “Changes apply to tasks created from now on; open tasks keep their checklist.”
• Outlet service charge: “Overrides the hotel service % on POS folios”, with one “% svc” box per POS outlet (0–50). Shows “No POS outlets configured.” when there are none.
• Departments, suppliers & categories: “Create and rename only. Rows stay referenced by history”. Staff departments, Suppliers and Inventory categories, each with a rename box per row and a “New department” / “New supplier” / “New category” box. Names must be unique (2–60 characters; suppliers up to 80).

Two cards: Device alerts (the On/Off chip and Send test) and Categories (Bookings, Payments, Operations, System with On / Muted chips). Both are personal, no Settings access needed. Full detail in Notifications → Turning on Device alerts.

“Prefixes are fixed; the next counter can only move upward (lowering it would duplicate codes)”. The table lists Documents, Prefix, Next code and Next value for: Bookings (BK-), Invoices (INV-), Payments (PAY-), Guests (G-), Housekeeping tasks (HK-), Maintenance orders (M-), POS tickets (TKT-), Purchase orders (PO-), POS shifts (SHF-), Staff records (S-) and Leave requests (LV-).

1. 1
   Type the new Next value

   Settings Full only; others see the number and “Editing counters needs full Settings access.”
2. 2
   Press Enter or click away

   The counter saves on blur. Toast: “BK counter moved to 5000”.
3. 3
   Lower values are refused

   “Next value must be above the current 1042. Lowering it would duplicate codes”. The change is audited as settings.sequence.updated with from/to.

• None: Account and Notifications tabs only.
• View: read Hotel, Branding & locale, Ops config and Numbering.
• Edit: Save changes on Hotel, logo upload/remove, rate-plan adjustments, every Ops config list.
• Full: additionally currency, timezone, the front-desk PIN and numbering counters. Full also makes the role admin tier: it can manage roles and users and read the audit log, and the shared PIN can no longer sign in as it.

Business date / hotel day

The calendar day in the hotel's timezone; check-in dates, night audit and reports all use it.

Sequence

The per-hotel counter behind a document prefix such as BK- or INV-.

Soft delete

Switching a list row to Off so it stops being offered but stays referenced by past tickets and tasks.

The app installs a small service worker that caches its own files and every screen you have openedon this device. If you reload one with no network, the page still opens. Every list the app fetched while online is also kept on the device, so the menu, the open orders, the rooms, the bookings and the rest render from the last copy the screen saw; the pill in the top bar then reads Offline · saved 14:05(or Showing saved 14:05 once the connection is back but a screen still shows old data) so nobody mistakes a stale list for a live one. Installed as an app, it opens in full screen like a native till.

• Dashboard: shows the cached rooms, bookings and summary with a “saved at” time.
• Bookings: the pipeline board and drawers open from the cached window; queued check-ins and check-outs are already projected onto the cards.
• Rooms: the room grid with cached statuses; queued out-of-service changes appear immediately.
• Housekeeping: the task board and checklists from the cached task list.

Every other page (Guests, Payments, POS, Reports, Settings and the rest) reopens from cache too, showing the data it last loaded; anything that needs the server, such as searching or turning a page, waits for the connection. The API and the live-update socket are never cached, so nothing you see offline is ever older than the moment it was last fetched.

POS keeps selling. If the network drops mid-service the ticket panel switches to an Offline draft: you keep adding items from the cached menu and tap Pay as usual; the ticket is queued and posts when the connection returns, priced again from the live menu. Send to kitchen, Split, discounts and tables need a connection and are greyed out on a draft. The total shown on a draft is an estimate, before VAT.

When you press a button and the request cannot reach the API, the system checks whether that action is on the offline whitelist. Whitelisted actions are written to a local outbox in your browser (IndexedDB), the screen updates optimistically, and the toast says the action was queued rather than failed.

Everything else stays online-only: new bookings, new guests, new housekeeping tasks, work orders, payments, POS tickets, edits to dates or rooms, cancellations and no-shows. These mint new codes or move money and would duplicate on replay, so the button simply reports that you are offline. Take the details on paper and enter them once the Offline pill disappears.

The pill appears next to the quick-add button only when something needs saying:

• Offline (grey), the browser is offline or the live socket is down. Hover: “Working offline. Actions are queued locally”.
• Syncing (amber), you are back online and queued actions are being sent.
• Needs attention (red), at least one action could not be applied and is waiting for you.

The number on the pill is queued plus needs-attention rows. Click it to open the Offline activitydrawer, which has two lists:

1. 1
   Queued (n)

   Each row shows its label and “Captured 14:05”. Sync now forces a replay; the toast answers “All queued actions sent” or “Still offline. Will retry automatically”.
2. 2
   Needs attention (n)

   Rows the server refused, with the server's message and the context (guest, room). Resolve them manually, for example re-room the guest from Bookings, then press Dismiss.

Replay is triggered automatically when the browser comes back online, when the tab becomes visible again, when the live socket reconnects, and three seconds after the app starts. You rarely need Sync now.

The outbox groups rows by record, booking:…, room:…, hk:…: and replays each group strictly in order, so a queued check-out can never run before its check-in. Groups are independent: a problem on one booking does not hold up the room changes. Every flush starts by refreshing your session so the replay runs with a fresh cookie, and ends by reconnecting the live socket so every open screen refetches.

• Success: the row is removed.
• Converged: the server answered 409 but a quick check shows the record is already where you wanted it (the booking is checkedin, the task is already in that column, the room is already out of service). Another desk did it first. The row is dropped silently; nothing to do.
• Genuine conflict: a 409 whose state does not match, typically Room is already booked for those dates or Room 204 is unavailable. The row moves to Needs attention with the server's message. Open the booking, pick another room and check in again, then dismiss the row.
• Other refusals: 400, 403 (your role changed), 404 (the record was deleted) or a booking that was cancelled meanwhile. Also parked under Needs attention with the message; they can never succeed as queued.
• Network failure: the row stays queued and the whole flush stops until the next trigger.
• 401: the session could not be refreshed. The queue pauses and you are taken to sign-in; the rows are kept and replay after you sign in again.

Queued check-ins and check-outs carry an occurredAt stamp taken the moment you pressed the button. On replay the server uses it for the booking's check-in/out time and for the arrival-day rule, so the folio and the night audit reflect when the guest actually arrived, not when the network came back.

• The stamp must be within the last 48 hours and never in the future; older rows are refused with occurredAt must be within the last 48 hours and land in Needs attention.
• The booking's status history and the audit log keep who did it and when it was captured.
• Housekeeping and room changes do not carry a stamp; they take the time they are applied.

1. 1
   Desktop (Chrome or Edge)

   Open the app, then choose Install app from the address-bar menu. It appears as “HMS” in your apps and launches on the Dashboard.
2. 2
   Phone or tablet

   Use Add to Home Screen from the browser's share or menu. iPad Safari is supported; the queue works there too.
3. 3
   Updates

   When a new build is deployed, a bar at the bottom says “A new version is available.” Press Update to reload onto it, or Later to finish what you are doing first.

• ⌘K / Ctrl K: jump to the global search box on any screen. Two characters start the search; results are grouped into Bookings, Guests, Rooms and Invoices and only include modules you may see.
• ?: open this guide. Ignored while you are typing in a field or a dialog is open.
• /: while reading the guide, focus the guide search box.
• [ and ]: while reading the guide, go to the previous or next chapter.
• Esc: clears and leaves the global search; closes the mobile sidebar; closes the drawer or dialog on top; cancels an inline text edit without saving.
• Enter: saves an inline text cell (so does clicking away). In the Rooms and Settings number fields it also commits the value.
• Tab: the staff directory cards, inventory department chips and report shortcuts are keyboard-focusable; Enter activates them.

• Every paged list writes its state to the address: /payments?q=okello&status=overdue&page=2. Bookmark the “overdue invoices” view and open it each morning; paste it to a colleague and they land on the same rows.
• Defaults are stripped, so an untouched list has a clean address. Clear in the filter bar resets search and filters in one click.
• Back and Forward walk through your filter history without reloading the page.
• Column sort is in the URL too (sort=, dir=). Tap a column title to sort: first tap ascending, second descending, third clears; dates and amounts start descending. The small filter icon on a title opens a popover with that column's values, counts and presets.
• If rows disappear while you are on page 9 of 8, the list snaps back to the last real page by itself.

Views

• Every module opens on its table (list) view. Modules with more views (List, Cards, Pipeline, Board, Calendar, Grid, Floor and so on) remember your last choice per module in a cookie on this device; phones default to Cards.
• Add ?view=kanban (or grid, calendar…) to a link to force a view for whoever opens it; the URL wins over the remembered preference.

Rows per page

Change Rows (25 / 50 / 100) under any table once and every paged list on this device opens at that size from then on, including the very first server render, so there is no flash. The preference is a small cookie, like your theme.

• Inline selects: click a status, priority or assignee cell and pick; it saves at once with a small spinner. An error rolls the cell back and shows the server's message as a toast.
• Inline text: cells with a pencil on hover open an input; Enter or clicking away saves, Esc cancels. Money cells are right-aligned and formatted.
• Toggles: yes/no switches (active, blocks room…) flip and save on click.
• View-only: with View access the same cells render as plain text titled “View only”; nothing to unlearn when your role changes.
• Kanban drag: press and move a card more than a few pixels to start a drag; the target column highlights as you hover. Works with a mouse, touch and pen. Columns the card may not enter do not highlight. Clicking a card (without moving) still opens its drawer.
• Drag on a button, link or field inside the card does nothing, so you can use the card's own controls without accidentally moving it.

• Bookings, rooms, housekeeping, maintenance, POS tickets, invoices, staff, exports and notifications all refetch when someone else changes them. Paged lists refetch the current page in place, keeping your filters.
• The bell badge, toasts and the notifications page all update from the same feed; muted categories (Settings → Notifications) never toast.
• When the tab is in the background and device alerts are on, new alerts arrive as system notifications instead of toasts.
• The socket reconnecting is also what flips the Offline pill back and replays queued work (see the Offline chapter).

• Quick add (the plus icon), jumps to Bookings, where New booking is the first action. Fastest route to a walk-in.
• Dark mode: the moon/sun icon. The choice is a cookie, so it applies to the very first paint after a reload; no flash.
• User guide: the book icon or ?. The guide is public: send /guide/bookings#check-in to a new hire before their account exists.
• Bell: the last few alerts and a link to the full feed; the count is live.
• Sidebar: the panel icon collapses it to icons on desktop and slides it in on phones; Esc closes the mobile sidebar. A lock on a module means view-only for your role.
• Demo chip (demo sandbox only), shows the time left, switches you to any role in one click, and Reset my demo data throws the sandbox away and starts fresh.

• Print an invoice: open it in Payments and press Print in the drawer footer; the PDF opens in a new tab ready for the browser's print dialog. Email sends the same PDF to the guest's address on file.
• POS receipts: closed tickets have a receipt PDF the same way.
• Exports: Reports queue PDF/Excel files in the background; the Exports card lists them with status, kind and requester, and a live event marks each one done. Generated files are kept for 30 days.
• Print this guide: the chapter header has a Print button; the layout collapses to one clean column.
• Install as an app: Install app in Chrome or Edge, Add to Home Screen on a phone. Full-screen, on the home screen, offline-capable front desk.

• Lists use a numbered pager (“Showing 26–50 of 313”, Prev / Next, page numbers with gaps). Compact pagers inside drawers and card views show Prev / Next and “3 / 12”.
• The Audit log pages the same way since M4.14; the page, sort and filters sit in the address bar, so page 3 of a filtered trail can be bookmarked.
• Nothing scrolls infinitely, so the browser's Find (Ctrl F) always searches exactly what is on screen.

• Your sandbox lasts 24 hours and is private to your browser. Change anything, nobody else sees it.
• Open the Demo chip to switch role without signing out; the page reloads as that person.
• Reset my demo data discards every change and clones a fresh hotel (a few seconds). Handy after a training session. Ten resets an hour per address.
• The sign-in page's demo panel can also prefill the classic email/password or PIN forms with a demo account, so you can show both sign-in flows inside your own sandbox.

• 400 Bad request: the form has a value the server will not accept. Fix the value and retry. Validation failures list the field and reason (“Validation failed”).
• 401 Unauthorised: the session is gone. The app refreshes it silently once; if that fails you land on sign-in.
• 403 Forbidden: your role may not do this. Ask an administrator or a supervisor.
• 404 Not found: the record vanished (deleted, or another sandbox). Refresh the list.
• 409 Conflict: the action is not allowed from the record's current state, or another desk got there first. Read the message; refresh; act on the new state.
• 429 Too many requests: throttled. Wait the stated time.
• Offline / 502: nothing reached the API. See the Offline pill section below.

You were sent back to sign-in

Your access cookie lives 15 minutes and refreshes silently while you work; the refresh token lives 30 days. You are bounced when the refresh is refused: you signed out elsewhere, an administrator deactivated your account (This account has been deactivated), your password was changed (all sessions are revoked), or the refresh token expired. Sign in again. If the API was merely unreachable, the app keeps your cookies and treats it as offline instead.

“You don't have access to …”

A module page shows a lock and “Your role (Receptionist) isn't permitted to view this module” when your level for that module is None. User Roles needs Full on Settings; the Audit log is for Super Admin, Hotel Manager, Security or anyone with Settings Full. Role changes take effect within about 15 seconds without signing out. Contact your administrator if you need access.

Too many sign-in attempts (429)

Ten failed attempts for the same email (or the same hotel PIN) from your address within 15 minutes lock it out: Too many failed sign-in attempts. Try again in 15 minutes or Too many failed PIN attempts. Try again in 15 minutes. Password reset requests are limited to three per address per 15 minutes (Too many reset requests. Try again later). A successful sign-in clears the counter.

The Offline pill, or “Request failed (502)”

When the API cannot be reached, no network, or the proxy answers 502/503/504, the app raises an offline condition instead of an error. The top bar shows Offline; whitelisted front-desk actions queue, everything else shows “You appear to be offline” or “Could not load this page”. Check the connection and wait; the pill turns to Syncing and disappears by itself. If it stays grey while other sites work, the API is down, tell whoever runs the server. See the Offline chapter for the queue rules.

“A new version is available.”

A bar at the bottom means a new build was deployed and downloaded. Press Update to reload onto it (finish typing first, unsaved drawer edits are lost), or Later; the next full reload picks it up anyway.

Demo sandbox expired

Sandboxes live 24 hours. When yours is swept, the next request answers This demo has expired(401) and you land on the sign-in page; the chip may have read “Demo · expired” for a few minutes before. Pick a role again to get a fresh sandbox. If the host is busy you may see The demo is at capacity right now. Please try again in a little while (503) or You have started several demos recently. Try again in an hour (429, six starts per hour per address).

Which module a screen counts under: Housekeeping and Maintenance are Rooms; POS, Restaurant and Inventory are Payments; User Roles, Settings and the Audit log are Settings.

1. 1
   The board says Arriving Today but the list says Confirmed, which is right?

   Both. Board columns are derived from status plus dates: a confirmed booking whose check-in is today (hotel time) sits in Arriving Today. Nothing is stored twice.
2. 2
   Why is a room Cleaning when nobody is cleaning it?

   Room status is derived: out of service wins, then an in-house guest, then a blocking work order, then any open housekeeping task, then a reservation for today, else Available. An open task anywhere on the board shows as Cleaning.
3. 3
   Why does this invoice say Overdue when it was Pending yesterday?

   Overdue is never stored, it is pending or partial with a due date before today. Record the payment and it becomes Paid.
4. 4
   Someone is shown Off duty but they are here.

   Duty is derived: approved leave, then today's attendance mark, then a live rota window. Mark them Present in Attendance and it flips at once.
5. 5
   My change is not showing on another PC.

   Live updates need the socket. If that PC's top bar shows Offline, its connection or the API is down; otherwise refresh once.
6. 6
   I checked someone in offline and now the tray says Room is already booked.

   Another desk sold that room while you were offline. Open the booking, pick another ready room, check in again, then Dismiss the tray row.

Arrival day

The hotel-local calendar date of a booking's check-in. A guest can only be checked in on or after it; an early arrival is a date change first, so the folio charges the nights actually slept. Confirmed bookings whose arrival day is today (or earlier) sit in the Arriving Today column.

Admin tier / super tier

Two capabilities above the permission levels, both read from a role's matrix rather than its name. Admin tier is Super Admin, Hotel Manager, or any role with Settings Full: it manages roles, accounts and the PIN, reads the audit log, and can never sign in on the front-desk PIN. Super tier is Full on all thirteen modules, which by default is the Super Admin alone: it is the only one that can delete past a soft hold, delete a sign-in account or erase a guest.

Audit log

The hotel-wide trail of who changed what, when, from which address. Readable by Super Admin, Hotel Manager, Security and anyone with Settings Full.

BAR / rate plan

BAR is the Best Available Rate: the room type's base rate. A rate plan adjusts it per night, kinds are BAR (rack), Weekend and Promo: by a percentage or a fixed nightly amount, optionally limited to certain weekdays, a validity window and one room type. The booking stores the average nightly rate and the tax-inclusive stay total.

Board column

Where a booking sits on the pipeline board: New Requests, Confirmed, Arriving Today, In-House Guests, Checked Out, Cancelled. Columns are derived from status plus dates and today's date, never stored, cancelled and no-show both land in Cancelled.

Booking group

A GRP- coded block of rooms for one guest (the organiser): a name, dates, an optional rate plan and a list of room types with quantities, capped at 80 rooms. Group rooms start unassigned, so the capacity guard, not the double-booking constraint, protects them.

Capacity guard

The per-night check that stops a room type being oversold: assigned and unassigned active bookings of the type are counted against its sellable rooms (maintenance and out-of-service rooms excluded) for every night of the stay, with the room-type row locked so two desks cannot both take the last room. Refuses with “No Deluxe left for a date”.

Checklist template

The hotel's list of cleaning steps (Settings → Ops), copied onto every housekeeping task when it is created. Falls back to the built-in ten-step list if the hotel has none. Ticks on a task are its own; editing the template does not change open tasks.

Deposit

A percentage of the stay total (Settings → Hotel, deposit %) posted as a deposit line on a pre-arrival invoice when a booking is confirmed. At check-in that invoice becomes the folio: room and tax lines are appended and each deposit line is offset by an equal “Deposit applied” credit, so money paid against the deposit counts towards the stay.

Derived status

Anything computed from canonical fields at read time and never written to the database: board columns, room status, housekeeping state, invoice “overdue”, stock low/out, duty status, attendance %, leave day counts. One shared function computes each, used by both server and screen, so they can never disagree.

Duty status

On duty / Off duty / On leave for a staff member right now, derived in this order: approved leave covering today, then today's attendance mark (absent → off; present or late → duty), then a live rota window (including yesterday's overnight shift before it ends), else off. The reason travels with the status (“No shift on today's rota”).

Exclusion constraint / double booking

The database rule that makes double-booking impossible: for one hotel and one room, no two bookings in status new, confirmed or checked-in may overlap on a half-open date range [check-in, check-out). Same-day turnover is legal. A violation surfaces as 409 “Room is already booked for those dates”. Unassigned bookings are outside it (see capacity guard).

Folio

The guest's running bill for a stay: the invoice (INV- code) opened at check-in with room-night and tax lines, onto which POS room charges and fees post, and which must be settled (or explicitly settled later) before check-out closes it. One open folio per in-house stay.

Hard hold / soft hold

What a record is holding when it refuses to be deleted. A hard hold is money or history, a booking, an invoice, a payment, a bill, an expense, a purchase order line, a day of attendance, a line in the audit trail, and nothing gets past one, at any access level. A soft hold is other configuration, rooms on a room type, people in a department, stock in a category, and a Super Admin can delete past it, moving what was held where the dialog asks.

Hotel-local day

The calendar date in the hotel's IANA timezone (Settings → Hotel), computed once per request. Every “today” (arrival day, arriving column, overdue, night audit, attendance) uses it, and timestamped facts (payments, closed tickets) are grouped by the instants the local day starts and ends, not UTC midnight.

In-house

A booking in status Checked In: the guest is physically staying. Shown in the In-House Guests column; its room reads Occupied.

KDS

Kitchen Display System: the kitchen's view of sent tickets, moving each through New → Preparing → Ready → Served, one step at a time. Lines reach it when the server presses Send.

Modifier

An option attached to a menu item on a ticket line (size, extra, sauce…) from the item's modifier groups. Each carries a price delta added to the unit price; a line's total is (item price + modifiers) × quantity.

Night audit

Closing the hotel-local business day once (Reports, needs Reports Edit). Refreshes room projections and freezes a snapshot: rooms total/occupied/dirty/out of order, in-house, arrivals, departures, no-shows, cancellations today, cash in, refunds, POS closed total, and outstanding invoices. A day can be closed only once.

No-show

A booking marked No Show because the guest never arrived. Allowed from new or confirmed only. Posts a no-show fee, a percentage of one night (Settings → Hotel, default 100%), as a fee line on the pre-arrival invoice. Counts as Cancelled on the board.

Out of service

A room flag set from Rooms (with an optional reason) that removes the room from sale and from every availability list; the room reads Out of Service and wins over every other status. Return clears the flag. Both work offline. Distinct from Maintenance, which comes from a work order that blocks the room.

Outlet

A point of sale, restaurant, bar, pool bar, with its own menu categories, tables, cash shifts and service-charge percentage. Tickets, shifts and menu items always belong to one outlet.

Overdue

Overdue is never stored: an invoice is overdue when it is still pending or partially paid and its due date is before the hotel-local today. Paying it makes it Paid.

Part-payment

A payment smaller than the outstanding balance; the invoice becomes Partially Paid. Payments can never exceed the balance, and net received (payments minus refunds) is what the status is computed from.

PIN sign-in

The shared front-desk PIN of 4 to 8 digits (Settings → Hotel, Settings Full to change): pick your name, type the PIN. It can sign in any active user except admin-tier roles, Super Admin, Hotel Manager, or any role holding Settings Full, which always need email and password. Ten wrong PINs in 15 minutes lock the pad.

Purchase order

A PO- coded order to a supplier for stock items: draft → ordered → partial (some lines received) → received, or cancelled. Receiving books a stock movement per line; received and cancelled orders are final.

Quote

The stay price the wizard shows before you save: for each night, the room type's base rate adjusted by the chosen rate plan, summed, then service charge, VAT and levy applied with the hotel's canonical rounding. The saved booking keeps the average nightly rate and the total; the folio opened at check-in matches it exactly.

Ready for Guest (housekeeping)

The final housekeeping column. Only a room with no open task, no card in Dirty, Assigned, In Progress or Inspection, can be sold or checked into; the check-in room picker offers ready rooms only.

Refund cap

Every refund is tied to one original payment and capped by what is left on it, refunds on a payment can never add up to more than that payment, and by the net amount received on the invoice. Leaving the amount blank refunds whatever remains on that payment. Refunds need Payments Full.

Reorder level

The quantity at which a stock item becomes Low (quantity ≤ reorder level; zero is Out). Crossing it downwards raises a notification (“Reorder level reached. Create purchase order.”). Status is derived, never stored.

Room charge

The Charge to Room tender in POS: closing a ticket posts its subtotal, service charge and VAT as separate POS lines onto the in-house guest's open folio. Needs a checked-in guest in that room; idempotent if the ticket was already posted.

RLS / tenant

Every table is scoped by hotel and Postgres row-level security enforces it on every query, so one hotel can never read another's rows, including demo sandboxes, which are ordinary tenants. Your session carries the hotel; there is no “switch hotel” inside the app.

Sandbox

On the public demo, a private clone of the template hotel created for your browser when you pick a role. Lives 24 hours (the Demo chip counts down), can be reset, and is swept automatically. Same browser → same sandbox; role switches reuse it.

Sequence (BK-/INV-/PAY- codes)

Human-readable codes come from per-hotel counters, one per kind: BK bookings, GRP groups, INV invoices, PAY payments, HK housekeeping tasks, M work orders, TKT tickets, SHF cash shifts, PO purchase orders, S staff, LV leave. Settings → Numbering shows the next value and lets Settings Full move it upward only.

Settle later

Checking out with a balance still owed (bill-to-company, disputed charge). Needs Payments Full, is written to the audit log, and leaves the folio open for collection. Everyone else must collect the balance before check-out.

Shift (POS) vs shift (rota)

Two unrelated things. A POS shift (SHF- code) is a cash-drawer session on one outlet, opened with a float, closed with a cash-up; one open per outlet. A rota shift is a staff template window in minutes since midnight (Morning 07:00 – 15:00, Night 18:00 – 06:00) assigned to one person on one date; it feeds duty status.

Stayover

A guest who stays another night. Housekeeping's stayover refresh task type is the lighter clean for occupied rooms, as opposed to the checkout clean created automatically at check-out and the deep clean requested from Rooms.

Stock movement

One row per change to a stock item's quantity with a reason: receive (from a purchase order), adjust (manual count, cannot go negative), consume (recipe-driven depletion when a POS ticket closes, clamped to what is on hand, with a notification for any shortfall) or waste.

Supervisor authorisation

Some POS discounts (staff meal, manager comp) require a second person's email and password in the dialog. The supervisor must be active and hold Payments Full or Settings Full. The check happens on the server; the ticket keeps only the discount label and percentage, not who authorised it.

Tender

How a ticket is paid: Cash, Mobile Money (MTN or Airtel), Card, or Charge to Room. Closing a ticket records the tender; only room charge touches a folio.

Tier

A guest's loyalty band, Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze, set in the guest drawer form; the list shows it as a read-only badge. Guest CRM counts every non-Bronze guest as a loyalty member.

Void reason

The reason required when voiding a line that has already been sent to the kitchen (unsent lines are simply deleted). The list is per hotel in Settings → Ops; defaults include “Guest changed mind”, “Wrong item rung” and “Item sold out”.

Walk-in

A guest with no reservation who books at the desk: booking source Walk-in in the wizard, usually checked in straight away. Other sources are Direct, Booking.com, Expedia, Travel Agent and Corporate.

Work order

An M- coded maintenance job: title, category, priority (High/Medium/Low), optional room or location, technician or external contractor, due date, estimated cost. Lifecycle Reported → Assigned → In Progress ⇄ Waiting for Parts → Completed → Closed; closed is final. An order that blocks its room makes the room read Maintenance until it completes.