A shift at 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.