Categories come first
Categories
A menu item has to belong to a category, so build the categories before anything else. Categories are also the tabs the cashier taps along the top of the POS, so name them the way your staff think — Burgers, Karahi, Drinks, Desserts.
Add Category asks for a Category Name, a Color, a Sort Order and an Icon (Font Awesome class). The colour and icon are what make a busy POS readable at a glance.
Sort Order decides the left-to-right order on the till. Put your fastest sellers first.
Active can be switched off to hide a whole category without deleting it — useful for a seasonal menu.
- 1 Open Categories from the sidebar.
- 2 Tap Add Category.
- 3 Type the name, pick a colour, and set a sort order.
- 4 Tap Save Category.
- 5 Repeat for every section of your menu.
The categories of a small burger shop
- Burgers, Sort Order 1 — the thing most people come in for, so it is the first tab on the till.
- Fried Chicken, Sort Order 2.
- Sides, Sort Order 3.
- Drinks, Sort Order 4.
- Desserts, Sort Order 5, and Active unticked over the summer while the ice cream machine is out of action.
The icon box takes a Font Awesome class name — the screen suggests fa-utensils, fa-coffee, fa-pizza-slice and fa-ice-cream as examples.
Adding a dish
Menu Items
Menu Items is where the dishes live. Add Menu Item asks for a Category, an Item Name, an optional Description, a Price, a Sort Order and an image.
The description is optional and is shown to customers on the QR menu and the online store, not on the kitchen ticket.
Sort Order works the same way as it does for categories — it decides the order the dishes appear in on the till.
- 1 Open Menu Items from the sidebar.
- 2 Tap Add Menu Item.
- 3 Pick the Category and type the Item Name.
- 4 Type the Price.
- 5 Tap Add Item.
Category *
Item Name *
Price *
Sort Order
One dish, filled in
- Category: Burgers.
- Item Name: Zinger Burger.
- Description: "Crispy fried chicken fillet, lettuce and mayo" — the guest sees this on the QR menu and the website, never the kitchen.
- Price: 650.
- Sort Order: 1, so it sits first inside the Burgers tab. Available for sale stays ticked.
Sizes and variants
Menu Items
If a dish comes in more than one size, tick Has Variants / Sizes. The single Price box is replaced by a Variants list where each size gets its own name and its own price.
Use it for Half and Full, Small and Large, or 3 Pcs, 6 Pcs and 12 Pcs.
At the POS, tapping an item that has variants asks the cashier to choose one before it goes into the cart, and the chosen size is printed on both the kitchen ticket and the receipt.
Add Variant adds another row. There is no limit.
A pizza in three sizes
- Item Name: Fajita Pizza. Category: Pizza.
- Has Variants / Sizes is ticked.
- Variant 1: Small, 900. Variant 2: Medium, 1200. Variant 3: Large, 1600.
- On the till the cashier taps Fajita Pizza and is asked to choose a size.
- The kitchen ticket reads "Fajita Pizza (Large)" so there is nothing for the cooks to guess.
Taking a dish off the menu for the day
Menu Items
Every menu item has an Available for sale tick. Untick it and the dish disappears from the POS, the QR menu and the online store immediately, without being deleted.
That is the right way to handle "the fish is finished". Turn it back on tomorrow and all its history, its recipe and its sales figures are still there.
Deleting a menu item is not the same thing. Untick Available for sale for something you will sell again.
Photos
Menu Items
Item Image takes a photo up to 2MB. It is shown on the POS tile, on the QR menu and on the online store.
Photos are optional. They help enormously on the QR menu and the website, where the customer is choosing with their eyes, and they slow the till down slightly on a weak connection.
Deals and combos
Deals
A deal bundles several menu items at one special price. Deals appear on the POS behind the Deals button and on the QR menu under their own Deals tab.
Create Deal asks for a Deal Name, a Description, a Deal Price and an image, then lets you pick the items that make up the deal from a panel on the right.
The Deal Price is what the customer pays, whatever the items add up to individually. That is the whole point of a deal.
On the Deals list each deal has a switch to make it active or inactive, so a weekend offer can be turned on and off without being rebuilt.
- 1 Open Deals from the sidebar.
- 2 Tap Create Deal.
- 3 Type the Deal Name and the Deal Price.
- 4 Search on the right and click each item that belongs in the deal.
- 5 Save the deal.
Deals where the customer chooses
Deals → Create Deal
Choice Groups make a deal flexible. A group has a name, a number of picks, and a list of options — and the cashier makes the pick at the POS.
Each option can carry an extra charge, so an upgrade inside a deal can cost a little more.
A group needs at least two options.
The kitchen ticket lists exactly what was chosen, so the cooks see the real contents of the deal rather than just its name.
A family combo with a burger choice
- Deal Name: Family Combo. Deal Price: 2,400.
- Fixed items: 1 Large Fries, 1 Large Drink.
- Choice Group: "Burger Choice", pick 2, options Zinger, Beef and Grilled.
- The Grilled option carries an extra charge of 100.
- A customer choosing one Zinger and one Grilled pays 2,500, and the kitchen ticket lists the fries, the drink, the Zinger and the Grilled.
Importing the menu from a spreadsheet
Import Data
Import Data, under Menu Items in the sidebar, bulk-adds categories, menu items, deals, customers and ingredients from a spreadsheet. It reads .csv and .xlsx files.
Each card has a Download Format row that gives you a ready-to-fill sample, as an Excel file or a CSV, with the right columns and a few example rows.
The first row of your file must be the header — the column names.
Rows are matched against what you already have, so re-importing the same file updates your records instead of creating duplicates. For menu items, a category that does not exist yet is created automatically.
Menu item columns are name, category, price, description, is_available, sort_order and variants.
Importing an item with sizes
- For a plain item, fill in price and leave variants blank: Zinger Burger, Burgers, 650.
- For an item with sizes, leave price blank and fill variants instead.
- The variants column is written as Small:650 | Medium:850 | Large:1150 — name, colon, price, separated by the upright bar.
- is_active and is_available accept 1 or 0, yes or no, true or false.
Format the phone column as Text in Excel before importing customers, or long numbers get mangled by the spreadsheet.
Importing deals from a spreadsheet
Import Data → Deals
The Deals card on Import Data brings in your deals with everything in them: the items that always come with a deal, and its modifiers — the Choice Groups the customer picks from.
A deal takes several rows: one for each item in it, with the deal's name on every row. Its price, description and is_active are written once, on its first row.
A row with nothing in the modifier column is an item that always comes with the deal, and quantity says how many. A row with a modifier name is one of that modifier's options: pick is how many the customer chooses, and extra_price is what that option adds to the bill.
Items must already be on your menu, spelled as they are there, and an item with sizes is written with its size — Fries (Large). Your Item Names, on the card, downloads every name the way the file needs it.
A deal goes in whole or not at all: if one of its rows has a problem, that deal is left out and the row is listed for you. Importing a deal you already have updates it, and a file with only the deal and price columns changes prices and leaves the items alone.
- 1 Import your Categories and Menu Items first.
- 2 Open Import Data and tap Download Format on the Deals card.
- 3 Fill in one row for each item in each deal, and save the file.
- 4 Choose the file and tap Import Deals, then fix any rows listed under Import result.
The Family Combo as rows in a file
- Family Combo, price 2400, item Fries (Large), quantity 1 — and the same again for Soft Drink (Large).
- Family Combo, item Zinger Burger, modifier Burger Choice, pick 2.
- Family Combo, item Beef Burger, modifier Burger Choice, pick 2.
- Family Combo, item Grilled Burger, modifier Burger Choice, pick 2, extra_price 100.
Menu in Urdu or Arabic? Use the Excel sample, or save your own file as “CSV UTF-8”. A plain CSV file loses those letters.
Chinese and Arabic names for the QR menu
Menu Items
Once Chinese menu (English / 中文) or Arabic menu (English / العربية) is switched on under Settings → Modules, Categories, Menu Items and Deals each gain a name field for that language, and every size gets a column of its own.
Switch both on and both sets of fields appear, side by side. A dish can be worded in one language and left to translate itself in the other.
You do not have to fill any of them in. With Translate the menu automatically on, the software translates your menu for you.
These fields are an override: type your own wording and the guest reads yours instead of the automatic translation.
Switching a language off hides its fields; what you typed in them is kept, and comes back exactly as it was if you switch that language on again.
This chapter describes the software as it is today. Every account gets the same guide inside the product, searchable and printable.