Handling Your First Online Order

The first online order is a small ceremony. Doing it right makes the next 999 easy.

What happens when an order arrives

1. The kitchen printer fires a ticket.
2. The KDS screen lights up with a new tile.
3. The dashboard shows a notification with the order number, customer name, and time.
4. The customer gets a confirmation by text or email — order received, estimated ready time.

All of this happens in under five seconds.

The dashboard view

Open Orders. New orders appear at the top in a green band. Click any order to expand:

• Customer name, phone, and order channel (Pickup, Delivery, Dine-in)
• Items, modifiers, and special instructions
• Price breakdown
• Payment status
• Big buttons: Confirm, Mark Ready, Mark Picked Up / Delivered, Refund

Confirm the order

Within one minute, click Confirm. The customer gets a follow-up: "Your order is being prepared." If you do not confirm, after five minutes we send the customer a "we are checking on your order" message. After ten minutes we ping you with an alert.

You can turn on Auto-confirm in Settings → Orders → Auto-confirm if you trust the kitchen to see every ticket.

Talk to the customer

Each order has a Message Customer button. Use it for:

• "We are out of fries — okay to swap for sweet potato fries?"
• "Sorry, will be 10 extra minutes."
• "Your order is ready early — come by whenever."

The customer can reply. Conversation stays attached to the order.

Mark each step

The order moves through four stages:

1. New — just arrived
2. In Progress — kitchen is making it
3. Ready — set on warming shelf / driver dispatched
4. Complete — customer has it

Marking each step matters because:

• The customer gets a notification.
• Your reports show how long each stage takes.
• The driver fleet (if you use one) knows when to dispatch.

Special instructions

Customers can add notes — "no onions please", "ring the back doorbell". Notes show in bold red on the dashboard and on the printer ticket. Always look.

A walk-through of the first one

Pretend the order is for Pickup, ready in 20 minutes, BBQ Bacon Burger + Fries + Coke.

1. Ticket prints. Server confirms within 30 seconds.
2. Cook starts the burger. Marks burger tile as In Progress on the KDS.
3. Burger done. Cook taps Done. Fries are bagged, drink is poured.
4. Order tile moves to Ready on the KDS.
5. Front-of-house slips the order into a bag, sets it on the pickup shelf.
6. On the dashboard, server clicks Mark Picked Up when the customer comes in.

That is the loop. Repeat for the next thousand.

When things go a bit wrong

• Out of an item. Open the order, click Substitute to swap, or click Refund Item to remove it and refund just that line.
• Customer late to pick up. No need to do anything — the order stays in Ready until you mark complete.
• Customer wants to add something. Add it via Add Item in the order detail. Take payment for the difference at handoff.

When the order is wrong

If a customer reports a missed item or wrong dish after pickup, see Refunds and Order Adjustments.

Common mistakes

• Not confirming. Customers worry. Confirm fast, even if you have not started cooking.
• Skipping Mark Ready. The customer cannot tell when to come in. Always mark.
• Auto-confirm with no one watching. Tickets pile up if a printer jammed and no one noticed. Manual confirm forces a human in the loop.