thread Re: Which Platform should I use in Payments Troubleshooting

Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 09:53:04 GMT

I've been using square for a few months now. For the most part it has allowed me to run my business, have a website for online ordering and take payments. During this time I encountered a few issues that seem to be common amongst the Food & Beverage community.

My question is. Is there a benefit to paying for either square for retail or square for restaurants?

Before you answer, let me elaborate on my business.

I operate a mobile "Pop up" pizza shop. I offer a pick up service only. No bricks and mortar store. I operate alone, so the website and online ordering are my main source of revenue.

My model is based on pre orders, I allow one customer per 15 mins over a 3 hour service. I am now beginning to open a second night of the week as the demand for my products is increasing. I have a few issues with the online ordering, when I have pick up times available, after a few orders are placed these don't appear for customers. They then contact me through social media to place orders which I then have to manually create as an open ticket.

Any guidance or advice from people who opted to move to either retail or restaurant pos and share their experience with it would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to any feedback!

Re: Which Platform should I use

Seamus — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 02:04:07 GMT

Hey @Backyardpizza, good to hear from you!

Based on the setup you're describing, I'm not sure there would be any specific benefit for using Square for Restaurants / Retail over your currently setup. With that said, there are free versions available so you're welcome to check them out and see if any of the additional features are helpful. @Smithward or @dimo10 may have some advice to share here as sellers who have used the pickup system before.

In terms of order limiting for pickup times, I wonder if this might be explained in how rate limiting works on a rolling basis - was any of the info in this thread helpful at all?

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 02:10:07 GMT

Hi Seamus,

thanks for your reply. My initial thoughts were sticking with my current setup. Could you elaborate on what you meant by rate limiting? Mobi had a setting which allowed the user set a maximum $$ amount per hour. This didn’t seem to help my issue.
i really think that having a function to limit amount of items per time would be very useful. Then you could have as unlimited orders until your item limit is reached. If my item limit for example is 8 items in 15 minutes, then I should be able to have any amount of orders that equal 8 items in total.

Re: Which Platform should I use

dimo10 — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 03:24:54 GMT

Hi @Backyardpizza

Sounds like you are thinking of your workflow like setting a reservation for you to cook a pizza.

Square Online has a few limiting options that you can set, test and see if it is appropriate to how you would like to set your business up. we use the Point of Sale app only as I find restaurant confusing to set up in a takeaway environment.

One is new and allows you to set a pick up time for every order you receive.

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Online/Set-up-Custom-Pickup-amp-Delivery-Timing/ba-p/272867

This will allow you full control on when every order is to be picked up, but it will be very manual for you and may take some time on your behalf to respond to every order.

The other way you can handle it is by limiting the number of orders per 15 minute intervals.

In Dashboard > Online > Fulfilment > Edit location > Order Timing Settings > Order limiting

You can then allocate the number of orders per 15 minutes you would like to accept. I see you would like to accept 8 items per 15 minutes, you would just need to look at your average ticket and divide by 8 to see how many orders you would like to accept each 15 minutes. So if your average is 2 pizza's per ticket you would set the system to allow 4 orders per 15 minutes.

To be honest, we are a Fish and chip shop so we run a pure FIFO ordering system and doesn't matter if you call, order online on come in store and order, your order is queued as it arrives. The way we manage this on a busy night is to change our prep time to accommodate the wait time.

@Sam_400º I know you operate a mobile pizza business in the UK, any advise on how to queue orders through square?

Re: Which Platform should I use

Sam_400º — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 09:11:17 GMT

Hey @Backyardpizza - I'll give you my take on it all, I've got a pizza wagon in the UK with regular pitches where I just use the online system too. Have you got a link to your site?

Regarding slots not showing as available, is this once you've opened? If your prep time is (say) 30 minutes then you could find that open slots become unavailable due to that overlapping with the current time. It's happened to me where I'm stood there doing nothing & a new order comes in from someone standing in front of me - but it shows as the earliest being in an hour.

As you're fully pre order & 1 per slot you could try reducing your prep time to 0 (or 5 min) to make the allocation a little easier?

For the apps/services, retail just isn't designed for us so give it a miss. Restaurants is the one I use. On the free version the order manager is really nice, if you're using a ticket printer you can set it to print when marked as 'in progress' so there is one touch printing. I now use just the KDS - with two screens, one over the prep area & one at the collection point. The one over the pep area for when they're being made & checked off when they go in the oven (prep station) then at the hatch it's an expediter screen, so they get marked off there when they're collected. You can subscribe to have just the KDS if you just want one screen or the full restaurant stuff is better value if you have a few screens (even working alone a couple of screens are perfect for me).

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 09:27:00 GMT

Hey @Sam_400º , appreciate your reply. I already have the prep time set at 0. I did have the restaurant trial but couldn’t get it to work for some reason. Not sure why. I’m in Australia so not sure if it’s available here. Does the order manager hve more functions/settings?
my website is www.robsbackyardpizza.com.au

I do like the idea of the Kds but I’ve just gone and bought a printer which wasn’t cheap.

I may have to look at the restaurant version again, now that I’m more organised with my operation.

Re: Which Platform should I use

Sam_400º — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 09:47:47 GMT

FIRE!!

Looking at the timings the only time left for Friday is 7:20..... this does seem strange as all the slots are at actual 15 min timings. @Seamus Tra on the UK board explained something on this to me before but I've still not got my head round it - why has the system added a buffer that then removes some of the slots?

I don't think I notice this behaviour as much as I've got 3 slots per 15 min so if one doesn't get taken I'm still normally slapping the dough about anyway.

The free restaurant app order manager is great, they also tend to work on exclusive features there too. They had order by collection time on the manager screen way before it came to the regular app (that's why I was using it to start with) & the easy printing is a win too. I guess you're the same as me - the printer and iPad aren't on everyday when people are ordering so have to do it all manually. I know they're $$$ but those Star MC-Print 3 printers are great & will out live us all! If you download the the star app you can set it to rotate the print 180º - so all the text is facing you when it comes out. A little thing, but seems to make a difference.

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 10:01:23 GMT

So you can see that my website shows only 7.20 available. But in reality I have 6.45, 7.15, 7.30 7.45 and 8pm. So my issue is that people will go online to order but see that there's only one time that doesn't suit them. So I'm possibly losing sales. Some people contact me. Then I tell them the available slots. They then message their order and I create an open ticket.

Ive just signed up for the free trial of Restaurants app. Is the order manager a seperate app, or is it within the restaurants app on the iPad. Thanks for the tip on the rotating of printing the tickets.

This was something I was wondering. I really appreciate your help. I should probably start using the community more often.

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 10:18:45 GMT

Not sure why, but can’t seem to find the option to rotate the printing. Not a big issue but would make things a little easier if I can figure it out

Re: Which Platform should I use

Sam_400º — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:23:10 GMT

The order manager is within the restaurant app (inc the free version). Looks a lot like the normal pos app one but with some extra options.

I’m just on a lunch service now but will do some screen shots later if the options in the app & also the star app too 👍

Re: Which Platform should I use

Sam_400º — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:24:57 GMT

Oh & regarding the time slots - I’d suggest contacting support (phone) & log it specifically with your account as that’s clearly not how it’s meant to act!

They’ll be able to investigate just what’s going on & why.

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:39:56 GMT

No worries at all. Really appreciate your help and pointers. I’ll try calling support tomorrow and explain my issues. And screenshots would be great!

Thanks again

Re: Which Platform should I use

Seamus — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 06:48:48 GMT

@Sam_400º I've got to admit that I'm not the most mathematically gifted of people, however the best I've got to working out a solution is in this thread. Reposting here for visibility:

From a technical standpoint, the system uses a sliding 15 minute window, which iterates in 5 minute lots.

So if someone is trying to order at 6:03, it'll round their time to 6:05, then add prep time to that (if applicable). Then it will look at all orders in subsequent 15 minute period from that time. If it's full, it will push ahead by another 5 minutes, and check that 15 minute window, and so on until it finds an available slot. I imagine one order every 15 minutes should still only allow one per 15 minutes though - say 6:05 and 6:20. Of an order was booked for 6:15, then I imagine the next available would be 6:30, not 6:20. Available order times will change depending on orders prior, and times slots are not set up to be strictly always available on the quarter hour. I hope this makes sense!

If you're able to find any recent examples of orders that have the same pickup time though, or any other conflicts to how this is intended to work, I recommend documenting them with screenshots and asking our support team to take a further look. While the pacing system is a little difficult to understand (I feel a visual/animation may explain things a little better!), the end goal is still to not have more customer arrives at one time than you choose to!

Re: Which Platform should I use

Sam_400º — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 08:58:22 GMT

Thanks @Seamus - but that doesn't seem to explain what's happening here.

These are early pre orders for @Backyardpizza - so whilst not open. That means that the system shows collection times at 15 min intervals (18:00, 18:15 etc), meaning no one is able to place an order for 18:05.

The thread there makes sense for while you're open & how that could knock off or skew the ordering timings, but this is days ahead of opening?

"So you can see that my website shows only 7.20 available. But in reality I have 6.45, 7.15, 7.30 7.45 & 8pm"

It looks like something funny has happened here?

Re: Which Platform should I use

Arie — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 23:00:24 GMT

Stepping in for @Seamus here, @Sam_400º - I've taken a look at the website again, and when looking at placing a pre-order now, the intervals are at 15 minutes. Have you had a chance to reach out to support about this @Backyardpizza?

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 23:12:03 GMT

Hi there, the time slots will start like that before any orders are taken. But as soon as my preorders start to come in then times will disappear. It may have something to do with the default pick up asap as the default option. I think that this will override the 15 min set times. For example if a customer orders and leaves it at asap. It will assign the earliest available time which could be 6.05, then the next available will

be 6.20. I did speak with someone on Friday from support. They mentioned that this is something being looked at by Square. They didn’t seem too sure. I will actually take screenshots throughout the week of how the time slots change, and update this thread

Re: Which Platform should I use

Arie — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 23:18:34 GMT

Thanks @Backyardpizza, please keep us updated 👍

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 23:20:53 GMT

No worries,

I still think that an item limit option would be the way forward. Allowing users to have an item limit per 15mins would be a benefit to a lot of food and beverages business. Especially mobile ones

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:42:59 GMT

@Sam_400º did you manage to screenshot the option for changing print direction on the print3?

Re: Which Platform should I use

Backyardpizza — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:45:52 GMT

So the website is no accepting orders. As you can see all time slots are available in 15 minute blocks. I will update throughout the week as orders start to come in.