Hold multiple orders before sending to docket printers

[peter_pennylane]

We are a cafe and using Square for Restaurants as we provide table service for a number of tables.

However we heavily rely on counter service for the majority of our orders.

We find that we have groups of customers that come to the counter together, want to order and pay separately, but want to sit at the one table. It is preferable that these multiple orders are printed on one docket in the kitchen, however this does not appear to be possible in Square?

In our previous POS we were able to hit a 'HOLD' button during the first customer's order, take the person's payment, then continue with next customers orders. When we got to the last customer in the group, we would hit the 'HOLD' button again which would fire the orders on one docket in the kitchen.

Any help with this scenario is greatly appreciated.

TIA

[Laurie_]

Hi @peter_pennylane thanks for reaching out here!

The Hold/Fire setting can be enabled on your Square for Restaurants POS to help manage the flow of bills so the kitchen knows when to hold or start firing dishes. It's a coursing feature designed to streamline service, rather than bill payments.

Have you enabled this setting on your POS? Let me know if I'm on the same page with you here.

It's also worth reaching out to our Support Team and speaking with a Square for Restaurants specialist to see if there are any current workarounds they can suggest here. Feel free to include any recommended tips here for sellers that may be experiencing a similar issue.

[peter_pennylane]

Hi @Laurie_  ... I'm not sure if the coursing feature is going to resolve this problem, unless if I dont understand it correctly.

My intent is to have the products of multiple, separate transactions to be sent/printed on ONE docket to a printer. Each sale would be paid separately.

Let me try to explain with an example:

Customer 1 orders a Burger & Cappuccino. He is assigned to Order/Table #5 then pays for his meal.

Customer 2 orders a Pizza & Cappuccino. He is also assigned to Order #5 then pays for his meal.

Customer 3 orders a Burger & Coke. He is also assigned to Order #5 then pays for his meal.

Now, currently, the kitchen printer and coffee printer will receive 3 separate dockets each... and these may be interrupted by other dockets from other sales stations. So, unfortunately the customers are likely to receive the drinks and food separately, although they are sitting at the one table #5.

What would make more sense is to:

- Take Customer 1's order and payment then HOLD the fire

- Take Customer 2's order and payment

- Take Customer 3's order and payment, then hit Fire.

In this scenario, the kitchen and coffee printers will receive 1 docket each, with the 3 customers orders on the one docket.

I hope this makes sense. I have tried discussing this with a Support Team member specializing in Square for Restaurants, but I didnt get very far.

Is there any chance there is a solution out of the box for this? If not, can we have it added as a feature? I would expect this to be very popular with cafes taking counter service like us.

[Seamus]

Hi @peter_pennylane,

I can't say if what you're looking to do is achievable here unfortunately. If you've already spoken to a Square for Restaurants team member they are going to have a better idea for something like this, and if you've tested it out with hold/fire options enabled it sounds like printing everything on one ticket isn't doable at the moment.

If I'm to understand correctly, is the key issue that when you hold all items for a table before firing all at once, there are other tickets simultaneously coming through that have been fired at around the same time? Thus printing some tickets in an order that might read like #5, #5, #3, #5, #3? And that having them print on a single ticket would overcome this? This isn't an issue I've heard of before so want to make sure I understand it correctly!

While we can't guarantee if a given feature request is able to be built and integrated into our products, we can pass your feedback on and move your post to our feature requests board for tracking!

EDIT: You may want to leave a comment and tag the author of this thread - a Square for Restaurants team member is currently seeking feedback like this!

[peter_pennylane]

No @Seamus ... what you are saying above is not the problem.

The goal is to have multiple people order and pay separately, but all the orders to be grouped and fired together to the printers.

Maybe there is a way of doing this with the manual firing features, but the person I spoke to from Support didn't sound too knowledgeable. Are you able to have a specialist contact me about this?

[Seamus]

Hi @peter_pennylane,

I'm not sure if you caught the edit I made to my post, however I recommend tagging the author of this thread, who is a Square for Restaurants team member currently seeking feedback on Square for Restaurants.

Also, did you try this step in the link that @Laurie_ sent?

If you have Hold/Fire enabled on the device, the first course is always set to Fire by default, and all subsequent courses are set to Hold. You can alter whether a course should be held or fired by tapping the red Fire or orange Hold on the right end of the course line.

Is this what you were looking for in terms of manually holding and firing?

While we're not able to arrange callbacks via our Community forum, you are free to get in touch again, though confirm if the above steps work first. It sounds like what you're trying to do!

[peter_pennylane]

I will try the hold/fire and coursing again... but I feel that given the multiple customers are paying separately on separate bills, I dont understand how their orders will be grouped onto the one docket on the printers. Is this correct?

[peter_pennylane]

I have just tried the Coursing feature, but as suspected it doesnt seem to work for this scenario due to the fact that as soon as a payment is made towards the bill, the items will fire regardless of whether they are on hold or not ... hence we will still get multiple dockets printed for the one group of customers.

I am hoping that @lucasisazaSQ can read through this thread and help with a better solution? 

[ARA_011]

@peter_pennylaneWe need to do the same thing too.

Have you had any luck with this issue?

Thankyou

[peter_pennylane]

Hi @ARA_011 ... I wish I had good news on this. We have struggled with coming up with a solution. The Square Support team dont have a solution and I have had no luck with this forum.

I really dont know what to do anymore. I wish the dev team were able to implement this in an update, @Seamus ??

[Arie]

Hey @ARA_011 & @peter_pennylane thanks for checking back in on this thread. 

When it comes to app updates and feature requests, multiple factors such as how many sellers request a given feature, cost, and other features currently in development are considered (just to name a few!). Right now, we don't have an update to share here, but I'd suggest joining the Square Beta Community if you haven't already. This is where we reach out to sellers to test out features while they're still in development.