Restaurant

Q: Orders will not reach the kitchen until I take payment. Why?

Require payment before accepting order is on. That setting is for takeaway counters — turn it off in Settings → Orders configuration.

Q: How do I stop mains going out with the starters?

Set a ready-by time on the order and postpone the lines that should not start yet. The Kitchen Display flags each dish as its deadline approaches.

POS setup and configuration for a restaurant. From an empty account to full service: reservations, the table plan, courses to the kitchen, and split bills.

What it does

A restaurant is the most demanding thing POSolid runs. Guests arrive by reservation, sit for two hours, order in courses, change their minds, and split the bill five ways at the end. Meanwhile the kitchen needs starters now and mains in twenty minutes, not all at once. This guide ties the floor, the kitchen and the till together so none of that has to be held in anyone's head.

The short version: the floor plan, the tab and the course timing are the three things worth setting up properly. Everything else is detail.

What you need

Thing	Why you need it	Notes
Till / station device	the fixed point where bills are settled and the day is closed	A tablet or small touchscreen PC at the pass or the bar.
Internet + Wi-Fi router	POSolid is a cloud app and needs a connection all service	Fixed broadband, your own router, and waiter devices on the staff network — never the guest one.
A phone or tablet per waiter	taking the order at the table, not from memory	Any device with a browser and a staff PIN. This is what makes table service work; treat it as required rather than optional.
Fiscal printer — depends on your country	required by law in some countries to record sales	In Poland: Posnet, Novitus or Elzab. See Supported Fiscal Printers, or Fiscal Printers in Other Countries if you trade elsewhere.
Kitchen screen or printer	so the kitchen knows what to fire and when	A screen is usually right for a restaurant — see "Courses, and why the kitchen screen wins" below.
Card terminal	most restaurant bills are paid by card, often split	From your payment provider, works on its own. You record which method was used so takings reconcile.
Optional: a bar printer	drinks starting while the waiter is still at the table	A thermal ESC/POS printer at the bar, as its own prep station.
Optional: a second kitchen station	separating cold, hot and pastry	One printer or screen column per station, so each section sees only its own work.

"Optional" means your choice — not an upsell. Every optional line above is hardware you may or may not want; none of it unlocks anything in POSolid. Every feature named in this guide is included in your subscription from day one, with no per-device or per-feature charge. The only thing you would ever spend money on is the physical equipment itself — and only if you decide you want it.

How everything connects

One router, and a firm line between staff and guest networks:

Router (broadband + Wi-Fi)  --( internet )------> POSolid
Tills, waiter devices, KDS  --( staff Wi-Fi )---> Router
Till with the Print Agent   --( USB or staff Wi-Fi )--> Printers
Guest Wi-Fi                 --( isolated )-------> guests only

Every device reaches POSolid over the internet. Waiter phones and kitchen screens open POSolid in a browser; nothing is installed on them.
The Print Agent runs on one device only — normally the till at the pass. It only makes outgoing connections, so there is nothing to configure on the router.
Keep printers and tills off the guest network. Guest Wi-Fi isolates devices from each other, which is exactly what the Print Agent must not be.

Getting started

Create your organization — see Create Your Account. Set your country, currency and, in Poland, your tax settings.
Draw the floor plan in Tables & Reservations — every table, every room. Do this before anything else; it underpins bookings and bills alike.
Build the menu in Menu → Catalog, with variants where a dish has sizes and modifier groups for cooking preference and sides — see Modifiers.
Tune the register in Settings → Orders configuration: require payment before accepting order off, table assignment on, multiple checks on, split receipt on, order type selector on if you also do takeaway.
Install the Print Agent on the till at the pass and link it with the one-time code — see Printing.
Set up prep stations — kitchen sections and the bar — and give each a screen or a printer. See Kitchen Display (KDS).
Add your staff and roles in Staff & Roles: waiters, kitchen, managers, each with a PIN. Roles decide who may discount, void or close the day.
Open the reservation book and take a test booking; seat it, open a tab, fire a starter, postpone a main, split the bill, then check Reports.

Courses, and why the kitchen screen wins

Three things separate a restaurant from every other business in this series, and each maps to a specific feature.

Reservations come first, not the floor plan. Draw the room once in Tables & Reservations and the same layout drives both the booking calendar and the table on every open bill. A booking that knows its table means the host seats guests without a diary, and the waiter picks up the tab already attached to the right table.

The tab is open all night. Turn require payment before accepting order off — this is not negotiable for table service, because with it on an order cannot reach the kitchen until it is paid. Turn table assignment on so a bill belongs to a table, multiple checks on for two parties sharing a six-top, and split receipt on for the far more common case of one bill paid by several cards.

Courses are a timing problem, and the kitchen screen solves it. Starters should fire now and mains twenty minutes later — but both were ordered at once. Use the ready-by time on the order so the kitchen sees when a dish is due, and postpone the lines that should not start yet; the Kitchen Display flags items approaching their deadline so nothing is forgotten. This is the main reason a restaurant is better served by a screen than by paper: a printed docket cannot tell you a main is now due, and cannot be re-ordered when a table asks for a pause between courses.

Separate the sections. Cold, hot, pastry and bar as their own prep stations means each section sees only its own tickets, and a table's dishes still come together because they share the order.

Recommended setup

Minimum — small dining room

Till, fiscal printer, kitchen printer, one waiter device. Tables on, payment-first off, split receipt on. That is a working restaurant.

Recommended — full service

Add a device per waiter, a kitchen screen instead of paper, a bar printer, and Reservations. Give every role its own permissions. Turn on Work Shifts so hours are recorded.

Full — busy restaurant, several sections

Split the kitchen into separate stations, add Payroll on top of shifts, loyalty cards, and a QR Menu if you want guests to browse before ordering. Use the TMS report to see table turn times and the staff report to see who is actually carrying service.

Key things to know

Payment-first must be off. With it on, nothing reaches the kitchen until the guest has paid — which is not how a restaurant works.
Separate tabs and split receipts are different. Multiple checks = one table, several bills. Split receipt = one bill, several payers. A restaurant usually needs both.
A screen beats paper for courses. Only a screen can show a deadline approaching and be re-ordered mid-service.
Give the bar its own station. Drinks should not queue behind mains.
Roles matter more here than anywhere. Decide early who can discount, void a line and close the fiscal day — see Staff & Roles.
Keep printers off the guest Wi-Fi. Guest networks isolate devices and will silently break printing.
Poland: the fiscal printer is not optional, and the daily report has to be printed to close the fiscal day.
Table turn time is a number, not a feeling. The tables report shows it; use it to decide whether to take that second sitting.

FAQ

Q: Orders will not reach the kitchen until I take payment. Why?
A: Require payment before accepting order is on. That setting is for takeaway counters — turn it off in Settings → Orders configuration.

Q: How do I stop mains going out with the starters?
A: Set a ready-by time on the order and postpone the lines that should not start yet. The Kitchen Display flags each dish as its deadline approaches.

Q: A table of six wants three separate bills.
A: Turn on multiple checks per order — one order, several tabs, each with its own items and total.

Q: One bill, three cards.
A: That is split receipt — one bill paid by several people, each with their own receipt. It is a separate setting from multiple checks.

Q: Do I need reservations if we mostly take walk-ins?
A: Not at first. But the same floor plan powers both, so once it is drawn, turning bookings on later costs you nothing.

Q: Can waiters order from their own phones?
A: Yes — any browser plus a staff PIN. Extra users and devices are included in your subscription.

Q: Can I stop waiters giving discounts?
A: Yes. Permissions are set per role in Staff & Roles, so discounting, voiding and closing the day can each be restricted to managers.