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Kitchen Display (KDS)

Kitchen Display (KDS) is a live, auto-refreshing screen for the kitchen line — every open order is split into "station streams" (Grill, Tandoor, Cold, Beverage, etc.) with three columns (New / In Progress / Ready) so cooks always know what to start next and what's overdue.

📍 Menu path: Order & Kitchen → Kitchen Display (KDS)
👤 Who uses it: All roles with the Billing feature enabled

Overview

The board polls every 10 seconds automatically, plus a manual refresh button; only KOTs with status PENDING, PREPARING or READY are shown (SERVED tickets disappear from the board entirely).

Each item is routed to a station stream by an explicit station tag on the item if present, otherwise by its course type (Dessert/Beverage), otherwise by keyword-matching its name and notes against common terms (grill/tikka/kebab → Grill, fry/fries → Fryer, tandoor/naan/roti → Tandoor, salad/cold/raita → Cold, cake/dessert → Dessert, chai/coffee/juice → Beverage, everything else → Hot Pass) — this is independent of the categories configured on the Kitchen Stations page.

Ticket border and header colour reflect age since the order was placed: green under 5 minutes, amber 5–15 minutes, red past 15 minutes; a live elapsed mm:ss counter ticks every second on each ticket.

Within a ticket, items are grouped and labelled by course (Starter/Mains/Dessert/Beverage/Other) so the kitchen can see course structure at a glance.

"Bump" advances a ticket Pending → Preparing → Ready → Served (Served removes it from the board); "Re-bump" (the back-arrow button) reverses one step if it was bumped by mistake.

Order Type filter (All/Dine-in/Takeaway/Delivery) and a dynamic Course filter (built from whatever courses are actually on the board right now) sit above the station streams.

Before You Start

Step-by-Step Guide

1 Work the line during service

  1. Leave Kitchen Display (KDS) open on a kitchen monitor — it refreshes itself every 10 seconds.
  2. Tap "Bump" on a ticket once its stage is done to move it to the next column; tap it again through Preparing → Ready → Served.
  3. Use "Re-bump" if a ticket was bumped too early.

2 Filter the board during a busy shift

  1. Use the Order Type pills to isolate Dine-in, Takeaway or Delivery tickets only.
  2. Use the Course pills to focus on, say, only Mains or only Desserts across every station.

Every Field & Button, Explained

Field / ButtonWhat it does
Age colourGreen under 5 minutes since the order was created, amber 5–15 minutes, red past 15 minutes — both the ticket border and the live elapsed counter reflect this.
Stage Update timestampShows the ticket's updatedAt time only if it differs from its createdAt time; otherwise displays "--".
Station streamDerived per item (explicit station tag, then course type, then keyword matching on the item name/notes) — not limited to the specific stations configured on the Kitchen Stations page.
Bump / Re-bumpBump moves PENDING→PREPARING→PREPARING→READY→READY→SERVED one step per tap; Re-bump moves back one step; Served removes the ticket from the board entirely.

Tips & Best Practices

Troubleshooting & FAQ

An item is showing up in the wrong station stream.
Station routing is inferred per item (explicit tag, then course, then a keyword match against the item's name/notes) rather than the categories configured on Kitchen Stations — rename the item or notes, or set the item's station explicitly upstream, if it keeps landing in the wrong stream.
A ticket won't disappear after I mark it Served.
Marking Served sends a PUT to update the KOT status and removes it locally only after that call succeeds — check for an error toast if it stays on the board.
This page doesn't show up in the sidebar for one of my stores.
Kitchen Display (KDS) requires an Advanced-tier plan or above — confirm the store's plan tier if the menu item is missing.