Cash on delivery and settlements
What this is for
Cash on delivery means money leaves the customer's hands and sits in a driver's pocket for a few hours. This is how it gets back to you, with a record at every step.
Two halves:
- Collection — the driver takes the money at the door and records it.
- Settlement — the driver hands the cash in, and a manager approves it.
Collection
When a delivery has money owed, the driver's app shows the amount and blocks marking it delivered until they confirm they collected it. See The delivery app.
Each collection is recorded with one of:
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Pending Collection | Money owed, not yet taken. |
| Collected | The full expected amount was taken. |
| Partial | Less than expected. Requires a note. |
| Not Collected | Nothing was taken. Requires a note. |
The rules are strict on purpose:
- A collected amount must exactly match the expected amount.
- A partial collection must be less than expected and carry a note.
- Not collected must be zero and carry a note.
Nothing can be logged against a cancelled order.
Those notes are the whole point. "£5 short, customer only had £30" is a fact a manager can act on. A silent shortfall is a mystery three days later.
Watching it during the day
COD Monitoring shows where the cash is right now:
- Total Pending COD — money out with drivers.
- Pending COD Orders — how many deliveries it's spread across.
- Executives With Pending COD — who's carrying it.
- Collected Today.
Plus an order-by-order list, searchable by executive, order or customer.
Look at this before a driver goes home, not after.
Settlement
At the end of a shift the driver hands the cash over and submits a settlement.
From the driver's side:
- Open COD Settlement.
- Select the collected orders being handed in. The Selected Total adds up as you go.
- Enter the amount being submitted.
- Submit Settlement.
The amount must exactly match the selected orders' total — it can't be more, can't be zero, and an order already inside another open settlement can't be selected twice.
From the restaurant's side:
The settlement arrives with a Settlement Number, the executive, the order count and the amount. A manager then:
- Approve — the cash is accounted for.
- Reject — it doesn't add up, and it goes back for correction.
Both sides get notified at each step: submitted, approved, settled, rejected.
Statuses end to end
| Status | Where it is |
|---|---|
| Pending Collection | With the customer. |
| Collected | With the driver. |
| Submitted | Handed in, awaiting a manager. |
| Settled | Approved and accounted for. |
| Rejected | Sent back for correction. |
Running it well
- Settle every shift. Cash carried overnight is a problem waiting to be a bigger one.
- Count before approving. Approval is the moment you accept the money is right. Do the physical count first, then approve — not the other way round.
- Read the notes. Partial and not-collected entries are where the interesting information is.
- Watch for patterns. One shortfall is a bad night. A pattern with one driver, one area, or one time of day is worth a conversation.
- Reject rather than absorb. A rejection creates a record and a correction. Quietly covering a difference teaches everyone the count doesn't matter.
Good to know
- Approving settlements is a permission — see What each role can do.
- Settlement history is kept in full: every settlement, its orders, its amount and who approved it.
- COD only applies to orders not paid online. Prepaid deliveries have nothing to collect.
- If the COD screens report that tables aren't available yet, the deployment needs its latest migrations run — that's one for whoever maintains your installation.