Room service
Hotel & Rooms is an add-on. See What's included, and what's an add-on.
What this is for
A guest orders food to their room. It's cooked by your kitchen like any other order, and it goes on their hotel bill instead of being paid at the till.
This is the join between the two halves of the system, and it's taken on the POS — not on a separate hotel screen.
Taking a room service order
- Open the POS.
- Choose Room Service as the order type.
- Select room — all rooms load; search filters the list. Pick one with an active stay.
- Choose the Pay type:
- Post to room — charges go on the guest's hotel bill.
- Pay now — take payment at the POS immediately, like a normal sale.
- Build the order and send it to the kitchen as usual.
Room Service only appears as an order type when this add-on is switched on.
Post to room, or pay now
The POS explains it in one line:
Post to room: charges go on the guest's hotel bill (folio). Pay now: take payment at the POS immediately, like a normal sale.
Use Post to room for a checked-in guest — it's the whole point, and it means one settlement at check-out.
Use Pay now for someone paying there and then: a visitor, a guest settling separately, anyone whose stay is already closed.
Rooms with no guest in them
Only rooms with an active stay can take a posted charge. Pick one without and Restodesk says so:
No guest checked in — cannot post to folio
That's a real protection. A charge posted to an empty room is money that reaches no bill and gets found weeks later, if at all.
If nothing is available at all, you'll see No Active Stays — there are currently no checked-in rooms.
Watching room service orders
Hotel › Room Service Orders lists them with the order number, room and stay, guest, amount, Bill To and status:
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Posted | It's on the guest's folio. |
| Pending | Not yet posted. |
Search by order number or room number.
Check this before a guest checks out. An order still showing pending hasn't reached the bill.
Getting it to the room
Restodesk handles the order and the charge. Delivery to the door is your own process — but a few things make it work:
- The room number is on the kitchen ticket, so whoever runs it knows where to go.
- Use the item note for anything the guest asked for. See Building a bill.
- Post it before it leaves the kitchen, not after the tray comes back. Trays come back late.
Setting up a room service menu
Room service usually isn't your whole menu — a smaller list, available longer hours.
Two ways to handle it:
- A separate menu marked for room service, with the dishes that travel well. See Creating a menu.
- The full menu, if your kitchen will cook anything at any time.
Keep it to food that survives a corridor. A dish that's excellent at the pass and poor after four minutes in a lift is a complaint waiting to happen.
Good to know
- Room service orders are ordinary orders — same order journey, same kitchen tickets, same reports.
- Post To Hotel Folio is a separate permission from viewing the folio. See What each role can do.
- A posted charge appears on the folio immediately. See The guest folio.
- Room service revenue counts in your restaurant sales. It's food you sold; the money just arrives by a different route.