The order journey
What this is for
Every order in Restodesk moves through a fixed sequence of statuses. Knowing that sequence is what lets you answer the two questions that come up all day: where is this order? and why can't I do this to it yet?
The first three steps are the same whatever kind of order it is. After that, a delivery goes somewhere a dine-in never does.
The first three steps are the same for every order. After that, each order type takes its own route. Served at the table or handed across the counter. The customer collects it themselves. A delivery executive takes it to the customer.Dine-in & takeaway
Pickup
Delivery
Cancelled can end any order at any point before it completes. A cancelled order stops moving through these steps and appears in your Cancelled Orders report instead.
What each status means in practice
| Status | On the floor |
|---|---|
| Placed | The order exists. Nobody has agreed to cook it yet. |
| Confirmed | Accepted. It's going to happen. |
| Preparing | The kitchen has it. |
| Food ready | It's on the pass, waiting to be carried. |
| Ready for pickup | Waiting at the counter for the customer to collect. |
| Served | It's on the table. |
| Picked up | A delivery executive has taken it from the restaurant. |
| Out for delivery | On the way. |
| Reached destination | At the address, not yet handed over. |
| Delivered | In the customer's hands. |
| Completed | Done and closed. |
| Cancelled | Stopped. It won't reach Completed. |
Status is not payment
This trips people up constantly, so it's worth being blunt about:
An order's status and its payment status are two different things.
A dine-in order can be Served and unpaid — that's a normal Tuesday. A delivery can be paid at checkout and still be Preparing. The order journey tracks the food. Payment is tracked separately:
| Payment status | Means |
|---|---|
| Waiting KOT | Not sent to the kitchen yet. |
| Billed | The bill has been raised, money not taken. |
| Payment Due | Owed. |
| Paid | Settled. |
You'll see both on an order, and you need to read both.
What moves an order along
Statuses change from several places, and they all feed the same record:
- The POS — a cashier sends to the kitchen, bills, takes payment.
- The kitchen — kitchen staff mark items cooking and ready, on paper tickets or on a kitchen display screen.
- The back office — a manager sets a status directly under Orders.
- The delivery app — a driver marks picked up, on the way, arrived, delivered.
- Automatically — placing an order through the customer site starts it at Placed.
Where statuses get in your way (on purpose)
Some actions are blocked by status, and the message you get is usually accurate about why:
- You can't remove items from a paid order. Refund instead — see Refunds and cancellations.
- You can't add items to an order with payment due. Collect the payment first.
- A cancelled order can't be modified at all. It's a closed record.
These aren't obstacles to work around. They're what keeps the sales report matching the till.
Cancelled
Cancelled can end an order at any point before it completes. It leaves the sequence entirely and shows up in your Cancelled Orders report with the reason and who did it.
Cancelling is not the same as deleting, and not the same as refunding. See Refunds and cancellations for which one you actually want.
Good to know
- Statuses are shared across every screen at once. A cook marking food ready changes what the waiter's tablet says.
- Completed is the end. It's what the sales reports count, and what frees the table.
- Item-level status — individual dishes marked cooking and ready rather than the whole order — is a setting. See Kitchen tickets.