With Direct Ordering, you have the option to select when orders are sent from Direct Ordering through Checkmate, landing directly into your POS. Note that these settings can be different per each Revenue Center.

The four options are:

1. When the order is placed by the customer

2. When it's time to make the order

3. When the order is manually confirmed

4. Never send orders to the POS

It's important to note that orders are marked as CLOSED in Direct Ordering when sent to the POS, as both restaurants and customers can no longer change them. This means the customer's credit card will be charged when the order is marked as CLOSED (if they paid by credit card), and the order can no longer be edited or canceled; only refunded.  

With that in mind, below are the 4 options that exist for sending orders to the POS.

Option 1: "When placed by customer"

Choose this option if you want orders to go through to your POS as soon as your customers place them. Please be aware that this will result in future orders being sent to your POS several hours or days early, potentially causing oversights and missed orders. Additionally, since orders in Direct Ordering are CLOSED upon transmission to your POS, selecting this option results in immediate credit card charges for customers, as is reflected by its PAID status in Direct Ordering. This, in turn, forfeits your ability to edit or cancel the order before its due date and prevents you from creating tip adjustments on the day of the order. 

We generally do not recommend using this approach.

Option 2: "When time to make the order"

When choosing this option, Direct Ordering will retain the order until it is time for your kitchen to process it. Behaviorally speaking, it converts all future orders into ASAP orders, only releasing them to the POS in the exact timing required to make the order, based upon your wait time. This eliminates guesswork and streamlines the process for your kitchen. When your POS receives an Direct Ordering order, the kitchen may begin processing it in real-time every time. 

ASAP orders are sent to the POS as soon as the customer places them. 

Future orders are securely held by Direct Ordering until your pickup or delivery wait times dictate that it's time for your kitchen to start making it. For instance, if it's 9:00 am when a customer places an order for 1:00 pm, and your pickup wait time is set to 15 minutes, we'll send the order to your POS at 12:45 pm (15 minutes before the 1:00 pm pickup time). 

Please note that if your pickup wait time was changed to 20 minutes sometime after the customer initially placed their order, the order would be sent to your POS at 12:40 pm instead of the initially anticipated 12:45 pm. It's important to understand that Direct Ordering only considers the current wait time when determining the "send timing" of orders sent to your POS. 

We recommend using this setting for regular online orders (excluding catering orders) as it simplifies the process and enables the kitchen's workflow to treat every order as if it were an ASAP order. 

Option 3: "When manually confirmed"

Choose this option if you'd like orders to be sent to your POS when confirmed on the Direct Ordering Upcoming Orders page. The benefit of managing orders this way is that you have the option to edit orders and their payments while they still have an Open status. 

This is the setting we recommend for catering orders since these orders are placed hours or days in advance and often need to be edited before they're finalized.

Generally speaking, our catering customers use the Direct Ordering Upcoming Orders page to manage their catering orders (making edits, adjusting payments and tips, resending email confirmations, etc.), and then they manually trigger the order to the POS either:
(a) On the morning of the order, when kitchen preparations commence, ensuring that it is finalized with no further alterations. 
-OR-

(b) After the order has been successfully delivered to the customer. Remember the customer's credit card is not charged until the order is sent to the POS. This option acknowledges that the customer may find it challenging to determine a tip amount in advance, especially when uncertain about the order's timeliness or success, and provides them the flexibility to designate their tip amount upon pickup/delivery.

The decision between these options hinges on your kitchen's processes and when you prefer the customer's credit card to be charged.

Option 4: "Never send orders to POS"

Choosing this option prevents orders from ever being sent to your POS system and is an uncommon choice as it goes against the time-saving advantages of technology and automation. However, given the restaurant's flexibility to configure settings down to the Revenue Center level, this option may be suitable for specific order types within certain business models.

For example, a restaurant might prefer a single Catering Revenue Center across the entire brand. In this scenario, customers place a Catering order, and a Brand-wide Catering Manager takes charge of routing the order to a specific store within the brand. This approach may be beneficial for multi-location restaurants highly concentrated in specific areas. After assigning the order to a particular Store, note that accurate revenue tracking requires manual entry of the Catering order into that restaurant's POS system, as with this setting, there is no way for the order to land directly within the restaurant's POS system automatically.

Controlling when an order is sent to your POS

If not individually set, all Revenue Centers within a Store location default to the Order Send Timing that is set at the Store level. That being said, you can override the Store level setting by updating your Order Send Timing within each Revenue Center. See below for instructions on each scenario. 

Controlling when an order is sent to your POS at a STORE Level:

1. In your Direct Ordering Admin Panel

2. Go to Stores > select the Store you'd like to update

3. In the left navigation > select POS Integration

4. Update Order Timing to your desired selection of the 4 options listed above. 

5. Click Submit to save your changes. 
   > Note: If no settings are made at a Revenue Center level, this setting will apply to all Revenue Centers within this Store. 

Controlling when an order is sent to your POS at a REVENUE CENTER Level:

1. In your Direct Ordering Admin Panel

2. Go to Stores > select the Store you'd like to modify

3. In the left navigation > select Revenue Centers

4. Select the Revenue Center for which you want to modify the Store Level settings. 

5. Update Order Timing to your desired selection of the 4 options listed above.
   > For this example, we want to modify the Catering Revenue Center to override the Store level settings established above.  

6. In the left navigation > select POS Integration. 

7. Update Order Send Timing to your desired selection of the 4 options listed above. 

8. Click Submit to save your changes. 

   > Note: This setting overrides any Order Send Timing settings previously set for this Revenue Center at the Store level.