Kitchen Display System (KDS)

The kitchen screen itself is the KDS App at kds.foodops.io (sign in → pick outlet → display board with Open/Preparing/Completed/Cancelled tabs). This article covers kitchen setup: kitchens per outlet, choosing which kitchen each menu item goes to, kitchen printers and plan limits.

Plain-English summary#

The Kitchen Display System is the screen in the kitchen that shows incoming orders live. When a cashier creates an order at the counter, it appears as a card so kitchen staff know what to cook. Staff mark items as in progress or ready as they go.

When you'd use this#

Any time a restaurant has a kitchen separate from the cashier. It replaces paper tickets — orders arrive instantly on a screen, and front-of-house staff can see at a glance when a dish is ready to serve.

Prerequisites#

The kitchen screen only shows orders when all of these are true:

1. The outlet has at least one kitchen set up in Settings → Outlets → Outlets → [your outlet] → Registers & kitchens. How many you can have per outlet depends on your plan.
2. The kitchen is selected on the menu items that should reach it. You set this on each item: open the item, go to the Restaurant tab and tick the kitchens under Item Preparation (e.g., mains → Hot Kitchen, drinks → Bar). For items with variants, kitchens are chosen per variant.
3. The order contains items that have a kitchen selected. Items with no kitchen never appear.
4. The ticket is not finished or cancelled. Once every item on a ticket is ready it moves to the Completed tab, and cancelled tickets move to Cancelled, so neither shows under Open or Preparing.

If no kitchen is set up, the screen stays empty even when there are orders at the POS. This is the most common setup mix-up.

Key concepts#

• Kitchen — a named station in an outlet (e.g., "Hot Kitchen", "Bar", "Grill"). Set up per outlet in Settings. Each kitchen can have its own printer that prints order tickets automatically.
• Kitchen routing: which kitchen each menu item goes to: drinks to the Bar, mains to the Hot Kitchen. It is set on each item. Without routing, Foodops can't tell which kitchen should see which item.
• Live updates — new orders appear on the kitchen screen without a reload as soon as cashiers save them.
• All Day — a running total of every active item across all orders. Useful when the kitchen wants "how many shawarmas are in the queue right now" rather than "which order has shawarmas".

Common questions#

Q: I created an order on the POS but it's not showing on the kitchen screen. What's wrong? A: Almost always, the outlet has no kitchen set up, or the item has no kitchen selected. Create a kitchen in Settings → Outlets → Outlets → [your outlet] → Registers & kitchens, then edit the item (Restaurant tab) and select that kitchen. Then reload the kitchen screen.

Q: How many kitchens can I have per outlet? A: It depends on your plan and goes up with higher tiers; see Pricing. The limit is per outlet, not per organisation.

Q: Does the kitchen screen refresh on its own? A: Yes — new orders appear without a reload.

Q: Can I print kitchen tickets instead of (or as well as) using the screen? A: Yes. In Settings → Outlets → Outlets → [your outlet] → Printing, give a printer the Kitchen (or Receipt) role and choose which kitchens it serves. With routing set up, orders print automatically when created and still appear on the screen. Most restaurants use both — the screen for live visibility, printed tickets as a physical backup.

Q: Can I filter the kitchen screen to show only dine-in orders? A: No — the kitchen screen filters by kitchen, not by order type. For dine-in views, use the POS Counter's Dine-in tab or the Tables/floor-plan view.