Feature Request: True holds on Square for Restaurants

[Mike317]

The title of this post has been edited from the original: Coursing with Squareup for Restaurants? Can system be set to only send fired courses to kitchen?

Hello, we are aware of Square's coursing function. But, the issue is that ALL COURSES are sent to the kitchen line when only the 1st course is fired.  Then, when later courses are to be fired, the system only prints a ticket that says "Fire Course (x)" without relisting "Course (x)," which means the chefs/expo have to "dig back" and find the original ticket with all the courses listed. 

Reprinting after hitting Fire creates too many tickets.  When there are a lot of tickets, it is too difficult to manage for the kitchen.  Can't Square just be set to send a ticket listing only those items that are Fired? other POS systems work that way.  Thanks!

[#2]

I can confirm that true holds are currently a feature request, @ChvieCafe.

To clarify a bit - a true hold is when you ring in an item and place a "hold" on it so that it's in your point of sale, but is not sent back to the kitchen. When the server is ready they can "fire" it, which will then send a ticket back to the kitchen. This is not possible with Square Point of Sale or Square for Restaurants, at this time.

If comps/voids are enabled - which they are automatically when using Square for Restaurants - it's not possible to delete an item from a check (or a whole check), as comp and void are intended to be used as a way to prevent employee theft. If you don't mind sharing, what would you like to use a delete function for that can't be accomplished with the void function? I want to be sure I understand what you're asking for, thank you!

[JustinC]

Hey @Mike317! Thanks for stopping by.

Sounds like you're looking for "True Holds" - which the Restaurant's Team confirmed is not yet available with the software. I'm afraid to say all items entered will be sent to the kitchen, regardless of hold/fire. However, this is a huge ask and I can assure you this request is has not fallen on deaf ears.

Keep an eye out here, as we'll update you with a with a shareable timeline when it comes. Thanks for posting!

[cli2020]

Hi @JustinC, the ability to only send fired items to the kitchen is very important to us. The current behavior of printing all items places too much burden on our kitchen staff. Due to this shortcoming we had to disable coursing entirely, so our servers now only enter items they want fired immediately. This partly defeats the purpose of using a restaurant POS.  Please consider this a high priority feature request.

[MTJoe]

We have customers who call in orders for a future time/day, ie customer calls in at 11AM and requests an order ready for 5PM.   Is there a way to enter the order and save the open ticket in the Restaurant POS without sending it to the kitchen?   We're using a KDS, so the kitchen can't just put the ticket to the side.   From testing, it seems like once you open a ticket, it won't let you save and exit the ticket without sending the order or deleting all the items in the ticket. 

[isabelle]

Hey @MTJoe!

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

Would enabling coursing work for you? Let me know! 

[Cheesetique]

Any progress on this? Coursing is really not really helpful, I agree. Just sending a "fire course 1" is not realistic, as the kitchen can't hang onto all of those previous tickets.

[ChvieCafe]

As a small cafe/fast service sit down restaurant it's extremely frustrating that we are not able to save an open check without first sending it to the kitchen/other printers. Also having the option to delete items off the check/whole checks without having to comp/void is also a much needed feature. 

[Valentina]

I can confirm that true holds are currently a feature request, @ChvieCafe.

To clarify a bit - a true hold is when you ring in an item and place a "hold" on it so that it's in your point of sale, but is not sent back to the kitchen. When the server is ready they can "fire" it, which will then send a ticket back to the kitchen. This is not possible with Square Point of Sale or Square for Restaurants, at this time.

If comps/voids are enabled - which they are automatically when using Square for Restaurants - it's not possible to delete an item from a check (or a whole check), as comp and void are intended to be used as a way to prevent employee theft. If you don't mind sharing, what would you like to use a delete function for that can't be accomplished with the void function? I want to be sure I understand what you're asking for, thank you!

[sushi]

Have you figure this out? Do you have a solution?

I just posted similar question and found yours.

(I asked for how to hold the tickets.)

I was told to use coursing but it is not the true hold.

[MTJoe]

Agreed that coursing is not a good solution for this.  We manually track these future orders on paper and enter the orders into Square when it needs to be fired.   We use the iPad's reminders app to remind us to enter the orders when it's time.  I don't think the Square for Restaurants programers thought too much about takeout orders.  There's a few features that would be nice to have in Square for Restaurants that is not available.

[Joe]

Ah, thanks for adding your context here @MTJoe - we know there is room for improvement here, and I am happy to pass along your feedback.  

As you mentioned, are there any other features you can think of that you'd like me to mark down and pass to our Product Teams? You can learn up about how we implement Feature Requests here.