Table Orders and QR: a dining room that takes orders on its own

This guide explains, in simple words, how to turn your guests' phones into an ordering point and how the dining room becomes faster. It is meant both for you who run the venue and for the floor staff: at the end you will find a practical flow to follow during the shift.

Why it pays off for your venue

• Fewer trips and fewer errors. The order arrives written, clear, already in the system. No lost sheets, no "what did the three order?".
• More covers at peak hours. The guest orders as soon as they are ready, without waiting for someone to pass by. The table turns over faster.
• The average check goes up. A menu always at hand encourages the second round: another glass, a dessert, a coffee.
• The kitchen works better. Orders arrive in real time, with an audible alert, and are printed split between kitchen and bar.
• The dining room is always up to date. Every order lights up the table in LIVE Service: whoever watches the dining room always knows what is happening.

The guest orders from their phone

Every table has its own QR. The guest scans it with their camera — no app, no registration — and your venue's menu opens in the browser. They browse the dishes (food, wines and beers included), and when the menu is opened from the table QR an extra button appears: order for this table.

The guest can add a note — for example no onion — and send. The order heads to your kitchen.

The order arrives right away, with sound

In the Received orders dashboard the order appears the moment the guest sends it, accompanied by a sound. In the kitchen all you have to do is keep the screen open: there is no need to reload the page or check constantly.

carteia.app/dashboard/orders/received

It is the command center of the dining room. For each order you see the table, the items, the notes and the total. You can filter by date, time, status or table, advance the dish status (Received → Preparing → Ready → Served), print for the kitchen and see who ordered what, whether the guest or the waiter.

The bill grows with the table

This is the part that saves you time. If the guest, midway through the meal, reopens the menu and orders a dessert, a new bill does not start: the dessert adds to the same table bill.

The additions made by the guest arrive marked as to confirm. You accept (or reject) them with a single tap: only after your confirmation do they go to the kitchen and end up on the total. It is your guarantee that no one orders on the sly and that the bill always stays under control.

Orders taken by the waiter

Not all guests order from their phone, and that is perfectly fine. The waiter creates an order by hand from the Waiter orders section: they choose the table (from the list or by scanning the table QR with the phone), add the dishes, indicate the covers and send.

carteia.app/dashboard/orders/waiter

These orders too end up on the same bill: guest and waiter feed a single bill, with no duplicates.

The dining room lights up on its own

Here Table Orders and QR and the table manager talk to each other. When the first order of a table arrives, that table becomes occupied on its own in LIVE Service, even if no one seated it by hand. When you close the bill as paid, the table moves to bill. And in the table panel, in the dining room, the real-time total appears: the host knows how much is about to come in before even reaching the table.

The result: fewer manual steps. The order advances the status of the dining room on its own, and you focus on the service.

Closing the bill

At the end of the meal you close the bill with a single tap: you choose the payment method (cash, card or other), an optional tip, and the bill receives a sequential number for the venue, handy for the till and the accounting. From that moment the table is free and the next guest who scans it starts a new bill.

The QRs, the printing, the sold-out items

carteia.app/dashboard/orders/qr-tables

A few details that make the difference during the shift:

• Split kitchen/bar printing. When you print an order, the items go to the right station: the dishes to the kitchen, the wines and beers to the bar. Each station receives only what concerns it.
• Sold-out items (86). If a dish runs out, you mark it as sold out from the dashboard with a single tap: it immediately disappears from the items guests can order, and becomes available again when you reactivate it.
• Covers. By indicating the table's covers you will know at the end of the day the revenue per cover, a valuable number for understanding how the venue is doing.
• Status for the guest. From their phone the guest can see how far along their order is (received, preparing, ready): fewer questions, less perceived waiting.

Summary and reports

At the end of the day, or for the period you choose, you have a clear summary: revenue, average check, open and closed bills, best-selling items, the mix between food, wines and beers, and the service times (how long passes between the order and the dish being ready).

carteia.app/dashboard/orders/analytics

You can download the bill as a PDF of each table, even before closing it, and export to Excel all the bills of a period (up to 180 days), with the detail of every order, to pass to the accountant.

For the floor staff: the service flow

Keep these steps at hand during the shift.

1. 1

   Welcome the table. If the guest orders on their own, make sure the QR is on the table and readable. If you take the order, open Waiter orders, choose the table (or scan the QR) and set the covers.

2. 2

   Send to the kitchen. Send the order. In the kitchen it arrives right away, with the sound. Print if your station requires it.

3. 3

   Confirm the additions. If the guest adds dishes from their phone, they appear "to confirm" in the dashboard: check and accept. Only then do they go to the kitchen.

4. 4

   Keep the status updated. Advance Preparing → Ready → Served: the guest sees the progress and you always know where you are.

5. 5

   Edit if needed. Change of mind or error? Edit the order; everything stays in the history.

6. 6

   Close the bill. Choose payment and an optional tip. The table frees up, in LIVE Service too, for the next guest.

Related features

• Table manager and LIVE Service — the real-time table status that the orders light up on their own.
• Rooms and tables — the tables the QRs come from.
• Menu management — the dishes, wines and beers the guest orders.
• Plans and credits — detail of what each plan includes.