Orders reach your kitchen from a QR code, your own site, a delivery tablet and the phone, and somebody has to keep all of it straight. Three things do that work: one screen every channel lands on, one promised time with a named owner, and a rule about who may change that time mid-service. Software can give you the first. The other two are your decisions. FineDine puts dine-in QR, pickup, delivery and tablet orders on one list for the channels you own. It doesn't pull in aggregator orders and it doesn't assign drivers.
Write down every route an order takes to the kitchen
Take one busy service and list the routes. Table 12 scans a code and sends a starter to the pass. Someone orders delivery on your own site. The aggregator tablet beeps on the shelf. The phone rings.
For each route, note three things:
- The device it lands on, and who is standing near it.
- The time it promises the guest, and who chose that number.
- Whether it reaches the kitchen on its own, or a person retypes it.
The third line is the one that shapes a shortlist. A retyped channel costs a pair of hands in the hour you have none spare, and it's where wrong tickets start: one person reads a number off a screen and another writes it on a ticket. You can probably answer it without checking. For many kitchens it's the phone first, then the aggregator tablet.
Look for channels nobody owns, too. A pickup order placed at 16:40 for a 19:30 collection belongs to whoever is working at 19:30, so write that handover down. It's easy to keep while the usual person is in and easy to lose on their day off.
The promised time is a decision, not a setting
Before you compare software, settle three things: which screen counts as the truth when two of them disagree, what time each channel promises, and who may move that time once service has started. If you shop first, you'll most likely end up buying a fourth screen to watch.
A delivery quote covers two stretches, the kitchen and the road. The kitchen slows as the night fills up. What the road adds on top is in your own delivery records, and the way to read it is to put a busy Saturday next to a quiet Tuesday.
In FineDine's delivery and pickup settings the quote is a single figure, Delivery Time, which covers preparation and travel together. It stays honest only while somebody keeps moving it. Set it for your busiest hour, and lower it on quiet days if you want the extra orders.
What the orders screen holds
Orders sit in one place with Live, Ready and Closed views, and a full-screen mode for the pass. A phone order still needs a person, but that person uses Create Order, so the order lands on the same list as every other channel instead of on a pad.
Ordering Settings cover three channels: dine-in QR, delivery and pickup, and tablet. Delivery and pickup carry the levers you reach for mid-service: delivery fee, minimum order, pre-orders for a future slot, tip rates, age verification when alcohol is on the list, and order cancellation. Open the screen on a quiet afternoon and learn where each one sits, so you don't find out during service.
A few things get easier once the channels share a list. A price edit is made once, in the menu, instead of three times on a Monday morning. Orders paid online at checkout go through the payment provider you connected, so the payment and the order are the same record. A promo code can be aimed at one order mode, say pickup only, which keeps a discount built for a quiet afternoon from following a guest to table 12.
None of that makes the three decisions for you. It gives them one place that every channel reads from. If you're still deciding whether to open a channel at all, read online ordering for restaurants: benefits, dos and don'ts.
Aggregator orders and drivers stay outside
FineDine's integration marketplace lists 22 connections: 11 point-of-sale systems, 10 payment providers and a receipt printer. No delivery aggregator is among them, so aggregator orders don't flow into this screen and the tablet on your shelf keeps beeping. There's no courier service in the list either. The screen holds the delivery fee, the promised time and the guest's address. The run itself gets handed out off the screen.
An aggregator puts you in front of people who opened the aggregator. Your own channel serves people who already decided on you. Moving guests from the first group to the second is marketing work, and an ordering screen won't do it on its own.
The commission comparison has to come from your own paperwork. Rates differ by market, by contract and by how long you've been on a platform, so a figure printed in an article is a guess about somebody else's deal. Take last month's statement, divide the commission by gross sales, and use that number.
Take the dishes that travel badly off the delivery list
Often the cheapest change in a delivery operation is a shorter list. Anything fried thin, anything plated with a sauce meant to stay beside it, anything built to be eaten the minute it leaves the pass arrives as a different dish. When that happens the refund can cost more than the order brought in, and the guest remembers the version that turned up.
In FineDine each menu shows the channels it is live on: dine-in QR, pickup, delivery, tablet. Items have their own availability by day and time, which lets a late list shrink to what a closing kitchen can plate. Sizes sit in their own tab with a price each, so a smaller travel portion can be its own size. A delivery-only menu or a delivery-only price is a different matter, so test it on a draft menu before you plan a service around it.
Moving over from another ordering tool
If your current ordering tool is being retired, or you're simply tired of it, build the new menu first. Menu Builder takes a photo, PDF, Excel or CSV file and creates a new menu. It doesn't overwrite an existing one. The AI does the reading and can use credits, and you still check every price and modifier by eye before the menu goes live.
Guest records and order history are a separate question. Export what you need from the old tool yourself, before you cancel it. Then switch on one channel and run it beside the old one. Retire the old one once a full busy service has gone through without a retyped ticket.
Which channel to switch on first
Switching everything on in the same week is a risky way to start. Four new habits land on the same staff in the same service, and the first wrong ticket gets all four blamed. Pick the room type closest to yours, switch that channel on, and leave the rest off until nobody on the floor has to think about it. The table is an editor's suggestion, not a product rule.
The numbers worth reading weekly
FineDine's AI Reports (FineDine IQ) refresh hourly and carry eight numbers: revenue, orders, average ticket, conversion, sessions, menu views, section views and item views. For an ordering operation, read two first. Average ticket tells you whether the online menu sells the way your floor sells. Orders tells you whether the channel is growing or whether one busy weekend moved the line.
Both need a comparison. Set the range to 7 days and put it against the previous 7 before you conclude anything from a single Saturday. The same panel flags a day that falls outside its own pattern and offers a suggested action, and since it refreshes hourly you may catch that the same day. It matters for the failure a chart hides: a channel that quietly stops accepting orders looks like an ordinary slow day until you compare it with the same weekday last week.
For how payment fits at the table, see QR code payments and where they break at the table.
| Your room | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sit-down room with servers | Dine-in QR | Fewest new habits: the guest orders at the table, the pass sees it on the list |
| Counter or takeaway shop | Pickup | No driver and no road time to promise, only a kitchen time |
| Kitchen with no dining room | Delivery and pickup together | Both run from the same settings screen, and the delivery time needs an owner from day one |
| Bar with alcohol on the list | Dine-in QR with age verification | Age verification is a setting you can switch on before the first order |
Frequently Asked Questions
- What software do restaurants use to take and manage orders?
- Many use a point-of-sale system for the floor and an online ordering system for their own website and QR codes, and it helps when both write to one record. FineDine's orders screen covers the second job and connects to 11 POS systems and 10 payment providers through its marketplace.
- Can FineDine receive my aggregator orders?
- No. The integration marketplace has no delivery aggregator in it, so aggregator orders stay on the aggregator's own tablet. FineDine handles the channels you own: dine-in QR, pickup, delivery from your site, and tablet.
- Does it assign drivers or track couriers?
- No. The screen holds the delivery fee, the promised time and the guest's address. Handing out the run is still done by your own staff or courier.
- How do phone orders fit in?
- Whoever answers the phone enters the order with Create Order, and it appears on the same list as the other channels. A person still types it, but only once, instead of copying it from a pad to a ticket.
- Which system is best for my restaurant?
- The one that removes your retyped channel and lets you own the promised time. Do the route audit first, then judge any system, FineDine included, on whether it solves the third line. For plans and pricing, see the pricing page.
