In short
Orders flow left to right: a new order comes in, you start preparing it, then you mark it ready for pickup.
Each order keeps the same number from screen to counter, so anyone on your team — and the customer — is always looking at the same order.
When every pickup space is full, new orders wait in a queue instead of piling up. A pickup timer on each ready order keeps the counter turning over.
One screen for the whole team
The live order board is the screen you keep open during service. Every order that comes in appears here and moves across the board as you work it, so your whole team is always looking at the same, up-to-date picture — no tickets to lose, no shouting across the booth.
It updates by itself the moment a customer orders or you change an order’s status. You never refresh it; you just read it and tap.
The stages an order moves through
Every order moves through the same stages, left to right across the board:
Queued
The order is paid and waiting for a free pickup space. It is not in your prep flow yet — it simply holds its place in line until capacity opens up.
New / received
A pickup space is reserved and the order is ready for you to start. This is the front of your prep queue.
In prep
You have started making the order. It stays here until everything in it is ready.
Ready for pickup
You have marked the order done. The customer is notified to come and collect it, and the pickup timer starts counting down.
Picked up
The customer has collected the order. It leaves the board and frees its pickup space for the next order.
How you move an order along
You drive each order with one tap at each stage: start it to move it into prep, mark it ready when it is done, and mark it picked up once it is handed over. That is the whole loop.
If an order needs to be pulled — a customer leaves, an item is unavailable — you can cancel it, which releases its space back to the queue. Everything you do is reflected on every device watching the board instantly.
How capacity keeps the board from overflowing
Your capacity is the number of pickup spaces you have laid out (see "Setting up your pickup area"). While a space is free, new orders come straight onto the board. When every space is occupied by an order that is still being prepared or waiting to be collected, new orders move into the queue instead.
Queued orders are not lost and not late — they are simply held until a space frees up, which happens the moment a customer collects an order. This is what stops a sudden rush from burying your team: the board only ever shows as much as you can physically handle at once.
The pickup timer
When you mark an order ready, a pickup timer starts. It is the window a customer has to collect — set by your pickup time (10 to 60 minutes, 30 by default). The customer sees it too, which gently nudges them to come over.
If an order is not collected before its timer runs out, it stops blocking your counter so the space can be reused. Keep your pickup time realistic for your crowd: long enough that people are not rushed, short enough that spaces keep turning over during a rush.
Showing queued orders in your prep view
By default, the prep part of the board shows only orders that already hold a pickup space — the work you can act on right now. If you would rather see what is coming next, you can switch on an option to include queued orders in your prep view, so the kitchen can read ahead during a rush.
It is purely a viewing preference and anyone on the team can toggle it. Pick whichever keeps your team calmest.
Read-the-board checklist
- 1 Keep the live board open on a screen the whole team can see.
- 2 Work orders left to right: start, ready, picked up.
- 3 Trust the queue — it holds overflow until a space frees up.
- 4 Watch the pickup timer to keep spaces turning over.
- 5 Toggle queued orders into your prep view if you like to read ahead.