Kitchen and rider timers on every order: how restaurant order management works.

Every order on the Orders page now tells you how long it has been in the kitchen, and for a delivery, how long the rider has had it.

Friday night, rush hour: tables full, takeaways and deliveries running. The big question at the counter is which order is running late. Every order now has a thin strip under it. When the order goes to the kitchen, an orange strip starts filling toward the time you set. Once that time passes, the strip turns red and shows how many minutes late it is.

If the food is ready but no rider has been found yet, the strip shows grey stripes. Once the rider leaves, the strip turns blue until the order is delivered.

Setup comes first. In the left menu open Settings; right below General is a new tab, Order Timers. This is where you decide how long each stage should take.

The first group is the kitchen: dine-in, takeaway and delivery each get their own time. The kitchen clock starts when the order is accepted and stops when it is bumped on the KDS, meaning the food is ready.

WhereSettings → Order Timers

Below is the rider group: one clock from the moment a rider is assigned until the order is delivered.

Under it are two more. One is how long a kiosk or website order has been waiting for approval. The other is a delivery whose food is ready but no rider has been found yet. These two don't get a strip; only the colour of the clock chip changes.

WhereSettings → Order Timers

At the top is the mode, Simple, and for most restaurants that is enough. Each stage needs just one number, Expected. To start with, 12 minutes for the kitchen and 25 for the rider.

The strip fills toward this number. The clock chip turns amber at 80% and red once the time is passed, with a late badge. The strip preview shows exactly this: at 7 minutes the strip is more than half full, and at 15 minutes it is red, +3 minutes late.

WhereSettings → Order Timers → Mode: Simple

Next to it is Advanced mode, for those who want to write the amber and red points themselves. Each line gets two more boxes. In this video the setting stays on Simple.

WhereSettings → Order Timers → Mode: Advanced

The most useful part: the grey figures under each line, worked out from your own orders over the last 30 days. For dine-in here, Your usual is 9 minutes, so a normal order is out in that time. Slowest 10% is 13.5 minutes: only one order in ten takes longer.

Press Use my numbers and Expected becomes 14, meaning nine orders out of ten will be out before the strip turns red. The button at the top, Use my numbers for all, sets every stage to your own numbers in one go.

If you don't like a number, type your own in the box. Then Save.

WhereSettings → Order Timers → Use my numbers / Use my numbers for all → Save

The second card below decides what shows on the Orders page. A strip under every order is on by default. You can also have the minutes written over the strip, or show a clock chip on each order instead of the strip.

Then the timer line on the KPI cards, and the late badge; both of these are on as well.

WhereSettings → Order Timers → display card

Now the Orders page. On the floor plan, any table whose order is in the kitchen has an orange strip under its tile.

Table T07: the order has only just gone to the kitchen, so the strip is small. T05: the strip is nearly full, so time is almost up. And T02 is past its time: the strip is red, with a red badge on the tile saying how many minutes late.

WhereOrders → floor plan

The strip is in every view. The Table Numbers button at the top shows the same strip in its small boxes. The List button shows it under every row. Then back to the floor plan.

WhereOrders → Table Numbers / List view buttons

Now the cards at the top. The Active card has a new line: how many orders are in the kitchen and how long the oldest has been there. Next to it, how many are late.

Tap that and every order that isn't late fades, so the late table stands out; Clear brings everything back. The Completed Today card shows the kitchen time over the last hour against your usual time, with a red arrow when the kitchen is running slow.

WhereOrders → top KPI cards

Now delivery. In the delivery column below, every order shows its own stage. The first is still in the kitchen: an orange strip.

The second is ready but has no rider: grey stripes, and a No rider chip next to Assign Rider showing for how many minutes. The third is with the rider: a blue strip, and next to Track, the rider's name and how many minutes they have been out.

WhereOrders → delivery column

On the delivery header there is a Riders button. Press it and the rider board opens: each rider, whether they are out or free, for how long, and how many deliveries they have done today.

Below are the orders waiting for a rider and the orders still to come from the kitchen.

WhereOrders → delivery header → Riders

Orders from the kiosk or website that are waiting for approval now carry a clock too: Waiting, and how many minutes. After five minutes it turns red.

The header above shows how long the oldest order has been waiting.

WhereOrders → Needs Approval

The full record of any order is on its own page. Open the card of a delivery order that has a rider, and the order page opens. Below the Order Timeline is a new section, Stage Times.

At the top are two chips, Kitchen and Rider, showing whether each is on time. Then each stage on its own: how long the kitchen took, how long the wait for a rider was, and how long it has been with the rider, which is still running. Every line shows your limit and your usual time too.

WhereOrders → open an order → Stage Times (below Order Timeline)

The weekly and monthly picture is in Analytics. From the left menu open Analytics & Reports, then Operations, and the new tab Kitchen & rider speed. The period is Last 30 days by default.

At the top is the kitchen: how many orders were counted, the usual time, the slowest 10%, and how many were late. Below it is the same for riders.

WhereAnalytics & Reports → Operations → Kitchen & rider speed

Further down: which hour of the day the kitchen is slowest, times by order type, each rider's figures, and the ten slowest orders.

One thing to note: the Kitchen and Delivery tabs on this same page now also count late from these timers. Delivery used to use a fixed 45 minutes, so its late percentage may now look higher than before.

WhereAnalytics & Reports → Operations → Kitchen & rider speed

To remember: setup is in one place, Settings → Order Timers, Use my numbers, and Save.

Then it shows everywhere: a strip on every tile, box, row and card on the Orders page; kitchen and late counts on the top cards; the rider chip on deliveries and the Riders board; a clock on approval cards; Stage Times on the order page; and Kitchen & rider speed in Analytics.

Set Order Timers once in Settings, and from then on every order tells you by itself whether it is on time or late.

WhereSettings → Order Timers