The counter: how a restaurant billing counter works.

This series is for restaurant owners who want to understand Tadka Tech in depth. Each part follows one real story and stops at every button. Anything that doesn't click the first time is explained again with a second example.

Part 1 is the counter: one table, from the moment the guests sit down to the moment the table is free again.

Saturday evening, quarter to eight. A family of four walks in. They need a table and food. Midway they order one more thing, take one item home packed, get one item free, and at the end pay the bill two different ways.

This guide runs that whole journey in the system, one step per section.

All counter work starts on the Orders page. It is the board for your whole restaurant: which table is occupied, who is serving it, how long the guests have been sitting, and which tables are free.

To create a new order, use the + New Order button at the top right.

WhereOrders (left menu) → + New Order (top right)

The New Order screen has two halves. On the left you first pick a table, and as soon as you do, the menu opens in the same place.

On the right: the order type and the customer at the top, and below them the order summary, which is the bill as it builds up.

The first question is what kind of order this is. Dine-in: the guest eats here. Takeaway: they take it packed. Delivery: it goes to their home. These aren't just three buttons; after each type, the system asks you for different things.

Press Delivery and the screen changes. It first asks for the address on a map, with a list of nearby areas, and says clearly at the top to set the address before adding items. The phone number, optional until now, becomes required. Without an address and a number, there's no delivery.

Not every restaurant needs all three. A cloud kitchen that only does online delivery has no use for dine-in at its counter. If you take orders from customers sitting in their cars, a fourth type, Drive-in, appears on its own and asks for the vehicle number. The list is built for your restaurant.

WhereNew Order → order type, top of the right half

Start typing the phone number and the system searches your own past customers. If the number has been here before, the name shows up below. Tap the name and the name box is filled.

These numbers, one by one, build your customer list: who keeps coming back, who spent how much, and who to send an offer to.

If the number is brand new, nothing stops. Type the name yourself, and with the order that customer is added to your list automatically. Whether a number is required or optional is your call; the switch is covered in the section Settings: require customer phone.

WhereNew Order → Customer → phone number

The table picker isn't a stock picture. It's your restaurant's real floor, which you draw yourself: how many tables, what shape, and where they sit.

An occupied table already has an order running. Tapping it doesn't create a new order; it adds items to that running order. For a new order, tap a free table and the left half becomes the menu.

The menu on screen is this restaurant's own menu: burgers, pizza, wraps. Yours will look completely different: a dhaba will have dal, roti and sabzi, a South Indian place dosa and idli, a café coffee and sandwiches. The system doesn't impose its own structure: your categories, prices, sizes and add-ons are all you see.

Your categories are on the left, in exactly the order you arranged them in the menu. Put your best sellers at the top and the counter needs the fewest taps.

In a rush, search is the fastest way. Two or three letters of the name are enough, and the first letter of each word works too.

This restaurant's menu has Farm Fresh Pizza, so F-F-P finds it. Paneer Butter Masala would be P-B-M. Even a long three-word name comes up with three letters, so the cashier doesn't have to remember how every dish is spelled.

WhereNew Order → menu search box

You choose how the menu looks: a list with photos, small name-only tiles, or big photo cards. All three show the same menu, just differently.

The choice is remembered separately on each device. A small counter tablet can use name-only tiles to fit more items on screen, while the owner's big monitor shows photo cards. Changing it on one device doesn't change the other.

WhereNew Order → menu layout switch (list, tiles, cards)

Along the top is the filter bar. In Stock Only shows only what can actually be made right now. Price range filters by price. Pick a category and its own tags appear, like paneer or spicy. You create these tags yourself.

WhereNew Order → filter bar above the menu

Tap a dish that has sizes and the system asks for the size first; each size has its own price. Without a size the item won't go into the cart, so a wrong price can't happen.

Your sizes can have any names: half and full at a dhaba; small, regular and large at a café; half a kilo and one kilo at a sweet shop. You set the names and the prices, and it works the same way.

Below the size are the add-ons, the extras on top, like extra cheese or extra corn. An add-on's price can also differ by size: extra cheese on a large pizza takes more cheese, so it costs more.

You can make some add-on groups compulsory. Say you serve a thali where choosing one sweet is required: until a sweet is picked, Add to Cart won't press. So an incomplete order can never reach the kitchen.

Everything you add becomes a line in the order summary on the right. Each line has buttons to change the quantity, and three small icons: Pack, Comp and Notes. Half of a real restaurant's disputes are settled by these three.

The family wants to take one item home. They are sitting at the table, but that one line needs packing. Press the box icon on that line and it's marked Packed.

On the kitchen screen the order now shows in two parts: what's served at the table and what's packed to go. No need to tell the kitchen separately, and the packed item doesn't end up on a plate. The section on the kitchen display shows how it looks there.

WhereNew Order → order summary line → box icon

Comp means free: a child's ice cream on the house, or not charging for a dish when the food was late. Press the gift icon and that line's price becomes zero.

You also pick a reason: VIP guest, staff meal, quality issue, manager's discretion. The list of reasons is yours too, and it's not a formality: at month end you see exactly how much went out free, and why.

If one line has four plates and only one should be free, reduce the comp quantity to one of four. The other three are charged in full, and the line shows partial, so anyone looking knows the whole line wasn't free.

WhereNew Order → order summary line → gift icon

Notes like less spicy, no onion, Jain or no ice come as chips from your own list, so they say exactly what your kitchen understands. Anything not in a chip, write in your own words.

The note isn't on the whole order: it travels to the kitchen stuck to that one item. If only one plate out of four should be less spicy, the chef sees exactly that line.

WhereNew Order → order summary line → Notes icon. The chips are managed in Settings → Kitchen Notes.

Near the bottom of the order summary is the Offers section. If the customer has a code, enter it there. Offers running right now appear in the list below by themselves, so the cashier doesn't have to remember them.

The system checks each offer's conditions itself: minimum order value, maximum discount, which days it runs. Even if they wanted to, the cashier can't break the rules to give a discount.

Next to it is Manual: the manager can give a discount of their own, as a percentage or in rupees. It's recorded separately, so later it's clear whether a discount came from an offer or was given by hand.

WhereNew Order → order summary → Offers (code or running offers) / Manual

The calculation at the bottom adds up by itself: Subtotal (all the items together), Discount (what was taken off), GST, and Round Off, the small difference that brings the amount to a whole rupee so there's no fuss over change.

GST isn't charged the same across the whole bill. Each item has its own tax category, which you attached to it in the menu. On this bill the cold drink is in the zero-tax category, so no GST was added to it.

If your food is at 5% and a packaged item at 18%, both on one bill, the system adds each one's tax separately and shows them as separate lines. Pick the right category once in the menu and every bill is right from then on.

The system forces no rule on payment: take the money now or after the meal. With no payment method selected, the button at the bottom just says Place Order.

Pick any method and the same button changes to Place, Print & Collect: the order is created, the slip prints, and the money is taken now. One button, two ways; the only difference is whether you picked a method.

Choose Cash and enter what the customer handed over, say a ₹1,000 note. The screen tells you how much change to give back. No more mental maths in a rush.

If the customer pays only part, say ₹200, the order doesn't get stuck: the balance is recorded as a due automatically. Credit is written in the system, not in the cashier's memory.

WhereNew Order → payment → Cash

The card machine is your own, the one your bank gave you; the system doesn't run it. All that's recorded here is that this bill was paid by card, so the day-end tally matches.

WhereNew Order → payment → Card

Use Split when one bill is paid several ways. Press Split, put some cash on the first line, then Add Method and choose UPI on the second line. Press Fill Rest and the remaining amount fills itself in.

Until all the parts add up to the full total, the order won't place: not a rupee less, not a rupee more. A counting slip in a split can't leave you short.

WhereNew Order → payment → Split → Add Method → Fill Rest

This restaurant has added its UPI ID and turned on waiting for payment confirmation, so the system doesn't assume a UPI payment is paid. Press UPI: the order is created and a QR code appears on screen. The customer scans it and sends the money.

The system keeps checking by itself, and the moment the money arrives the order is marked paid.

This small thing prevents a big daily loss. Without it, the cashier has to trust the customer's screenshot, and a failed payment looks successful in a screenshot too. Here it says Paid only once the money has really arrived.

WhereNew Order → payment → UPI

If the customer will pay after eating, choose Collect Later. The order isn't cancelled: it's created and has already gone to the kitchen. Only the payment is pending, and it's taken later on this same order. That's what the family in this guide does; see the section on settling the bill with split payment.

WhereNew Order → payment → Collect Later

The Customer Display button at the top opens a second screen facing the customer, and a small light next to it shows that screen is live.

The moment an item is added at the counter it appears there instantly: name, quantity, price and the running total. The customer doesn't have to wait till the end to see the bill.

At payment time the same screen switches to payment: how much to pay, how much was given and how much comes back. The customer sees it all with their own eyes, so there's no room for argument.

WhereNew Order → Customer Display button (top)

On the Orders board the table now shows as occupied. Tap it and the order's own page opens: token number, order type, table, time, and who took the order. Below are the same items: the packed line says Packed, the free one says Comp, and the line with a note carries that note.

On the right is the order timeline: when it was created, when it went to the kitchen, what changed in between, and who changed it. Below that is the KOT history: which kitchen slip went when. If a question comes up tomorrow, this page is your witness.

WhereOrders board → tap the occupied table

Open Kitchen KDS from the left menu. Whether an order comes from the counter, a waiter, a table QR or the website, it all arrives here instantly.

At the top of the card are the token number and table number, and a timer showing how long since the order came in, so the chef knows which table has waited longest. Then how many items are ready, and a tick box on each item to mark it the moment it's made.

The same order is split in two: items to serve at the table, and the item to pack. That's the result of pressing one icon at the counter, and the note is right there with its item.

WhereKitchen KDS (left menu)

Midway through the meal the family orders one more cold drink. At the counter, use Add Item on the same order: the same familiar menu opens, find the cold drink, tap it, then KOT. No new order needed: one table, one bill.

On the kitchen screen the same card updates itself and the new line carries a New badge, so the chef can see it was added later and the earlier items don't get made twice.

WhereOrder → Add Item → KOT

Tick each item as it's done. When the whole order is ready, Mark All Ready marks every remaining item in one tap, and the same button turns into Bump.

Bump passes the order and the card leaves the board, so the kitchen screen only ever shows what's still to be made.

WhereKitchen KDS → order card → Mark All Ready → Bump

The meal is done. The order was placed with Collect Later, so payment is pending. On the order page, press the rupee button, Mark Payment Received; the full amount comes pre-filled.

The family pays some cash and the rest by card, so choose Split payment. First line cash, with the amount received; second line card, and Fill Rest fills in the remainder. Together the two lines make up the full bill. Confirm Payment, and the order is paid.

WhereOrder page → ₹ Mark Payment Received → Split payment → Fill Rest → Confirm Payment

Back on the Orders board the table shows free again. Payment complete and kitchen work complete, so the table freed itself; nobody had to remember to clear it.

This is your switch too: Settings → General tab → Auto-Clear Table. It's on in this restaurant, which is why the table cleared by itself. Turn it off and the table stays occupied until someone frees it. In a big restaurant, where the next guest is seated only after the table is cleaned, that's the right choice.

WhereSettings → General tab → Auto-Clear Table

The General tab also has Require Customer Phone, set separately for four places: counter dine-in orders, counter takeaway orders, waiter payment (when a waiter takes money in the waiter app), and the kiosk.

Keep it on and no order moves ahead without a number, so every customer keeps adding to your list. Keep it off and the counter runs faster at rush hour. Each of the four is decided separately, so off for dine-in and on for takeaway works too.

WhereSettings → General tab → Require Customer Phone

The Kitchen Notes tab holds the same chips you saw at the counter. Add new ones, rename them or remove them. Changes apply everywhere instantly: new counter orders, Add Item, and even the customer's QR menu.

One more switch at the top decides whether the big whole-order notes box shows on the New Order screen. If most notes go on items anyway, turn it off to keep the screen clean and fast.

WhereSettings → Kitchen Notes tab

That's one table's whole story. The guests sat down, the order was made and went to the kitchen, one more item was added midway, one item was packed, one went free, the bill was paid two ways, and the table freed itself.

The next part opens up the floor and the order board the same way, piece by piece.