Questions we get asked before and after a restaurant goes live
These are the things owners and managers actually ask us — about scripts that will not print, tables that move mid-service, kitchens that read a different language from the floor, and money that does not balance at midnight. Each one has its own page with the full answer. Where the honest answer is “it depends on your country”, we say so rather than promising something we cannot deliver there.
What happens when the owner, the staff and the guests do not read the same script.
We are opening in the Gulf. Does the system handle Arabic menus and right-to-left receipts?
Yes. Arabic is one of the 23 languages, including right-to-left layout, and it can sit alongside Chinese on the same interface, menu, QR page and receipt. Arabic text and the dirham symbol are rendered as an image before printing, so nothing comes out as boxes.
Who translates the menu into the local language — do I have to type every dish twice?
No. The local-language column is set up with you during onboarding, and day to day you only maintain the Chinese one. What you should not skip is having a local member of staff read the finished menu once, because dish names are where machine translation quietly goes wrong.
The receipt prints a row of boxes instead of Thai, Khmer or Arabic. Can that be fixed?
Yes, and not by changing the font. The boxes appear because the characters are not in the thermal printer's built-in font table, so the fix is to render the text as an image before sending it to the printer — the printer then only has to print a picture.
Can the owner work in Chinese while the staff work in the local language, on the same system?
Yes. Interface language is a property of the user account, not of the installation — so the tablet in the dining room can be in Spanish all day while the back-office machine stays in Chinese, reading the same orders.
Taking the order, moving and merging tables, splitting the bill, timed seatings.
Sugar level, ice, cup size, toppings — do I build a separate menu item for every combination?
No, and you should not. Build one drink with option groups hanging off it — size as a priced variant, sugar and ice as single-choice scales, toppings as add-ons that stack. One item, one price to change, one line in the best-seller report.
A party wants to move tables, and two tables want to become one. How does the bill follow?
Long-press the table card and pick move or merge. Move carries the whole open bill to the new table and frees the old one; merge combines two bills into one and recalculates. Neither asks anyone to re-key the order.
A table of eight wants to pay separately. How do we split the bill without chaos?
There are only two honest ways to split — evenly by head, or by what each person ordered. Even splitting takes a second at checkout. Splitting by dish requires that the order was taken by seat in the first place, which is a decision made at the start of the meal, not at the end.
We run a ninety-minute all-you-can-eat. Can the system time the table and charge for extras?
Yes, but they are three separate things — the timer lives on the table, the per-head price is a dish priced by person, and extra time or extra people are chargeable items you add to the bill. Never adjust the total by hand.
If guests order by scanning a QR code, do they have to download an app first?
No. The code opens a web page in the phone's own browser — no app, no account, no sign-up. The order lands on the till against that table and on the kitchen screen at the same moment.
Getting the right ticket to the right station, and keeping the pass from jamming.
The chef reads only Chinese and the servers read only the local language. How do they work off one order?
Each side reads the same order in its own language, because the dish is one record carrying both names. The floor orders in the local language, the kitchen ticket or screen shows Chinese — or both side by side — and routing sends each station only its own dishes.
We have two chefs and a short menu. Is a kitchen display screen worth it, or is a printer enough?
It depends where the mess actually is. A small kitchen with one production line and a short menu usually just needs its printing tidied up. A screen earns its place when orders arrive in bursts, when timing matters, or when the cook cannot read the language the order was taken in.
Hot kitchen, cold larder and the bar are three stations. How do tickets reach the right one?
Through print rules. A rule is a trigger, a template, a target device and a category filter — hot dishes to the hot printer, drinks to the bar label printer, and anything matching no rule falls back to a default so nothing is silently lost.
Payments, tax settings, cash-up, and the permissions that stop the till leaking.
The cash never balances at the end of the day. How do we find where it went?
Cash up by shift instead of by day, and set the business day to match your real trading hours rather than midnight. A shortfall inside a two-person window is findable; a shortfall across a whole weekend is not.
A guest wants to pay part cash, part card, and use their stored value. Can one bill take all three?
Yes. Several tenders can settle a single bill, the system checks the arithmetic and works out the change, and cash payment can pop the drawer automatically. The one rule — electronic tenders cannot be overpaid, because there is nothing to give back.
How do I stop staff voiding orders and editing prices to skim cash?
Software controls records and permissions, not intent. The foundation is one account per person; on top of that, every action that can make the money on the bill go down — void, cancel, manual price change, manual discount, refund after payment — is raised to manager level.
The internet drops two or three times a week. Can we keep serving?
Yes. Single-machine and LAN modes do not depend on an internet connection at all — ordering, kitchen tickets and checkout carry on, and the data syncs up when the line returns. You only need the internet for multi-store sync and remote viewing.
Should menu prices include tax or not? It seems to differ by country.
It does differ, and you configure it per store rather than inheriting a habit from home. Tax name, rate and whether the displayed price includes it are store settings; the bill then itemises whatever you configured. What you must not do is copy the arrangement from your last country.
Third-party platforms, pickup numbers, channel pricing, stored value and coupons.
Should we charge more on the delivery platforms than in the shop?
Most restaurants in most markets do, because commission has to come from somewhere. Two traps — some platforms tie their lower commission tiers to price parity on pickup orders, and a blanket markup drives your regulars to compare and feel cheated. Check your contract before you raise anything.
Can the system connect to the delivery platform we use locally?
Dine-in, takeaway and delivery running on one till with one set of books is standard. Direct integration with a specific local platform is not — it varies sharply by country, and you should get a straight yes or no about your platform before you buy, not a blanket promise.
We have no tables — just a counter. How do guests know when their order is ready?
Pickup numbers. The order gets a number at payment, the number goes up on a display, and the guest collects when it is called. Choose a counter-service format at setup and the whole table map simply does not appear.
Is a stored-value card or a points scheme better for getting people back?
Start with stored value and a birthday coupon. Prepaid balance commits the guest's money to your shop, which is the strongest return mechanism there is. Points are a slower, weaker lever and complicated points rules are where most restaurant loyalty schemes die.
Hardware, switching systems, training local staff, watching the shop from abroad, second branch.
We are opening a second shop. Do we have to change system, and can it be a different format?
No change of system. Single machine, in-shop LAN, multi-store cloud and a head-office dashboard are steps on one path — you move up a level, you do not migrate. And the second shop can be a different format, because the format is a store setting.
I am not in the country the restaurant is in. What can I actually see and do from here?
Revenue, table status, dish rankings and member data from a browser, plus real actions — mark a dish sold out, disable a staff account, push a menu change down to a store. What you cannot do is supervise a dining room, so set up the reports that tell you when to ask.
We are on another system. Can the menu come across, and will we have to close for a day?
The menu comes across whatever state it is in — an export, a spreadsheet, even a photo of the printed menu — and it is built for you, local-language column included. You should not need to close — the changeover happens between services after a full rehearsal on your real menu.
How long does it take to train local staff, and what happens when they leave?
A server works the ordering line after one walkthrough, because the interface is already in their language. The effort that matters is not the manual — it is one full rehearsal before go-live, and keeping each person on their own account so a leaver is one switch.
What hardware do we actually need, and can we keep the printers we already have?
One till machine is the floor. Everything else — floor tablets, kitchen printer or screen, cash drawer, card terminal, label printer, table QR stickers — is added because your format needs it. Most standard hardware can be reused; send us the exact models rather than assuming.
Message us on WeChat with the country, the number of stores and what you serve. Country-specific questions — fiscal devices, local payment channels, delivery platform integrations — get a straight yes or no for your market rather than a general answer. Hotline / WeChat (same number): 18588769116.
