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Using the Register (POS)

The register is the counter point of sale, at Admin → POS (/admin/pos). It's designed for a tablet at the till. Anyone with Cashier access or above can use it.

Setting up the till

  1. On the tablet, sign in to ForkLine with a Cashier (or higher) account. This answers which restaurant this register belongs to and is done once — not once per shift.
  2. Go to Admin → POS.
  3. Install it to the home screen — iPad: Share → Add to Home Screen with the POS open; Android Chrome: Install app. You get a full-screen register with no address bar.
  4. If several people work the till, set up Register Accounts so each sale is attributed to whoever rang it.

Ringing up an order

  1. Choose the order type — Counter for a walk-in, Phone for an order called in. (The difference matters; see below.)
  2. Tap items to add them. Filter by category; sections can carry colors to make them easier to spot — see Managing Your Menu.
  3. Choose modifiers when prompted.
  4. Attach the customer if you want — a name, and an email for a receipt or rewards. The register doesn't ask for a phone number.
  5. Schedule a pickup time if it isn't for now.
  6. Take payment.

Counter vs Phone

This is the one thing to get right.

Counter is a draft until it's paid. Nothing goes to the kitchen, no ticket prints, and no order number is spent until payment succeeds. So a cancelled payment leaves no half-made food and no gap in your numbering.

Phone fires immediately. The customer isn't standing there to pay, so the order goes to the kitchen at once, prints its ticket, and stays unpaid until they collect. It's a real order the moment you create it.

Because a phone order is real, "Start new order" won't cancel it. The till clears and the order stays live under the Unpaid chip. That's deliberate — someone is cooking it.

Taking payment

Choose the tender when money changes hands, not at ring-up:

Card — sends the total to the card reader. The customer completes it on the reader. See the prompt sequence below.

Cash — enter what they handed you; ForkLine calculates change and opens the cash drawer.

Phone — not a tender. No payment is taken now.

What the customer sees on the reader

For a card payment, the reader walks them through:

  1. Tip — if you have tipping on. See Tipping.
  2. Receipt — print, email, or none.
  3. Rewards — if you run a program, the order earns points, and they aren't already a member, they can enter their email themselves. See Rewards & Loyalty.

They type their own email on the reader, so nobody reads an address aloud across a queue.

Steps are skipped when they don't apply — someone who just gave an email for a receipt isn't asked again for rewards.

Recalling an unpaid ticket

Phone orders and online pay-at-pickup orders wait to be paid. The Unpaid · N chip at the top of the register lists them.

  1. Tap Unpaid.
  2. Search by name, email, phone, or order number.
  3. Tap the ticket to load it.
  4. Take card or cash as normal.

If you never take phone or pay-at-pickup orders, the chip won't appear.

Discounts

Apply a percentage off the whole ticket, or discount a single line.

  1. Choose the discount.
  2. Enter the amount and a reason (required — it's what makes the discount report readable later).
  3. Approve it if your store requires manager approval.

Depending on setup, discounts and custom off-menu items need a manager's approval. A manager with a register passcode approves with their passcode, and the approval is recorded against them by name. Stores without register accounts use a shared manager password instead.

Ticket discounts reduce tax proportionally, so the screen and the charge always agree — a discount on a ticket mixing taxable and non-taxable items is calculated correctly.

Opening the drawer without a sale

Use Open drawer to make change. It's recorded, so there's a record of who opened it and when. See Cash Drawer.

Troubleshooting

The reader isn't responding. Check it's powered and on the same network. Re-pair from Settings → Payments if needed.

A payment is stuck. Check the reader's screen — it may be waiting on the customer. Stuck payments raise an alert on the dashboard.

The drawer won't open. See Cash Drawer → Troubleshooting. Nine times out of ten it's the cable.

A cashier is locked out. Five wrong passcodes locks an account for five minutes. See Register Accounts.

Where to go next

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