Call waiter, Bill please, Help
A guest presses Call waiter or Request bill on the QR page, and the POS rings and shows the call at the top of the orders panel. The call's row part by part, Dismiss, Print bill for a guest asking for the bill, the marks on the table, the calls on the QR orders screen, and every message. On the Windows and the Android POS.
On this page
A guest at a table can ask for you from their phone. On the QR page they press Call waiter, or Request bill. The POS rings, and the call shows at the top of the orders panel, with the table's code in large letters, until someone answers it.
You answer a call with one press. Dismiss when you have been to the table. For a guest asking for the bill, Print bill prints it, and the call is answered by itself.
Before you start
- Guests must be allowed to call. The QR profile has Guests can call a waiter and Guests can request the bill. A table's code only: a pick-up or delivery guest has no table to call to. See QR Ordering: a profile's settings.
- To answer a call you need the QR right: QR Incoming Orders, Edit, in your POS access group. Anyone signed in sees the calls.
- Calls need the internet. The guest's phone tells the cloud, and every POS of the outlet hears it from there within about ten seconds: Main, Sub and Waiter POS alike.
How a call reaches you
- A sound. This POS's own call sound, which is not the QR order chime: the Service bell, twice, until someone chooses another on the Hardware screen, under Call from a table. A call's sound has no off switch, so a call is never missed; only the volume turns it down.
- A row at the top of the orders panel, above everything else in it, for as long as the call waits.
- A mark on the table, in its corner, pulsing: an amber bell for a waiter or help, a red receipt for the bill.
- The QR waiting chip in the top bar counts the calls with the QR orders.
Orders
- A call for a waiter: one row per call, oldest first, with an amber edge down its left side.
- T3: the table's code, large, to be read across the room. A call with no table says A guest.
- What the guest asked for: Call waiter, Bill please or Help. A call of a kind this POS has no words for is shown as the cloud names it.
- 2 min: how long the call has waited. It counts up by itself.
- The bell: a bell for Call waiter and Help, a receipt for Bill please. The table's tile carries the same mark.
- The guest's message, when they typed one, on one line. Hold the mouse over it on Windows to read all of it.
- Dismiss: you have answered the call. It leaves this POS at once, and every other POS at its next look, within about ten seconds. While it works it says Working….
- A call for the bill: the same row, with a red edge and two buttons.
- Print bill: prints the table's bill, as the POS's own Print bill does. When the bill has gone to the printer, the call is answered by itself. See Answer a call for the bill.
The rows take at most half the panel's height, so the QR orders under them stay in sight; more calls than fit scroll. With the panel folded away, the rail shows a pulsing amber bell with the number of calls waiting.
Answer a call for a waiter
- The bell rings and the row comes up: T3, Call waiter.
- Go to the table and see to the guest.
- Press Dismiss on the row. The row goes, the mark leaves the table, and the sound stops if it is still ringing.
A Help call is answered the same way.
Answer a call for the bill
- The row says T5, Bill please.
- Press Print bill. The POS opens the table's bill and prints it, exactly as Print bill on the bill does: the same right, the same printer, and the bill counts as printed.
- When the bill has gone to the printer, the call is answered by itself: the row goes from every POS.
- Take the bill to the table.
If the table has several bills (it was split), the table window opens to choose which one to print. Print each one the guests want; the call is answered when a bill of that table has printed.
If you would rather take the bill some other way, press Dismiss instead. Nothing is printed.
Where else the calls show
- An amber bell in the table's corner, pulsing: a guest at this table pressed Call waiter (or a Help call). On the POS it sits in the tile's top corner, on white, so it reads on any table colour.
- A red receipt, pulsing: a guest at this table asked for the bill.
A tap on a calling table opens it as always. The mark goes when the call is answered.
- On a table screen with no orders panel (someone without the QR right, with no quick sale saved), the same rows run as a strip across the top, above the tables.
- On the QR orders screen, the calls are at the top under Service calls, one button each: Table T3, Wants a waiter, Asking for the bill or Needs help, with the guest's message, and tap to acknowledge. A tap there answers the call, as Dismiss does. See Accept or reject QR orders.
What the guest sees
On the QR page, the button the guest pressed rests for 30 seconds and says Waiter called or Bill requested, with A member of staff is on the way or Your bill is on its way. If they press again later while the call still waits, no second call is made: their page says Already called — someone is on the way, or Already asked — your bill is on its way.
The rows are the same, with Print bill and Dismiss at the right of the row. The differences:
- On a phone, or a tablet held upright, the table screen has no orders panel, so the rows run as a strip at the top of the table screen, above the tables.
- What a press could not do (no right, no open bill, the table in use on another POS) is said in the table screen's notice at the top, not on the row.