“Oh, that one was supposed to be takeaway!” - Common Hospo saying (not for long)

The little things can make a big difference. Whether you're calling out an order for Tracey, or running an order to Table 5, sending an order for delivery, or maybe just placing a catering order for later in the week, accuracy is a must.

You need a workflow that creates a seamless, error-free experience for your customers - to avoid those awkward re-plating moments!

The Order Types add-on allows your staff to easily select if an order is for takeaway, dine in, pickup, delivery, or catering. The order type selected will show on the production docket of the order so that the kitchen knows how to prepare the order.

Read on to learn how to set up Order Types for your Lightspeed!

What’s in this guide? 

Enable Order Types add-on
Configure your Order Types
Enforce Order Types (and Order Notes)
Frequently Asked Questions

Enable Order Types add-on

1. From the Feautres Page in Back Office, find the Order Types add-on

2. Enable this add-on by selecting the orange Enable Order Types button

You will then be redirected to the page where you can configure your Order Types 

Configure your Order Types

1. From the same Order Types add-on page, you will be taken to the Configuration tab. Here you can set up the following (see image below):

• Select the order types that will be available for your site
  
  
• Select your Prep-time for Pickup & Delivery Orders
  
  
• Set a default order type per register (e.g. ‘takeaway’ for registers in takeaway stalls or ‘dine in” for the registers used by waitstaff). You can also opt for no default - ‘Set order type manually’,
  
  
• Select ‘Prompt’ - to automatically present the staff with a pop-up, asking them to set an order type for each order.

Note - Your pre-set order type on a register can always be updated for each order on POS.

2. Remember to select Save Changes

And you’re done!

Now, you’ll be able to key in Order Types on POS and send the information to the kitchen via order dockets (see image below) - creating a seamless customer experience, every time.

Note - the elegant & power-saving dark mode is now available on Lightspeed POS. Check out this guide on how you can activate it.

Enforcing Order Types (and Notes)

Note - this is entirely optional, but is effective for certain workflows. Please be advised that any Online or Third-Party orders are not impacted by this feature

For orders created on a POS register, you can set the system to ensure that users are forced to provide an Order Type (or to enter an Order Note) to ensure that required information always makes it to your kitchen.

This is set on a register-by-register basis.

Simply go to Back Office, select My Site and then Devices.
On that screen click the cog wheel of the POS register you wish to configure.

Scroll down on the screen that is opened and you will see the options to Enforce Order Type and Enforce Note. 

Enforcing notes can be enabled on specific Order Types.

Select the options that apply to you, and remember to click Save Settings in the top right corner when you are done.

Go back to your POS register itself. Note that it will need to be synced to update the changes:

Thanks to the new settings, if a staff member tries to 'Send' an order to the kitchen or cash the order off, they will be forced to select an Order Type before proceeding.

If you also enabled Enforce Note on the order type selected, it will ask the user to prove a note for the order as well.

Your kitchen docket will then display the Order Note and the Order Type:

Frequently Asked Questions

 If I wanted to call my customers by their name instead of the order number, where can I add that?

After you select an order type on POS, you’ll be prompted to enter a note - you can choose to leave this note blank or add extra details like the customer name.

“Add Customer” can be an option too - but this will add the customer to the database and requires a phone number or email. This field is great for starting a CRM database - but probably not for getting the names for the orders.

Of course, you may choose either of these depending on your workflow.

Can I prompt my staff to enter an order type?

Yes you can! We talked about this in the section on configuring your order types.

How do I report on the order types of my sales?

Easily access the order type report on Lightspeed Insights! You will find this report under Site Overview and Site Performance.  This report is also available on the Insights Lite dashboard.

Now that I have set up Order Types, what else might I do?

Looking to further refine your service workflow?

Check out our guide on setting up Lightspeed’s Courses add-on to empower staff to manage courses (appetisers, mains, dessert, and etc.) with streamlined efficiency. You can even customise the courses based on what your restaurant offers - whether it’s 2 courses, 16 courses, or more.

Need more hacks to make your table service more efficient?

Check out our guide on setting up Lightspeed’s Tables add-on. You can assign orders to tables and allow your staff to oversee everything from an intuitive digital layout.