Start-of-Day Checklist

Before: A supervisor has confirmed the day's location and how service runs (Restaurant > Settings > Service setup). Ask the relevant administrator to resolve missing controls.

Steps:

1. Open POS > Registers and choose Start service. The list offers it when no restaurant till is open, and each Table Service or Hybrid register card has its own Start service button (or End shift once it is open). Opening Restaurant POS while no restaurant till is open also leads here.
2. Under Choose a till, pick the till. Only restaurant tills at your locations are listed, each with its location and when it was last closed. A till marked Open · sell is already open on another device; tapping it opens selling, not a second shift.
3. Under Open the drawer and sign in, count the float and check Opening cash. It is filled in with the float the last shift started with, and the line below shows what the last close counted; change it to the amount you actually counted.
4. Under Who is on the till?, pick yourself. If you have a PIN, enter it on the PIN pad or type the digits. If you have no PIN yet, picking you signs you in. Not [name]? Pick someone else. clears the choice.
5. Read Before service: Menu ready with any sold-out dishes (or The menu is empty), the kitchen mode and stations, Waiters on today (or No waiters at this location), No staff have a PIN when nobody has one, and N orders from earlier days with Review. Earlier orders stay open and appear on the till; close empty ones from End shift (section 13).
6. Choose Start service. The line under the button names the till and the person. The till opens with a message such as "Service started on Till 1."

Readiness checks:

• Till and shift — the correct restaurant till is open under your name with the counted float.
• Locations — active Inventory locations are available for menu sales and stock movement.
• Menu availability — sellable menu items are active and unavailable items are switched off.
• Tables — floor tables are active, clean, and correctly marked as available where table mode is used.
• Reservations — today's bookings are reviewed, seated, cancelled, completed, or marked no-show as needed.
• Kitchen stations — prep stations are configured, usually Kitchen and Bar. For KDS, open Kitchen Display on each kitchen screen and pick its station.
• Paper — for paper service, check paper size and the intended printer in a controlled training print.
• Waiters and cashiers — POS users are active at this location; waiters need the Waiter role to appear on the till.
• Tips and numbering — confirm server attribution and the order prefix. Pooled tips and custom course ordering are saved preferences only, not automated service controls.
• Reports baseline — managers know where to check server performance and kitchen prep time during service.

Result: Staff know which till, waiter and preparation route to use, the opening float is recorded, and the day's menu is ready.

Recovery: For a wrong PIN, missing staff, missing till or unavailable menu, use section 12.2. Never open a second shift to work around an unidentified existing shift. The register page also offers Open shift without the checklist, which opens the shorter Open Shift dialog (Cashier PIN or POS staff, Opening Cash); it opens the same kind of shift without the Before service checks. Do not load demo data into live trading to fill a missing menu, and do not change preparation mode mid-order to recover a printer failure.