Advancing tickets
A ticket moves through the kitchen one state at a time. The KDS gives you huge, touch-first buttons for each step so the line can advance an order without hunting for a small target.
The states
An order flows forward through these states:
- Placed. The customer submitted the order.
- Paid. Payment cleared. This is the event that lights up the board with a new ticket and chimes.
- Accepted. The kitchen acknowledged the order. Press Accept.
- In kitchen. Cooking has started. Press Start.
- Ready. The order is made and waiting for pickup. Press Ready.
- Completed. The customer has the order. Press Complete.
An order can also be cancelled from the appropriate states.
The buttons
Each ticket shows the action that comes next, as a large touch button:
| Button | Moves the ticket to | Customer tracker shows |
|---|---|---|
| Accept | Accepted | Received |
| Start | In kitchen | In Kitchen |
| Ready | Ready | Ready |
| Complete | Completed | (order closed) |
Press the button and the ticket advances. The kitchen and the customer always agree, because the same event drives both the board and the customer’s tracker in real time.
Forward only, and guarded
Transitions move forward through the sequence above. You cannot skip a step or jump backward: the platform enforces the allowed transitions and rejects an invalid one. This is not a UI nicety, it is enforced by the shared order state machine on the server, so the order’s history stays consistent even if two tablets act at once.
A practical consequence: pressing a button that no longer applies, for example because another tablet already advanced the ticket, does nothing harmful. The board reflects the real current state.
What the customer sees
As you advance a ticket, the customer’s shareable tracker updates live:
- Accept shows the customer Received.
- Start shows In Kitchen.
- Ready shows Ready for pickup.
There is no separate step to notify the customer. Advancing the ticket is the notification.
Receipts
The fixed-format receipt for an order is generated when the order is accepted, from the order’s event history. You can render or print it from the KDS.