The Group Ordering feature helps your staff process and prepare orders for groups of customers ordering at the counter. Rather than punching in and sending multiple tickets meant for the same table, servers can organize individual orders by table and automatically send them to the kitchen together.

Setting up Group Ordering

1. Log in to the Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, go to Configuration > Configurations.
3. From the POS configurations page, click the Configuration name of the POS device you’d like to enable Group Ordering on.
4. Click the Table management tab.
5. Click Enable full table support to open a list of table management options.
6. Scroll down to the Group Ordering section.
7. Toggle on Enable group ordering to open a list of Group Ordering options.
8. Configure the Group Ordering timer settings.

• Set the max time between orders: From the drop-down menu, select the amount of time you’d like to pass between two orders taken in the same group until they’re sent to the kitchen. After the allotted amount of time, the POS system will automatically print the group’s order ticket.
  

  The timer between orders begins once the group’s first order is paid for, and it restarts after each additional order.

• Set max time since first order: From the drop-down menu, select the amount of time you’d like to pass from the group’s first order until all the orders are sent to the kitchen. After the allotted amount of time, the POS system will automatically print the group’s order ticket.

  The timer since the first order begins once the group’s first order is paid for, and it does not restart.

Once you’ve finished setting up Group Ordering, you’re ready to start using it on your POS device.

Using Group Ordering

1. Open the Restaurant POS app.
2. Tap your user name to proceed to the order screen.
3. From Direct Sale mode: tap Group order, and assign a table to the group.
   From the Floor plan: Select a table for the group, and tap Group order.

   You must assign group orders to a specific table for the function to work correctly.

4. Tap your customer’s desired items to add them to their order.
5. Tap Checkout to continue to the payment screen.
6. Process your customer’s payment and complete the sale as usual.

   Once you’ve taken the group’s first order, the max time between orders and max time since first order timers will begin, and the POS will prompt you to add another order to the same table. If you’ve set Automatic Logout for POS User to immediately, then the prompt to add another order to the table will not display.

7. Click Yes, add another to add another order to the Group order, or click No, finish up to return to the order screen.
8. Continue adding orders and processing sales until the entire group has been served.

Once one of the ordering timers reaches its limit, the system will send the Group Order to the kitchen at the same time and on the same ticket.