Set up a café and its menu

What you will have at the end

A counter you can serve from. A menu on screen, an order taken in a few taps, a ticket in the kitchen's queue, the money recorded, the sale in your Tally books as an ordinary sales bill, and the day closed with the drawer counted.

It takes about half an hour, most of it typing the menu. Do it once, in the order below.

Who this is for

The owner of a café with counter service, or whoever sets it up. A bakery or a canteen with a counter works the same way. A restaurant with table service needs more than a café counter gives: read What the café counter covers first.

The owner holds all of them. See Users and roles.

A pilot, and what it needs first

The café counter works today, and is open to a few businesses while it is being tried. Three things have to be in place.

1. You have been let in. Ask us from Settings, Help and support, or through the walk-through form. Until then Café cannot be picked under Business type.
2. Your books are open in Orzoni. The computer that runs Tally is linked and your company has been read. If not, start with Your first ten minutes.
3. Tally has the ledgers a counter needs. They are listed next.

What to have ready in Tally

Orzoni offers you the ledgers Tally has. It does not invent any. Check that these are there.

The customer can be added from Orzoni: New, then Customer. The other ledgers are made in Tally, and appear in Orzoni after the next read.

Step 1: choose your kind of business

1. Open Settings, then Business type.
2. Under What kind of business is this, press Café. It carries the tag Pilot.

3. Press Use this.

   A small message says Set up for café. Nothing was deleted. Orzoni loads afresh. The side of the screen now has a group named Counter, holding Orders, Kitchen and Menu, and Settings has a section named Counter. Close the day and Days closed are under Orders.

Already trading in the same company, and adding a counter? Leave your kind as it is and switch Café counter on under Parts of Orzoni. Choose your kind of business has both ways.

Is the counter ready

From now on Orzoni tells you what is still to do. You do not have to work it out from this guide.

• On Today, a card named Finish setting up the counter lists what is left, each line with a button that leads to where it is done. The card goes when nothing is left.
• Under Settings, Counter, the first part lists every line, done or not. It is headed Is the counter ready, and The counter is ready once every line is done.

The list is worked out from your books as they stand, each time you look. It is in two lists, because they are two different things, and a third short part for what only you can say.

Before an order can be taken

Before a finished sale can reach Tally

For you to check by hand

The two lines with a button of their own are the two things Orzoni cannot find out for itself. It prints through the browser and hears nothing back from a printer, so only you can say that the paper came out and reads correctly. Both buttons are shown to whoever holds Business settings.

Orders can be taken as soon as the first list is done. The second list does not hold the counter up. A sale finished before it is done is kept safely and waits to go into Tally: it is not lost, and it says why it waits. The list is there so that you hear about a missing ledger before your first busy morning, not from a row of waiting sales.

The steps below do each line in turn.

Step 2: name your outlet

An outlet is the place the counter is. It is not a company and is not counted by your plan. Each company has one.

1. Open Settings, then Counter.
2. Under Your outlet, type a name in What it is called. It starts as Main outlet.
3. In The godown its goods leave from, choose the godown that holds what you sell from stock. Leave it on Wherever Tally keeps most of each item if you keep one place.

4. Press Save.

   A small message says Saved. The name now stands under Today on Home.

Step 3: say how counter sales go into Tally

Each finished order becomes one sales bill in Tally, with a receipt in Tally for each way it was paid. Here you choose the ledgers.

1. Under How counter sales go into Tally, choose a customer in Billed to.
2. Choose a sales ledger in What is sold is billed as.
3. Choose a ledger in Cash is kept in, in UPI money arrives in and in Card money arrives in.

4. Press Save.

   A small message says Saved. Finished sales go into Tally this way from now on. The part named Still to choose, above Your outlet, lists whatever is left, and goes when nothing is. The line A sale would go into Tally as charged, in the list at the top, is then tried.

Step 4: say how prices are worked out

Three choices, under How prices are worked out. Each is saved as you press it.

A change here applies to orders taken from then on. Orders already taken keep how they were priced.

Step 5: build the menu

1. Press Menu, under Counter at the side.
2. Press Add to the menu. On an empty menu the button in the middle reads Add the first thing.
3. Type the Name, as your staff should see it.
4. Type the Part of the menu it belongs to, such as Coffee or Bakes. Parts you have used are offered as you type.
5. Type the Price. The label says whether it is GST included or before GST, as you chose in step 4.
6. Choose the GST it is charged at. See The GST on each thing.

7. Under In Tally, a sale of it is billed as, choose one:

   Choice	Use it for	What happens
   A sales ledger	What is made to order: a latte, a sandwich	It is billed by its value, and no stock is counted. Leave Which sales ledger on The counter's own, or pick another
   A stock item	What is sold as it was bought: a bottle of water	Choose it under Which stock item. Each sale takes one from Tally's stock, through the bill

8. Press Add to the menu.

   A small message says, for example, Hot chocolate is on the menu. It joins the list, and can be ordered at once.

The GST on each thing

Orzoni assumes no rate for food or drink. You choose the rate for each thing on the menu, and 0% is there for what carries none. Nothing is saved without a choice.

Which rate applies depends on your business and on what you sell. Ask your accountant, and set each thing as they say. The rates on a bill in Tally come from here, so it is worth getting right before the first sale.

Choices offered with a thing

A choice is something the customer picks with the thing: the milk in a coffee, an extra shot, the size of a chai. Some kitchens call these modifiers or add-ons.

1. In the form, under Choices offered with it, press Add a choice.
2. Type the group it belongs to, such as Milk.
3. Choose One only where the customer picks one of the group, or Any of them where they may pick several.
4. Type the choice, such as Oat milk, and what it adds to the price. Leave the price empty where it adds nothing.
5. Press Add a choice again for the next one, then Add to the menu or Save.

At the counter, a thing with choices opens a sheet where they are picked. See Take a café order.

Change a price, or take something off

• Change, on a row, opens the same form. Press Save when done. A small message says Saved. Orders already taken keep what they sold at.
• Take off, on a row, takes the thing off the menu. It is kept under Taken off, and Put back returns it.

An order keeps its own copy of what it sold. Changing the menu changes no order already taken.

Step 6: give your staff their roles

A café gets three roles of its own, beside the seven every business has.

1. Open Settings, then Users and roles.
2. Press Invite someone, type their Email address, and choose Counter staff, Shift manager or Kitchen under Role.
3. Press Send invitation.

Who closes the day is worth deciding now. Until someone else holds Close the day, the owner or an admin closes it. Approving a close whose cash did not agree is a separate switch, Approve a cash difference, which the owner and an admin hold. See Close the day.

Each person signs in as themselves, so every order says who took it, and every close says who counted. The menu and the Counter settings stay with whoever holds Business settings. Invite your team has what the invited person sees.

Step 7: practise, then take a first order

Take one order from start to finish, so you have seen every step before a customer is waiting. The example is the sample café's: a latte with oat milk and an extra shot, and two butter croissants.

1. On Home, which is now Today, press New order.
2. Tap Latte. A sheet opens with its choices. Tick Extra shot, choose Oat milk, and press Add. The button carries the price: Add · ₹270.00.

3. Tap Butter croissant twice. Its tile shows 2.

   The order is at the right, with each line and its price. Total reads ₹550.00. Orzoni works the total out. Nobody types it.

   

4. Press Confirm order.

   The order's page opens and says Order 7 is confirmed and with the kitchen. One ticket is now in the kitchen's queue. In the sample it was the seventh order of the day. Yours carries its own number, starting from 1 each day.

5. Press Kitchen at the side. The ticket is under Waiting. Press Print ticket once, to try the kitchen's printer. Then press Start preparing, and when the order is made, Ready.
6. Go back to the order: press Orders, then the order's row.

7. Under Payment, with Cash chosen, type 300 in Amount and 500 in Cash handed over.

   The line under the boxes reads Change to give: ₹200.00. Left to pay after this: ₹250.00.

8. Press Record payment. Then choose UPI. Amount already holds the ₹250 that is left. Check the payment on your own phone, and press Record payment.

   The card now reads Paid in full.

9. Press Finish order.

   A small message says Order 7 is finished. The card In Tally reads Waiting for Tally, then In Tally, not checked yet, then In Tally, checked. Under that line it lists the sale and a receipt for each way it was paid, each with its own number in Tally.

10. Press Print the customer's slip if the customer wants one, and See the bill to look at the sales bill itself.
11. With a slip and a kitchen ticket printed and read, open Settings, Counter, and press Both printed correctly.

That is one order. Today now shows the sale under Sold today, and the money under Taken today.

Step 8: close your first day

When the counter shuts, press Close the day on Today. Count the drawer, type what is in it, and press Close. The day's sales and money are then kept as they stood.

Record the starting cash before the first sale of the day, and Orzoni can tell you what should be in the drawer at the end. Close the day has every step.

Mistakes you can undo

Where the line is

The pilot is counter service for one outlet. These are not part of it. Each has a plain way to work today, and What the café counter covers has the whole list.

What this does to your data and to Tally

• Kept in Orzoni: the outlet, the menu and its choices, every order, every kitchen ticket, every payment recorded, whatever was put right on a finished order, and each day's close. They are kept with the company's books on the web. See Where your data is kept.
• Sent to Tally: one sales bill for each finished order, with a receipt for each way it was paid. Where money was given back on a finished order, a credit note and a payment out, and for a payment recorded as the wrong kind, a transfer. Nothing else. Setting up the counter, building the menu and closing the day send nothing.
• Never changed in Tally: your ledgers, your items and your settings. Orzoni only chooses among the ledgers Tally has.
• Stock: something billed as a stock item leaves Tally's stock through its bill. Orzoni keeps no second count.

What next

• Practise on the training counter.
• Take a café order: the order screen in full, on a computer and on a phone.
• Use the kitchen queue.
• Collect a split payment.
• Café receipts, and how a sale reaches Tally.
• Put a finished order right.
• Close the day.