Can I Take Orders Via Email Or Fax?

We do not support, nor encourage, an email, fax or desktop solution for taking orders, and there are many good reasons why we chose to provide an app instead. Shortly put, your online sales will be low if you take orders without the app we provide.

One way to increase your business is to provide existing customers a truly great service so that they will order again and again. The online ordering experience is part of that service. If you can accept and confirm orders within seconds plus giving an individual delivery / pickup time, your customers will be delighted.

In order to achieve an almost real-time reaction by the restaurant, we first need to assure your client that the restaurant is ready to take the order and to make some noise once a new order arrives. Traditionally, the telephone is assuring the client that the restaurant is ready to take the order. If you do not pick-up the phone in a timely manner people just call somewhere else, right? Simple.

Using a mobile app is ideal for this purpose of replicating what was appreciated by the clients on phone orders and add the benefits of online handling on top. You just need an affordable device for order-taking, one that is easy to set up and use, without too much hassle.

Minimal requests for an order-taking tablet/smartphone are:

• charging while on
• good wi-fi signal (if you want to connect through a wi-fi hotspot)
• loud speaker
• android v 4.1 or later (with Google Play supported)
• decent materials (meaning not to fall apart after 2 months of usage and get a broken charger socket, displaced screen, etc).

What Does The Message "We're Currently Not Taking Orders Online Right Now..." Mean?

Our system checks every few minutes if it still has a connection with your phone / tablet. In case it is not possible to establish a connection, you can not receive orders so we show this message to your customer. We thought this would be a better solution than having customers place orders without being served.

Please check to see if you are logged in the order-taking app on your mobile device, and if you have an active data plan or wi-fi connection. Also make sure you don’t have any app blocker or battery-saving applications installed.

How Can Clients Order On Facebook Using The Mobile Device?

The issue is that when you open the Facebook mobile app, you will not be able to see the apps/buttons/tabs you have installed on your Facebook page. The reason is that Facebook mobile does not allow any third party apps to be shown on mobiles. This does not apply only to Get Connect, but also to any other applications made for Facebook.

However, we provide a smart link for posting on Facebook. You may use this link over the "Shop Now" call to action on your Facebook page, or to create pinned posts about ordering. This smart link detects the device type and serves the menu in the appropriate format, including mobile.

You can find your smart link along with step by step visual instructions in your admin area, under Publishing → Facebook. You will unlock Facebook Sharing and Shop Now as soon as you publish the app on Facebook.

Is The System Available In Other Languages ?

Yes. the system is already available in most used languages and more are added every month by our community of contributors.

If you didn't find your language available in the admin area settings, it is possible to speed its release by translating some parts in our translation module.

How Can I Print Restaurant Receipts For My Online Orders?

1. Printing orders with the Order Taking App

Our order taking app can be connected to multiple Epson and Star thermal printers.

Thermal printers are widely used in restaurants. They are robust, fast, require no toner change and paper costs are close to nothing. Epson and Star are leading manufacturers in this segment.

The app supports three types of printer connection:

• LAN (Ethernet) - the thermal printer is connected by network cable to a WiFi router and accesses the same WiFi network as the order taking device does;
• WLAN (WiFi) - the thermal printer connects wirelessly to the same WiFi network that’s used by the order taking device;
• Bluetooth - the thermal printer connects directly to the order taking device via Bluetooth.

To add a printer, open the order taking app and select Thermal printer from the menu. The app will guide you through adding a LAN, WiFi or Bluetooth printer.

• When adding a LAN / WiFi printer, double check that the printer and your order taking device are connected to the same network.
• When adding a Bluetooth printer, first pair the printer with the device and then add the printer in the app.

In case you have multiple working stations, you can add several printers and have your orders printed on all of them. The iOS version of the Order Taking App supports adding multiple printers with different connectivity types (like shown in the image below). On Android, all your printers must have the same connectivity type (all LAN/WiFI or all Bluetooth).

Furthermore, you can go in the Admin Panel and decide exactly what to be printed on each printer: which template, number of copies and language. For text-only printers you will be limited to the text-only receipt template. But for printers that support image printing, you can create custom restaurant receipts and assign them as needed per printers.

To benefit from Custom Printing, you need:

Restaurant Order Taking App version: 1.2.21 for Android, 1.1.40 for iPhone/iPad - or higher.

Software version of your phone or tablet: 4.4 or higher for Android, 9.0 or higher for iOS;

A compatible thermal printer that supports image printing.

2. Recommended printers

We’ve looked at the most popular printers used by our clients and picked the ones that perform best. All the printers below are reliable, easy to install and support image printing. Moreover, we have them in our office for testing and are the first ones we debug in case of issues. So if you want to buy a thermal printer to connect to the order taking app, we highly recommend one from this list.

When buying a printer, pay close attention to its characteristics, as the name alone can be deceiving. There are several models under the same name, and usually they differ only by color and interface (how they are able to connect).

For example, EPSON TM-T20II is a series with 2 models. You need to buy the one with Ethernet, if you wish to connect it to the order taking app. The USB + Serial model would be completely useless.

RECOMMENDED

Printer CONNECTIVITY IMAGE PRINTING

EPSON TM-T20II

Model: Ethernet

Ethernet Ok

EPSON TM-T82

Ethernet Ok

EPSON TM-T82II

Ethernet, WiFi with dongle Ok

EPSON TM-T88V

Ethernet, WiFi Ok

STAR TSP143III

Models: Ethernet (LAN) or Wi-Fi (WLAN)

Ethernet / WiFi Ok

STAR TSP654

Model: Ethernet (LAN)

Ethernet Ok

Other supported printers

These printers work ok and we actively support them as well:

EPSON TM-m30, models: Ethernet only, Ethernet + Bluetooth, Ethernet + WiFi

EPSON TM-T20, model: Ethernet

EPSON TM-T20III, model: Ethernet

EPSON TM-T70II, model: Ethernet, WiFi

EPSON TM-T88IV, model: Ethernet

EPSON TM-T82III, model: Ethernet

EPSON TM-T82IIIL, model: Ethernet

EPSON TM-T88VI, all models have Ethernet built-in and WiFi with dongle

STAR TSP143

Why we don’t recommend Bluetooth

Although the order taking app allows you to connect a thermal printer via Bluetooth, we don’t recommend it. Here’s why:

Discovering the printer via Bluetooth is often times rather difficult. Also, for many printers, once the connection is lost, it cannot be re-established automatically;

Bluetooth has a range of maximum 10 meters and is prone to interferences from other EM waves (like microwave oven or some WiFi networks);

We have encountered size limitations with printers from different manufacturers (like Star TSP650II).

Why we no longer support USB

USB connection proved to be quite unreliable, that’s why we’ve decided to remove it from the Order Taking App. It turns out that it’s difficult to keep printing and charging at the same time:

If the device is not charging, the Android system puts the device to sleep mode, so orders might not come through properly;

When the cable is moved, the Android system may assign a new USB port. The connectivity to the printer is lost, so the device and the printer need to be repaired. In practice, repairing needs to be done several times a day.

Why we no longer support SMS printing

We also had to cut out SMS printing. Some orders are long enough to exceed the SMS limit. The end result is that the printout does not contain all items.