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Ask a questionRestaurant owners, comparing notes
Questions about running a restaurant on Get Menu, answered by the team and kept public so the next person finds them. Also see the help centre.
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What is the smallest useful way to start?Menu on your ordering page, one tablet on the counter, cash only, and a shift opened in the morning and closed at night. Nothing else. That gives you what you sold, who sold it, and whether the drawer AnsweredIs a cloud based POS safe when my internet is not?Yes, because the device does not wait for us to make a sale. The sale is written on the device first and sent second, so it survives even if the app closes a moment later, and everything goes up on it AnsweredWill my customers notice anything when I start using the counter?Mostly that they get a receipt and that the queue moves faster. The menu and prices they see do not change, because the counter sells from the same menu as your page. If you run a loyalty programme, c AnsweredHow is this different from an online food ordering and delivery platform like the big apps?The page is yours. Customers order on your own address, the order comes to you on WhatsApp from your own number, and they pay you cash or on your card machine when the food arrives, with no commission AnsweredHow do I know the reports are right?Because they are built from the same sales you rang up, and you can check them by hand. Reports, Shifts and the POS shows each shift with its Z number, what it took, the cash, and how far the drawer w AnsweredDo I have to sign a contract?No. Plans run month to month, so stopping means your page pauses at the end of the period you have paid for. The POS is different only because it is bought a year at a time: you pay for the year, and AnsweredI already pay for a POS. Why would I move?Only for a reason you can name. The usual ones are that your counter and your online orders live in two systems that never agree, that you pay per device or per user, or that your menu has to be typed AnsweredWhat should I ask any restaurant POS company before I sign?Five things. What does it cost in year two, not year one. Is the price per device or per restaurant. What happens on the day my internet fails. Can I get my sales out as a spreadsheet whenever I want. AnsweredWhat stops a cashier ringing up a sale and pocketing the cash?Several small things that add up. Every sale carries the name of whoever was signed in. Giving money back, cancelling a sale that has already printed and taking money out of the drawer all need a mana AnsweredIs Get Menu a full restaurant management system, or only online ordering?It has grown into the whole restaurant. The ordering page and the WhatsApp messages are where it started. Today the same account also runs the POS at the counter, tables with a drawn floor plan and a AnsweredWhat happens to my numbers if I stop using you?Take them with you before you go. Orders download as a CSV from the orders board, POS sales and shifts download from Reports, hours download from the hours report, and monthly statements come as PDF a AnsweredIs the POS a different system from my online orders, or the same one?The same one. One menu, one set of prices, one stock count, one customer list and one set of reports, with the counter as another way of taking an order. That is why a dish that sells out at the count AnsweredDo I sign up separately for WhatsApp, stock and the POS, or is it one account?One account. Signing up gives you the ordering page, the dashboard and every feature your plan includes, and WhatsApp is linked from inside it by scanning a QR code under Settings → WhatsApp. Stock, r AnsweredWhat is the difference between restaurant management software and a POS?A POS takes the sale at the counter. Restaurant management software is everything around it: the menu, the prices, stock, staff, reports, customers and your ordering page. Here they are the same syste AnsweredWill I still need my spreadsheet for staff hours?No. People clock in and out on the counter with the same four numbers they sign in with, and Reports, Hours worked gives you every stretch, breaks taken off, and a total per person for the dates you c AnsweredWhat is the difference between being a channel partner and an affiliate?An affiliate introduces restaurants and is paid for the introduction; the restaurant is our customer and pays us. A channel partner holds the relationship — they set what their restaurants pay, they a AnsweredOne of my restaurants has not claimed its account. What should I do?Chase the invite — until it is claimed, nobody on their side can sign in, and the account sits waiting. Restaurants onboarded by a partner are given a much shorter runway than an ordinary self-serve t AnsweredIf I set a restaurant up for them before they claim it, what can I see?Everything in the dashboard while it is unclaimed, which is what setting it up means and why their menu and hours are already there when they arrive. The moment they accept the invite and choose a pas AnsweredWhere do the prices on a partner's own website come from?The same prices set in the portal's Pricing tab — the ones that actually bill the restaurant. There is deliberately no second price list attached to the website, because two lists eventually disagree AnsweredHow does the affiliate programme work?You get a link, you share it, and a restaurant that signs up through it is attributed to you. You are paid for restaurants that actually go on to pay us. There is a portal where you see your links, wh AnsweredAs a channel partner, do I have to buy licences up front?No. Nothing is bought in bulk, there is no minimum, no commitment and no stock to carry. Your partner price is simply a price we have given YOU rather than the public one, and it is the same whether y AnsweredDoes the POS mean more work for my kitchen?Less, if you let it. Orders from the counter, from your ordering page and from the delivery apps all arrive on the same kitchen screen, so the kitchen watches one screen instead of a printer, a tablet AnsweredDo channel partners get a website of their own?Yes, free, and it takes about a minute. Your portal has a Your website screen: enter your brand name, pick a short web address and give your WhatsApp number, and you have a live page carrying your nam AnsweredCan I speak to a person before I decide?Yes. Write to hello@getmenu.ae or message us on WhatsApp at +971 54 582 2608 and ask whatever you like, including the awkward questions. You can also start a trial without a card and look around first AnsweredCan I test it in one branch before rolling it out everywhere?Yes, and please do. Each branch is its own restaurant here, so one can run the counter while the others carry on exactly as they are. A month in one branch tells you what your staff actually struggle Answered
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