Skip to content
Tuckly

Order management

An order management screen built for the Friday night rush

Every order placed through your online ordering system lands on one screen with an alert, the items, the customer's notes and a status your team moves forward. Delivery, pickup and table orders sit in the same list, so nobody checks three places to find out what the kitchen owes.

Create your ordering website Book a demo
  • Alert when a new order arrives
  • Accept with a preparation time the customer can plan around
  • Statuses from new to ready to handed over
  • Customer name, number and notes on every order

Illustrative view.

Four things the screen has to do well, every shift

  • Make a new order impossible to miss

    A new order triggers an alert on the screen. The person running the pass sees it without checking, which matters more at 8:15pm than at 3pm.

  • Accept with a time, not a guess

    Each order is accepted with a preparation time. On a quiet Tuesday that might be 15 minutes; on a Friday with twelve tickets up, 40. The customer sees the time you chose.

  • Statuses that mean something in the kitchen

    New, preparing, ready, and out for delivery or collected. Moving an order forward is one tap, and the customer-facing status follows.

  • Contact details right there

    When the customer's gate is locked or the address is a landmark, the number is on the order. No searching a marketplace dashboard for a masked line.

The life of an order on the screen

From the moment a customer pays to the moment the bag leaves, this is what the team sees and does.

  1. 1

    An order arrives

    It appears in the New column with an alert. The card shows the order type (delivery, pickup or table number), the items with their sizes and add-ons, the customer's notes, and whether it is paid. Orders are not accepted automatically; someone looks at it first.

  2. 2

    Accept and set a preparation time

    Tap accept and choose how long it will take. The time should reflect what is on the pass right now. If a group of twenty has just sat down, say 45 minutes rather than the usual 20; a customer told 45 is calmer than a customer told 20 who waits 45.

  3. 3

    Move it to preparing

    The kitchen works the ticket. The order sits in Preparing alongside the table orders and the pickups, so one person can see the whole load without asking.

  4. 4

    Mark it ready

    For a pickup order, the customer knows to come in. For delivery, the order is ready for the rider: request a Porter rider where the service runs, or assign one of your own. For dine-in, it goes to the table as usual.

  5. 5

    Hand it over

    Once the bag leaves with the rider or the customer collects, mark the order complete. The order, with the customer's details, stays in your account.

  6. 6

    Fix problems from the same screen

    A customer calls to say they are stuck in traffic and will collect instead: switch the order from delivery to pickup. Someone adds a note after ordering: the number is on the card. The screen is where the shift gets run, not just where orders are read.

What is on every order card

The screen is designed so the person at the pass never has to open a second view to find out what is going on.

Fulfilment is decided per order, on the card

Delivery is not a global setting you pick once. Each order shows the fulfilment options available to you, and the one you choose can change until the order leaves.

  • Porter rider request where Porter operates; automated booking and live tracking are pending technical validation, so the Porter page says what is live
  • Your own rider assigned by name, with the order details on their phone; see self-delivery
  • Switch a delivery to pickup when the customer decides to collect
  • Pickup orders show the ready time so the counter knows who is due when
How delivery management works
Illustrative view.

Running service from one screen: a practical setup

The screen is simple. Making it work on the busiest night of the week is about habits as much as software. These are the ones that hold up.

Decide who owns the screen on each shift

One person accepts orders and sets preparation times. If it is everyone’s job, it is nobody’s, and the first order on a Friday sits in New for six minutes while two people assume the other has it. Write the name on the shift rota next to the pass.

Set preparation times for the kitchen you have right now

The preparation time is a promise to the customer. Base it on how many tickets are up, not on how long the dish takes on an empty pass. A rule of thumb many kitchens use: count the tickets, add the dish time, round up to the next five minutes. Customers rarely complain about an honest 40; they complain about a 20 that takes 40.

Keep delivery, pickup and dine-in in one list

The temptation is to run the website orders on one device and the tables on another. One list is better. The kitchen sees the total load, pickups are not forgotten behind table service, and the counter can tell a walk-in customer honestly how long takeaway will take.

Mark ready when it is ready, not when it is plated

For pickup orders, “ready” tells the customer to come in. If the order is marked ready while the naan is still in the tandoor, the customer stands at the counter for five minutes and remembers it. For delivery, “ready” is the cue to request or assign the rider; requesting too early leaves a rider waiting, and that costs you either goodwill or money.

Use the notes

Customers type notes because they matter to them. “Extra spicy” and “no coriander” are the easy ones. “Gate code 4421” and “call on arrival, baby sleeping” are the ones that save a delivery. Read the note before accepting, not after the rider has left.

Plan for the rush, not the average

A rush is when the screen earns its keep and when habits break. Agree in advance what you do when the pass is full: set longer preparation times rather than guessing, and if you need to stop taking orders altogether, ask us how that is handled in your setup before the night you need it.

Keep a backup connection

The screen needs internet. A phone hotspot kept charged behind the counter is the cheapest insurance there is. Orders placed while the screen is offline appear as soon as it reconnects, but the alert you missed is the one the customer is waiting on.

Review the week’s orders

Completed orders stay in your account with the customer’s details. Once a week, look at which items were ordered most, which notes kept recurring, and which preparation times were wrong. That is the start of running the direct channel well, and it needs no dashboard, only ten minutes.

Questions about managing orders

Where should the screen live during service?

Wherever the person who decides preparation times stands. In most single-location restaurants that is the pass or the counter, on a tablet or an old laptop. The alert needs to be heard over a kitchen, so test the volume at 8pm, not at opening.

What happens if nobody accepts an order?

The order stays in New with the alert until someone acts on it. It is not auto-accepted, so a customer is never promised food nobody has seen. Part of setup is agreeing who owns the screen on each shift.

Can more than one person use it at once?

The screen is a web page, so it can be open on more than one device at once: the counter accepting and setting times, the kitchen marking ready. If you want separate roles or permissions for each, ask us how that is handled.

Can I see past orders and the customer's history?

Completed orders and their customer details stay in your account. Reporting beyond that, such as dashboards or exports for marketing, is something to ask us about rather than assume.

Does it work with my POS so orders are not retyped?

It depends on the POS. Each system in the integrations directory has a status: what syncs today, what is in development, and where to talk to us first. We do not list an integration as live because the vendor publishes an API.

What if the internet drops?

The screen needs a connection to receive orders, as does any online ordering tool. A phone hotspot as a backup is a cheap precaution; the ordering page itself keeps taking orders, and they appear when the screen reconnects.

Is this a POS ordering system?

No. A POS ordering system records sales at the counter and runs the till. This is the order screen of an online ordering system: it takes the orders placed on your website and QR codes. Where a POS integration exists, direct orders can be pushed into the POS; the integrations directory shows the status for each system.

Run service from one screen

Set up your menu and fulfilment, put a tablet at the pass, and stop reading orders off three different devices.

Create your ordering website Book a demo

Gateway fees, delivery and taxes are separate. Pricing

Last reviewed 29 October 2026.

Get started

Create your ordering website

Tell us about your restaurant. We set up your online ordering system and help with your menu and delivery rules. No commission on direct orders.

What do you want to offer?

We reply by email. No spam.