Kitchen routing

Multi-station kitchen routing lets Bitta Retail POS send one category or item to several preparation stations at once, for example a grill, a bar and a packing station, each with its own output form, priority and copy count. Routes are kept on the POS Kitchen Routes page and can apply to the whole company, one store or one terminal. This page covers the routing model; what prints and when is covered in Kitchen tickets and labels.

Prerequisites

• The BAA POS - Admin or BAA POS - Full permission set.
• Kitchen output turned on: Kitchen Printing on the register profile, Send to Kitchen on the fulfillment methods, and Kitchen Labels Enabled on the categories. Routing decides where output goes, not whether a line prints. See Kitchen tickets and labels.

Set up kitchen routes

1. Create one active print destination per physical station, with Purpose Kitchen Label, on the POS Print Destinations page. A destination can be limited to a store or a terminal. See Receipt printers.

2. Search for POS Kitchen Routes, or choose Kitchen Routes on POS Categories, POS Items or the POS Item Card. From a print destination, Kitchen Routes shows every category and item routed to it. Add one line per station:

   Field	What it does
   Source Type	Category or Item.
   Source Code	The POS category code or POS item number.
   Store Code	The store scope. Leave blank for a company route.
   Terminal ID	The terminal scope. Leave blank for a company or store route. A terminal route needs a Store Code.
   Destination Code	The Kitchen Label destination that represents the station.
   Active	Whether the route takes part in resolution. On by default.
   Priority	The attempt order, 100 by default. Every resolved station is attempted; priority is not failover.
   Output Mode	Both, Labels or Tickets: what this station receives.
   Copies	0 to 20. Zero inherits the item, category or destination copies.

A route is checked when you save it. For example, a destination that belongs to another store is refused with "Kitchen print destination ... belongs to store ... and cannot be used by a route for store ...".

3. For items that need their own stations, open the POS Item Card. On the Kitchen Routing FastTab, set Kitchen Route Mode to Add or Replace, then choose Kitchen Routes and add the item's lines.

4. Open the register profile and choose Validate. Routing problems, such as a Replace item without an active route, are reported there, and a profile with Kitchen Printing on cannot be assigned to a terminal whose routing is not ready. When everything is in order, the message reads "The register profile is ready."

Kitchen Route Mode

Each POS item decides how its own routes combine with its category's routes.

Kitchen Route Mode	Where the item's output goes
Legacy	The default. If the item has a Compatibility Destination, output goes only there. Otherwise the item follows its category.
Inherit	The category's routes, unchanged.
Add	The item's routes plus the category's routes. Where both route to the same station, the item's route wins.
Replace	Only the item's routes. If no active item route applies to the sale's store and terminal, the line fails with "POS Item ... uses Kitchen Route Mode Replace, but no active item route applies to store ... and terminal ...".

Item route lines are allowed only in Add and Replace mode. To switch an item back to Legacy or Inherit, delete its route lines first.

A category resolves its stations in this order: its routes for the applicable scope, then its Kitchen Destination Code, then the default Kitchen Label destination for the store or terminal.

Scope: terminal, store, company

Routes are grouped into buckets by scope. For each source, Bitta Retail POS looks for active routes at the terminal scope first, then the store scope, then the company scope, and uses the first bucket that has any. That bucket replaces the broader ones; scopes are never combined.

For example, if the DEMO-COLD category has company routes to two stations and one terminal route to a third, sales on that terminal go only to the third station. Sales on every other terminal go to the two company stations.

Copies and output form

For each resolved station, the number of copies is the first value above zero in this order: a reprint's Copies Override, the route's Copies, the item's Compatibility Copies, the category's Kitchen Label Copies, then the destination's Default Copies. The result must be from 1 to 20.

A route's Output Mode limits what the station gets. When you reprint with Output set to Labels or Tickets, stations whose route allows that form receive it and the rest are skipped.

Retry and reprint after a routing change

• Retry on a failed copy re-sends the frozen job to the same station and does not read the new routes. A failure recorded before any copy was created (for example, no station could be resolved) is rebuilt from the current routes.
• Reprint Kitchen Output builds new jobs from the current routes, so use it when you changed routing and want a sale's output to follow the new map.

Both are described in Kitchen tickets and labels. For the per-copy history, run the POS Kitchen Print Audit report from All POS reports.

What's next

Set up points, visit stamps, tiers and cashback: Loyalty programs.