📄🎥 An Introduction to Tables

Overview

Table Accounts are used for instances where a Transaction is left open for a period of time while Products can be added over the course of that time and then a Payment is Tendered and the transaction is Finalized.

Table Accounts can be of two types - Standard Table Account & Bistro Table Account. A Standard Table account is created in common dining scenarios where customers are seated and payments are usually processed at the end of the dining experience. 

Conversely, Bistro Table Account is a system where the customers from the same table make separate orders and payments and payments are typically processed immediately after ordering.

Within SmartPOS, there are a variety of methods for processing Transactions to these temporary Accounts such as Tables and Bar Tabs in different Food & Beverage Service environments which will be covered in this article.

Prerequisites 

• To access SmartPOS Tables and Tabs features, the applicable Operator Privileges   will need to be enabled 

• Operator Maintenance 'Till Privileges' Tab

• All "Tables" Flag 

Tables & Tabs (Table Accounts) Explained

• Temporary Accounts within SmartPOS are created by Opening a Table

• The customers who are seated in the Table will be temporary "account holders" for the system until their Transaction/s have been processed and the Table is Closed

• This type of temporary account will either be a Standard Table Account or a Bistro Table Account as discussed in the article overview

Standard Table Account

• The Standard Table Account Function is used for Restaurants, Cafés, and Bar Tabs where the temporary account can be left running for a period of time and Products can be added over that period

• When using a Standard Table Account, an Operator can first Begin the table, Enter the products to be sold, and then Save the table

• The Table can then be Reopened to add more products and make adjustments to the Transaction

• When customers request a bill, the Operator can Print it for them, Tender a Payment, and Finalize the Transaction

• Standard Table Accounts also allows split billing so that customers can tender their payments separately

• The Tables can either be viewed on Table Map or Table List

• More information on this type of Table Account is covered in the next article

Bistro Table Account (Version 4.7 and below)

• The Bistro Table Account Function is used in a Bistro environment where customers generally Tender Payment and Finalize the Transaction when ordering

• This type of account allows Operators to open a 'table' and process multiple Transactions to the same Table order (a number is typically assigned which the guest will display prominently on the table; alternatively the guest may be given a pager which corresponds to the assigned Table number)

• However,  only one kitchen printer docket prints consolidating all of the orders processed for the same Table number

• In this type of account, payments need to be done beforehand otherwise the system will not allow Closing the Transaction

• An example of a Bistro Table Account is shown below where three transactions are processed for the same Table 

• Here even though three separate payments have been processed, the Table will combine all of them and a subtotal is displayed along with the individual payments

• Customers can also receive individual Transaction Receipts after each individual payment