DineFlow manual · Chapter 3
POS, payments & shifts
Take an order, send it to the kitchen, and settle it in cash, M-Pesa, card or bank — with split bills, discounts, receipts and a cash drawer that balances at the end of the shift.
Open your shift
Payments go into the cashier’s shift (their cash drawer). Before taking money:
- 1Open Payments → Cashier shifts (app: More → My shift), or just press Charge on the POS — it asks.
- 2Count the float in your drawer and enter it as the opening float.
Take an order
- 1Open Orders → Restaurant POS and pick the order type: Dine-in, Takeaway, Pickup or Delivery.
- 2For dine-in, pick the table and number of guests.
- 3Tap dishes to add them. Dishes with sizes or add-ons open a picker — choose, add a kitchen note (“no onions”), set the quantity.
- 4Optionally attach a customer (search by name or phone, or add a new one) and a label (“Brian, red shirt”).
- 5Then choose what to do with the order:
| Button | What happens |
|---|---|
| Hold | Saves it as a held order to finish later (e.g. a tab). Find it under the clock icon. |
| Send to kitchen | Creates the order and sends tickets to each kitchen station. Pay later. |
| Charge | Creates the order and opens the payment window. If your restaurant takes payment first, it goes to the kitchen once paid. |
Adding to a running table? Open the order from the floor plan or the held/open list and add dishes — they go to the kitchen as a new round, so the chef only sees what’s new.
Take payment
| Method | How it works |
|---|---|
| Cash | Enter the cash given (or tap a quick amount). DineFlow shows the change and applies your cash rounding. |
| M-Pesa prompt | Enter the customer's number and send. They enter their PIN; the screen waits and turns green when Safaricom confirms. |
| M-Pesa code | Customer paid your Paybill / Till directly? Type the code from their message (e.g. TJG1A2B3C4) and DineFlow matches it. |
| Card | Enter the PDQ approval code. It counts once a manager verifies it on Reconciliation. |
| Bank transfer | Enter the transfer reference; verified the same way as cards. |
- Split bill — type an amount in Pay part and take several payments, in any mix of methods.
- Discount — percent or amount off the order, with a reason (needs the discount permission; recorded in the audit log).
- Receipt — print it, send a PDF, or reprint later from the order.
M-Pesa charges whole shillings, so a KES 1,250.40 balance is prompted as KES 1,250 and the difference is recorded as rounding.
Voids, cancellations & refunds
- Void an item from the order with a reason. If the kitchen hadn’t started it, its ingredients go back into stock; if it was already cooked, they’re written off as waste.
- Cancel an order with a reason — the kitchen sees it immediately.
- Refund a payment (fully or partly) with a reason. Cash refunds come out of your shift; M-Pesa and bank refunds record the reversal reference.
All of these need the right permission and are recorded with who did them and why.
Cash-up: close your shift
- 1During the shift, record pay-ins (cash added), pay-outs (e.g. buying ice) and safe drops, each with a reason.
- 2At the end, choose Cash up & close shift, count the drawer and enter the total.
- 3DineFlow shows Balanced, Over or Short against the expected cash, and the Z report: takings by method, orders paid, discounts and refunds.
- 4Print the Z report if you keep paper records.
Managers see every cashier’s shifts — open and closed, with variances — under Payments → Cashier shifts.