Organise with categories

A category is a section you group products into — Hot Drinks, Starters, Red Wines. Categories are reusable: you create one once and place it on any menu. Rename a category and the change shows everywhere it is used.

Open Categories

From the sidebar, open Items → Categories. You see your categories in the order they will appear, with archived ones listed separately below.

Create a category

1. 1

   Click Add category

   The button opens a small form.

2. 2

   Name it

   Give it a clear section name, like "Hot Drinks".

3. 3

   Choose a parent (optional)

   Leave the parent blank to make it a top-level category. Pick a parent to nest it underneath as a subcategory. Subcategories go one level deep.

4. 4

   Add category

   The category is created and ready to use on your menus.

Renaming and ordering

Click a category to open it and edit its name inline. Because categories are shared, renaming one updates every menu that uses it.

Drag a category by its handle to change the order it appears in. Subcategories sort within their parent. The order you set here is the order staff and customers see — on this page, on your menus, and on the till and card machine, which pick it up on their next menu sync. If a device still shows the old order, check it is online and let it sync; you do not need to re-save anything.

How categories show on menus and devices

When you build a menu you arrange it into groups, and those groups are your categories. The same category can appear on several menus. A product placed on a menu sits inside one category on that menu; you choose which when you add the product. See Build a menu and Create a product.

Move products into a different category

You do not have to open products one at a time. From Items → Products, tick the ones you want, then choose Edit → Move to a category.

1. 1

   Pick the products

   Tick them in the list. The search box and filters narrow things down first — filtering by a category is the quickest way to grab everything currently filed in the wrong place.

2. 2

   Choose which menu

   Every menu they're on is the default and is usually what you want. Pick a single menu instead if a product should stay where it is on your other menus — a wine that is a Starter on the lunch menu and a Red Wine on the dinner menu, say.

3. 3

   Choose the new category

   Pick the category to move them into, or Uncategorized to take them out of a category without putting them in another one. Then click Move.

You get a short summary of what happened — how many moved, how many were already in that category, and how many were left alone.

Choose how the till asks for modifiers

Open a category and use the Modifier flow card to choose how the till asks for modifiers (Mixer, Garnish, Sauce…) on every product in that category. Pick one of the pictures:

• Pop-up list — today's pop-up, one group after another. This is what a category uses until you pick something else.
• Stepper tabs — the pop-up with a tab for each group across the top.
• Full-width sheet — a sheet slides up over the whole till.
• Button grid — every group on one screen as colour-coded buttons.
• Tray under the menu — options open under the product buttons, so the basket stays in view.
• Column sheet — a sheet rises from the bottom with one column per group.

It saves as soon as you click, and the till preview beside it shows the choice with a real product — pick another one from Preview with.

Ask in this order lists every modifier group your products in this category use. Use the arrows to set the order the till asks in; a product only shows the groups it has. Until you move one, each product keeps asking in its own order. Clear order goes back to that.

Corner-key groups (like Ice) stay in the till's bottom-left corner and are never part of the flow — they are listed under In the corner, and you change them on the modifier itself. Products that override lists any product that has its own flow or order; those are set on the product page.

A subcategory follows its parent's flow and order while Same as … is on. Turn it off to give the subcategory its own.

Set up for reports

Reports can split starters from mains, and drinks from food, only when they know which is which. When some of your products aren't set yet, the Categories page says so at the top, for example "Course isn't set for 14 items, so reports can't split starters from mains". You can fix both right there:

• Course for reports. Pick a course for each category, such as Starters for your starters. It is for reports only and doesn't change the kitchen: the kitchen fires by each product's own Course, set on the product. A product's own course wins over its category's in reports. You can also set it on the category's own page.
• These categories are drinks. Tick the categories that hold drinks and click the button. Their products that aren't set yet become drinks. Anything already set to food stays food. A very large catalogue may need a second click; the page tells you when.

The box disappears once everything is set.

Archiving and deleting

Archive a category to take it out of use without losing it; Restore it later. Delete removes it permanently and cannot be undone, so archive first if you might want it back.

What's next

• Build a menu using your categories as groups.
• Create a product and place it in a category.
• Per-menu price override if one product needs a different price on one menu.