Guide · Kitchen

Kitchen stations — one order, three corners, three tickets.

A tandoor, a wok line and a bar do not want one shared ticket: each corner wants only the lines it actually cooks. Set the split once in the dashboard: name a station, tick the categories it covers, and choose who covers for it if its printer goes down. On each EasyKOT Desktop App, point a printer at that station. From then on, one fired round becomes one ticket per corner that has a printer bound to it, and anything nobody claimed still prints, on the whole-kitchen printer, so a category you haven't sorted yet is never late.

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Store-wide station list · printer binding per Desktop App · unclaimed lines always print somewhere

The walkthrough

Set it up in the dashboard, wire a printer on the Desktop App — five steps.

Before stations exist on a store, every fired round is one KOT on one kitchen printer: a starter, a main and a drink all on the same slip, whichever corner happens to be closest to the printer. That works for a small pass. It stops working the moment a tandoor, a wok line and a bar each want to see only their own lines: nobody at the bar wants to scan a full-page ticket for the one mocktail buried in it, and a cook who has to read past six other dishes to find the two that are theirs is exactly where a busy Saturday starts losing tickets on the floor. A station doesn't change how an order is rung up or fired on the Desktop App (the cashier's screen looks the same either way); it only changes which printer each line reaches once that fire happens.

Open Settings → Menu & kitchen → Kitchen stations in the dashboard, and add a station

Sign in to the owner dashboard and open Settings → Menu & kitchen. Kitchen stations is its own card, with the same explanation it shows on screen: "Split a table's order across the corners that cook it — the tandoor gets the kebabs, the bar gets the drinks." Press Add a station and name it after the corner it actually covers (Tandoor, Wok, Bar, Grill) up to twelve stations on one store. A brand-new store shows "No stations yet — every order prints as one ticket on the kitchen printer," and nothing changes until you add the first one.

Tick the categories this station cooks

Every station carries a Cooks these categories checklist pulled from your own menu, showing both parent categories and their children as "Parent › Child", for example Tandoor › Kebabs & Tikka. Tick a child to claim just that one, or tick the parent to claim everything under it in one go: ticking Tandoor claims Tandoor › Tandoori and Tandoor › Kebabs & Tikka without ticking either by hand, and a new child category added later under an already-claimed parent is covered automatically. A category can only belong to one station: the first station that claims it in your own list order owns it, so two stations can't quietly fight over the same dish.

Menu & kitchen in dashboard Settings, showing category layout previews, Menu language and a Tandoor station with Tandoor and Kebabs & Tikka categories selected

Menu & kitchen: Tandoor and its Kebabs & Tikka category are selected for the Tandoor station.

Decide what happens if its printer fails

Each station carries its own "If its printer fails, print at" choice: pick another station to cover for it, or leave the default, "Nowhere — tell me instead." This is a real decision worth making at setup rather than mid-service: a tandoor with no backup just waits in the print queue until someone notices, while a tandoor backed by the grill station's printer gets its tickets rerouted there automatically before the original fire’s 5-minute window ends. A ticket already older than 5 minutes waits for your choice instead. A station can't be its own backup. Removing a station also clears it from any other station that named it as a backup: there is no unlinking to do first.

On each Desktop App, point a printer at the station

Stations themselves are store-wide: every Desktop App agrees on the names and the categories, because the list lives on the store, not the device. But which physical printer answers for "Tandoor" is a choice made on each Desktop App, because the same tandoor socket is different on every machine. On that Desktop App, open Settings → Printers & KDS, edit (or add) the kitchen printer that sits nearest that corner, and pick the station from the new Kitchen station dropdown next to Role. Leave it on Whole kitchen (everything), the default, and that printer keeps taking every kitchen ticket, exactly as it always has.

The Desktop App's Printers & KDS edit screen for Counter Printer: Connection Network (Wi-Fi / Ethernet), 80mm paper, Role set to Both, and a Kitchen station dropdown reading Whole kitchen (everything) — the same control where a specific station like Tandoor is picked instead

Step 4: Settings → Printers & KDS → edit a printer → Kitchen station. Left on Whole kitchen (everything), this printer keeps every ticket.

Fire an order and watch the ticket split

Ring up a table with items from two different stations (say a starter from the tandoor and a drink from the bar) and fire the round. If both corners have a printer bound on this Desktop App, two tickets come off two rolls at the same moment: the tandoor's ticket carries only the tandoor lines, the bar's only the bar lines. Anything the Desktop App can't route (a category no station claims, or a station with no printer bound here) joins a single ticket on the whole-kitchen printer instead, so nothing is ever held back waiting for a corner that isn't wired up yet.

The Desktop App's Cashier screen right after firing a round: the Kitchen tab shows a badge of 1, and the order panel lists Chicken Shawarma and Butter Chicken (Full) both marked Sent 23:43 with a KOT fired confirmation, above a Settle · ₹504 button

Step 5: a round just fired. The Kitchen badge ticks up the moment the ticket (or tickets) reach the pass.

The station's name rides the ticket number, not a new one. A two-station round is still one KOT number, because it is one fire. Each printed ticket that number produces carries that same number with the station's name added after it: a cook holding two tickets from two corners can tell at a glance they belong to the same round.

One acknowledgement per fire, not per ticket. The round is marked printed on the shared order ledger exactly once, the moment every station's paper (and the leftover ticket, if there is one) has been queued. That is what lets a second Desktop App take over a printer mid-service without the kitchen getting the same round twice.

Every station shares the original 5-minute window. A ticket retries within 5 minutes of its fire. A backup set in step 3 can receive it once before that window ends, marked so the covering corner knows it wasn't originally theirs. The backup gets only the time left in that window. After 5 minutes, the ticket waits in the print queue for your choice: Print, Send to or Discard. The order stays saved.

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Station questions

Straight answers.

Do I need this if I only run one kitchen printer?

No. Skip Kitchen stations entirely. With none configured, a fired round still becomes exactly one ticket on your kitchen printer, byte-for-byte the same as before stations existed. There's nothing to turn off and nothing that changes underneath you; the split only starts once you add a first station.

What if a station has no printer bound on this particular Desktop App?

Nothing is withheld and nothing prints twice. That station's lines simply join the leftover ticket on the Desktop App's usual kitchen printer, the same one everything unclaimed goes to. That's the normal case for a Desktop App that only owns one physical printer, or hasn't had the second corner's socket wired up yet: it just keeps printing one combined ticket until you bind a printer to that station here too.

I forgot to tick a category on any station — where does it go?

It still prints, on that Desktop App's usual kitchen printer, right alongside everything else nobody claimed. A category you haven't sorted yet is never late to the kitchen: it's just not split out onto its own ticket yet. Tick it under any station whenever you get to it, and the next fire routes it there.

Does the tandoor station need setting up separately on every Desktop App?

The station itself (its name, its categories, its backup) is set once and synced to every Desktop App. What you repeat per Desktop App is only the physical wiring: on each Desktop App, open Settings → Printers & KDS and tell that machine which of its own printers, if any, is the Tandoor printer. A Desktop App with no tandoor printer at all just leaves that dropdown on Whole kitchen and lets the tandoor's lines fall through to its default.

What happens when a station's printer runs out of paper mid-service?

The same retry schedule as any other print job: the queue tries again after roughly 1, 2, 5, 15, 30 and 60 seconds, then every minute, within 5 minutes of the original fire. A configured backup can receive the ticket once before the next retry would run too late, with only the time left in that window. After 5 minutes, the ticket waits for Print, Send to or Discard in the queue. The order stays saved.

Does a two-station order print two different KOT numbers?

No. It's one fired round with one KOT number, same as always. Each ticket that number produces carries that same number with the station's name added after it, so a cook holding two tickets from two corners can tell at a glance they belong to the same round rather than two separate ones.

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