It's helpful to understand the key components that make up a well-structured menu layout. We encourage that you familiarize yourself with each component and map out your menu before building it in the BackOffice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Categories
Categories keep your items organized on the frontend (in the Register), thereby simplifying the process of entering orders. They also help you manage related items (products) and view reporting in the BackOffice. For example, in addition to creating buttons on the Register for speedier, more organized order entry in the FrontOffice, you can also view category-based sales reports and map categories to print at specific registers (e.g., kitchen printers).
Example categories include:
- Sandwiches
- Salads
- Shirts
- Baskets
Note that categories are hierarchy-based. This means that you can nest a category under a parent category. For example, you may want to have two categories (e.g., Long-sleeve Shirts and Short-sleeve Shirts) that fall under a parent category "Shirts." In this example, the hierarchy would be as follows:
- Shirts [parent category]
-- Long-sleeve Shirts
-- Short-sleeve Shirts
We encourage you to make a list of all your parent and child categories/subcategories in advance before building your menu. For more information on categories and how to create them in the BackOffice, check out the Adding Categories article (with instructional video).
Departments
Unlike categories, Departments are not required in order to build your menu; however, if you want additional insight into your sales reports (more specifically, Departments Sales) you should set this up in advance. With Departments, you can track product and category sales by their respective department, for example, "Food," "Beverages," and "Merchandise." Note that at any time you can assign items and categories to a department either on the item level or in bulk via the Bulk Assign Tool, which allows you to bulk assign multiple items and categories to a Department. If you're building a menu from scratch, it is a best-practice to create your Departments first so that you can assign items to a Department when creating your item.
Modifier Sets
Modifier Sets allow you to select from options (e.g., extra cheese) to apply to items during the checkout process.
With Modifiers Sets, you can quickly select from a pre-configured set of modifications to customize the item. Example Modifier Sets include:
- Sauces
- Dressings
- Cheeses
- Toppings (add ons)
An important characteristic of Modifier Sets is that you can control how the user interacts with the available options via the Modifier Set settings. For example, you can control whether modifiers are required, single or multiple selections, and splittable. You can also enable conversational ordering on modifier sets to display the buttons "Add," "Extra", "No," "Lite," and "Side". We cover each of these settings in more detail in the Creating Modifier Sets article.
Items
An item, by its very nature, is basic. It has a name and a price, and from the Register, you can add it to the cart with a simple tap on the screen. However, an item can, and likely will be, more complex. It can have different variations with different pricing, and it can have multiple modifier sets with varying configurations, all of which are intended to give you full control of how the item is rung out in the Register. When planning your menu, take into account the following properties for an item:
- Should it be on the Speed Screen?
- What category is it assigned to? Should it be assigned to a Department now or later?
- Is it a standard-priced, unit-based, or custom-priced item?
- Are there variations of the item (e.g., small/large)? What are the price and SKU for the variants?
- Should the tax be added to the item or included in the item price?
- What modifier sets should be created for this item?
- Should this item be sent to a kitchen printer? And, if the category is set to print at the kitchen printer, should this item be excluded (not sent to the printer)?
For more information on the process of adding items in the BackOffice, check out the Adding Items article.