Resume and submit an open order

An open order is meant to be returned to: the customer orders, you send that to be prepared, and later they order more. Use this process to pick up an order that is already saved on the store, add to it or correct it, and settle it when the customer is ready to pay.

For example, a table orders drinks and starters, which you submit so the bar and kitchen can start on them. Twenty minutes later you continue the same order to add main courses, and later again to add coffees. A trade counter works the same way: a builder adds to their order through the morning and settles once at the end.

An open order can be resumed from any register, not only the one that started it.

Before you start

• Open orders must be enabled for the store. See configure open orders.
• The register needs a connection to continue an order it is not already holding.

Find and continue an open order

1. Go to the Orders list.
2. Set the Order type filter to Open. The Memo column identifies each order, so Table 12 is easy to pick out.
3. Open the order.
4. Select Continue order.

The order’s cart becomes the active cart, with its items and its customer, and a message confirms "Table 12" resumed. Whatever was on the register before is parked rather than discarded, so you can resume it later from the Carts list.

:::note If another register already has the order open, the cart shows a warning that it is open on another register. Both registers can still edit and submit, and each Submit sends that register’s whole cart, so the last one submitted is the version that stands. Work an order from one register at a time. :::

Add to the order or correct it

Lines already sent to the order are handled differently from lines you have just added.

• Lines sent to a fulfillment station group under a Previously submitted heading as soon as you add something new alongside them, with the time of the last submit, ordered most-progressed first. Each one shows how far the station has got with it: Requested, Preparing, Ready, or Completed. Submitted lines with no station carry no marker.
• A line you have added but not yet submitted offers Remove, which deletes it from the cart.
• A submitted line offers Cancel instead. The line stays on the order with a record of who cancelled it and when, moves to a muted Cancelled group at the bottom of the cart, and counts as zero in the totals. Select Restore on the line to put it back.

To send your changes, select Submit. Each submit creates fulfillments only for its own new lines that route to a station, so the coffees added at the end reach the station as their own ticket, and nothing already sent is prepared a second time. Lines with no station get their fulfillment at checkout instead.

A cancelled line is kept rather than deleted, so it stays on the order in Salesforce at a quantity of zero, with Cancelled At and Cancelled By User recording who cancelled it and when. Restoring the line clears both. A zero-quantity line is listed on the order record alongside the lines that were sold, so a cancellation is visible to whoever looks at the order later.

Return an item on an open order

An open order can carry a return alongside the items being sold. For example, a diner who bought a cookbook from the restaurant’s gift shop on an earlier visit can return it on their open food order, rather than in a separate sale. Food on an open order has not been paid for, so it is never returned: cancel the line instead.

A returned item is added as its own line at a negative quantity. Three things follow from that:

• The line is labeled Return in the cart, so it reads differently from the items being sold.
• Cart-level discounts skip it. A discount spread across the cart is shared between the lines being sold, and never reduces a return.
• It reduces what the customer pays. Checkout works off the net total, so the customer pays the difference, or is refunded it if the returned items are worth more than the items sold.

See item returns, refunds, and exchanges at POS for the return process itself.

Take payment

1. With the order on the register, start checkout from the cart.
2. Take payment as you would for any other sale. See POS checkout and payments.

Two exits sit side by side in a checkout that came from an open order:

• Submit & exit sends the cart, frees the register, and shows a message linking to the order record. Once any payment is taken, it becomes Save & exit, because nothing more can be submitted.
• Back leaves the sale on the register untouched, and stays available even after a browser reload.

Park cart is not offered in a checkout that is exiting an open order, because the sale is already saved on the store.

Cancel an open order

:::warning Cancelling is not the same as deleting. The order is kept with a status of Cancelled for the audit trail, and the items that were already prepared stay recorded against it. :::

1. Continue the order so it is on the register.
2. Open Order actions.
3. Select Cancel and confirm.

The order no longer appears under the Open filter, and the register clears to a fresh cart.

Once any payment is taken, the order is no longer open, even if only part of it is paid. It leaves the Open filter and can’t be continued or added to, and any balance is collected with Make payment. From then on it behaves like any other order, including for returns and refunds.