Set up coursing for checks
About coursing
Coursing helps you and your team manage the flow of checks — for both the front- and back-of-house. Coursing is designed to easily group items, add items, and let the kitchen know when to hold or start firing dishes.
Once you’ve enabled coursing and set up your custom-named courses, you can start adding courses to your checks. When you fire a course, your printer stations will automatically print the order ticket to your kitchen or bar and/or the order will appear on your kitchen displays. A held course won't be sent and printed until it's fired from the POS or, if your location allows it, from an Expo station on Square KDS.
During service, team members add items to courses and hold or fire courses from the Square Restaurants POS app. If you turn on Allow firing from Expo KDS, team members can also fire held courses from any Expo station on Square KDS at that location. Servers can still fire courses from the POS.
After coursing is enabled, you can choose how courses show on your Square KDS:
Show fired and held courses: Both held and fired courses will show in the ticket when the ticket is sent from the POS.
Only show fired courses: Only fired courses will appear as tickets. You can still view completed, fired, and upcoming held courses in a full ticket summary view.
Before you begin
Coursing affects how orders are sent to your kitchen displays or kitchen ticket printers. Before you set up coursing:
If you use a Square KDS, make sure you download the Square KDS app on an Android tablet.
If you use kitchen printers, make sure your printers are connected to Square. Learn how to connect a printer to your point of sale.
To fire courses from Square KDS, set up at least one Square KDS device as an Expo station.
Update your Square KDS app to the latest version on each Expo station.
Make sure you have a way to send coursed orders to your kitchen:
You can have coursed order tickets sent to a kitchen printer. Learn how to connect a printer.
You can have coursed order tickets sent to a kitchen display. Learn how to set up Square KDS.
Step 1: Create a mode for coursing
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Settings > Device Management > Modes.
Click Create.
Select Square for Restaurants Handled or Square for Restaurants Countertop then click Next.
Choose a template settings then click Next.
Type your mode name then click Save.
Scroll down and click Coursing.
Toggle ON Enable Course Management.
Set other Coursing preferences and click Save.
Step 2: Adjust your coursing format
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Settings > Device Management > Devices.
- Select your device then, next to Assigned mode, click Manage.
- Click Coursing.
- Choose between Show fired and held courses or Only show fired courses.
Step 3: Add items to courses
From your Square Point of Sale app in standard, quick service, full service, or bar mode or your Square Restaurants POS app:
Open your app.
Choose the table that you’d like to create a check for from the Floor plan screen, or tap New Bill from the Bills screen and choose your table.
Tap on the course in the cart to select it.
Add all applicable items to the course.
Tap Add Course to add additional courses if needed.
You can alter whether a course should be fired by tapping the fire icon or held by tapping the hold icon on the course.
Tap Send once you are ready to send your check to the kitchen.
If you are holding items in a check, you can fire them anytime. To do so, re-enter the check then tap the fire icon next to the wanted course and tap Send. A fire ticket will be sent to the kitchen.
Turn on firing from Expo KDS
Allow firing from Expo KDS is off by default. Turn it on for each location where you want Expo stations to fire held courses.
Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Settings > Device management > Service settings > Courses.
Select your location.
Under Hold/fire, turn on Allow firing from Expo KDS.
Select Save.
The setting applies to every Expo station at that location. If it hasn’t taken effect yet, refresh the Square KDS app on your Expo station.
To stop Expo stations from firing courses, turn off Allow firing from Expo KDS and select Save.
Fire held courses from Square KDS
From an Expo station in your Square KDS app:
Find the ticket with the held course.
Tap the held course header to start a 3-second countdown.
To cancel, tap the course header again before the countdown ends.
When the countdown ends, the whole course fires and is sent to your prep stations. Your POS shows the course as fired, along with the time and the Expo station that fired it.
Keep in mind:
Only Expo stations can fire courses. Prep stations can’t fire courses.
You can fire full courses only. You can’t fire individual items.
After a course fires, you can’t undo it.
You can’t fire courses while the Square KDS is offline.
While firing from Expo KDS is on, tapping items in a held course on an Expo station won’t complete them. Learn how to complete and recall orders with Square KDS.
View full ticket summary
If a table with coursing enabled has more than one ticket sent to the KDS, you may want to view all tickets for that table. To do so, from your Square KDS app, tap View all courses at the bottom of the ticket to view all tickets at the same table.
If a ticket has an item that was sent from the Square Point of Sale but is not showing in that ticket, you can open the full ticket summary view. The full ticket summary will display if:
More than one ticket is sent to the Square KDS (such as two straight fire tickets sent at different times)
More than one course is sent to the Square KDS at different times (such as sending an appetizer and then sending a main course at a different time)
A held course is sent from the Square Point of Sale — even if the held course does not show as a ticket on the Square KDS yet