Prioritise orders with Square KDS
About prioritising orders
Prioritising orders and grouping identical items can increase your staff’s efficiency to prep orders faster with the relevant order information available for each kitchen station.
You can group identical orders from your Square Dashboard.
Ticket prioritisation moves entire tickets to the front of the queue. You can prioritise tickets manually by bumping a single ticket to the front or enable automatic prioritisation to move all prep-complete tickets forward on your Expo station. You can also drag and drop tickets to reorder them manually. Automatic prioritisation and manual reorder are separate Ticket sequence options so a device can use only one of them at a time. If you've enabled Staggered item prep times, items within a ticket may appear at different times based on their individual prep times — this is separate from prioritisation and does not affect queue order. Learn how to set up Square KDS.
Before you begin
Download the Square KDS app on a compatible Android tablet. You can prioritise order tickets from your Square KDS app using an Expeditor device. Learn how to set up device codes.
Prioritise a ticket
You can manually prioritise tickets and move orders to the front of the queue.
Open your Square KDS app from an Expeditor station.
Tap the up arrow ⬆️ icon at the bottom of the ticket you want to prioritise.
A cancel loader will appear to the left of the ‘Prioritising ticket’ message. You will have three seconds to cancel the prioritisation and keep the ticket in its current queue position.
Once the cancel loader timeout, a confirmation message will display on the screen that the order has been sent to all related prep stations.
Automatically move ready tickets to front
You can enable automatic ticket prioritisation on your Expo station. When turned on, tickets that are complete at all prep stations automatically move to the front of the Expo queue. This helps your expeditor focus on orders that are ready to serve.
This setting is available on Expo device profiles only and requires Square KDS v7.18.0 or later. Ticket sequence allows only one selection so you can’t use this setting and manual reorder at the same time.
Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Settings > Device management > Kitchen settings > Profiles.
Select your Expo device profile.
Go to Layout > Ticket sequence.
Select Move ready tickets to front.
Select Save.
Once enabled, tickets move to the front of the Expo queue when all assigned prep stations mark them as complete and the Expo station still has remaining work on the ticket.
Manually reorder tickets
You can use drag-and-drop to manually arrange tickets in any order on the Open tab. This lets kitchen staff rearrange the queue to match operational priorities during service.
Manual reorder works alongside Prioritise Order — prioritised tickets stay pinned at the top of the queue, and drag-and-drop reorders tickets within their priority band.
Ticket sequence allows one selection per device. Select Manual to drag tickets into a new order, or select Default so tickets follow the selected routing order. You can’t use Manual and Move ready tickets to front at the same time.
Manual reorder is available on supported versions of the Square KDS app. Make sure your Square KDS app is up to date.
Enable manual reorder
Open your Square KDS app and tap Settings > Layout Settings.
Under Ticket sequence, select Manual.
Tap Save.
To turn off manual reorder on a device, go to Settings > Layout and select Default under Ticket sequence.
Enable manual reorder from Square Dashboard
Use a device profile to turn on manual reorder for all KDS devices that use that profile.
Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Settings > Device management > Kitchen settings > Profiles.
Select your KDS device profile.
Go to Layout > Ticket sequence.
Select Manual.
Select Save.
To turn off manual reorder for the profile, select Default under Ticket sequence and select Save.
Note: The Ticket sequence setting is per-device. Turn it on from each KDS device or from the device profile in Square Dashboard. Whether a reordered ticket’s new position syncs to your other KDS devices depends on your Routing > Source and fulfilment settings.
Reorder tickets
On the open tab, long-press the top of the ticket you want to move.
Drag the ticket to a new position in the queue.
Release to drop the ticket in place.
The custom order persists until the ticket is completed. Manual reorder works across all layout styles (grid, rail, tile and cross-page).
Group identical items
You can combine identical items. Identical items, such as the same item with identical or no modifications, will be automatically combined together into a single line item on tickets.
Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Device management > Kitchen settings > Order settings.
Toggle on Combine identical items.
Click Save.