Get Started with Square KDS for Android

Square KDS displays items based on the categories you assign. To assign categories:

1. Open Square KDS and tap ≡ to open the menu.
2. Tap the gear icon to view your settings.
3. Tap Items on Tickets.
4. Toggle on the categories that you want to display.

Learn more about creating item categories.

With Square KDS, you can toggle different layouts based on your preferred text size and the number of tickets you want displayed. To adjust your layout settings:

1. 1. Open Square KDS and tap ≡ to open the menu.
2. Tap the gear icon to view your settings.
3. Tap Layout.
4. Select your text size.
5. Select your preferred layout.

To enable alerts and timers on your display:

1. Open Square KDS and tap ≡ to open the menu.
2. Tap the gear icon to view your settings.
3. Tap Timer & Alerts.
4. Select the timeframe for yellow and red alerts.

Kitchen Categories streamline food prep for your kitchen staff by automatically routing specific items to specified kitchen prep stations. Dining Options help route your orders to the right place in the kitchen based on dine-in, takeaway and/or delivery. Dining Option filtering allows kitchen staff to route tickets or items with specific Dining Options – as entered on POS orders – to your KDS screen (i.e. Dine-In, Takeaway, etc.). Review our setup instructions for routing orders with Square KDS.

Set up your KDS to filter which POS devices (Square Point of Sale or Square for Restaurants) show incoming tickets.

1. Open Square KDS and tap ≡ to open the menu.
2. Tap the gear icon to view your settings, then tap Orders.
3. Toggle on View Point of Sale Orders.
4. Tap Edit next to ‘Receive orders from all points of sale’.
5. Select which points of sale send orders to this KDS station. You have the option to toggle on:
   • Receive orders from all unnamed Square points of sale: Unnamed points of sale can’t be individually identified by KDS. To route by a POS not listed, create a device code from your Square Dashboard. Tap Devices from your drop-down menu, then select POS Devices.
   • Receive orders from all future named points of sale: If selected, all future named points of sale added at this location will send orders to this KDS.
6. Select which POS sources you would like to send orders to your KDS.
7. Tap Save.

Learn more about setting up POS Routing with Square KDS.

Customise when online orders will appear on your KDS by choosing from three timing options:

• When order is placed: Once a customer places an order, the ticket will automatically appear on your KDS.
• When marked as in progress: Orders will appear on the KDS station when they are marked as in progress.
• Based on pickup time: Set how far in advance of the order pickup time you want orders to appear on your KDS station.

You can switch between filters as needed. To display your online orders:

1. Open Square KDS, and tap ≡ to open the menu.
2. Tap the gear icon to view your settings, then tap Orders.
3. Toggle on View online orders, then choose how you want to see your online orders; when an order is placed, when an order is marked in progress or based on the order pickup time.
4. If you choose Show online orders based on pickup time, tap Edit to change your timeframe.
5. Set your time before pickup in hours and minutes, then tap Done. The time you choose will display under the view option.

If you’re using Square for Restaurants, you can add an internal kitchen-facing name to any item, variation or modifier. Setting up kitchen facing names allows items, variations or modifiers to have the internal names preferred by your kitchen staff.

Both prep stations and expeditor (expo) stations can mark single items or whole tickets as complete. Expo stations have an additional feature that will automatically alert third-party delivery services when an order is ready by completing the ticket.

To enable this feature:

1. Go to Devices on your online Square Dashboard.
2. Click Kitchen settings.
3. Select the location for kitchen order updates.
4. Toggle on Automatically send order updates.
5. Click Save.

Note: This is only available for expo stations. When activated, this setting will apply to all expo stations assigned to the selected location.

Coursing helps you and your team manage the flow of bills – 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 sending away dishes.

Coursing is an optional setting, so you’ll need to visit your [POS Device settings on your Square Dashboard](https://squareup.com/dashboard/point-of-sale/devices0 to turn on Coursing and Hold/Away.

To edit the coursing format your kitchen prefers on each KDS device:

1. Open Square KDS.
2. Tap the three horizontal lines to open the launchpad.
3. Tap the settings gear icon.
4. Select Coursing.
5. Choose between Show away and held courses or Only show away courses.

On Square KDS, tap the completed item directly on the display. If you select the wrong item, tap the item again to deselect it.

Note: You only have three seconds to undo item completion. After that, you can view the ticket in the Completed tab.

Tap the top banner of the ticket you want to complete and confirm by selecting Complete Ticket. If you completed the wrong ticket, tap the white area below the blue Completed banner.

Note: You have three seconds to undo the ticket completion. After that, you can view the ticket in the Completed tab.

To view your completed tickets, tap Completed.

To mark all of your tickets as complete, tap Settings > General > Clear Tickets and tap the box again to confirm. Once you have cleared all tickets, the last 100 tickets received will appear in your completed ticket list.

Restaurants can recall completed tickets if they accidentally completed the ticket or need to remake an item on a ticket.

To recall a ticket, tap Recall at the bottom of the ticket in the completed view.

To recall an item in a ticket, select the item and tap Recall item. You can also recall an item when the ticket is in the open view.

To recall an item in a ticket, select the item and tap Recall item. You can also recall an item even if the ticket is still in the Open view.

Note: If you have the Automatic Order Update feature enabled on your expo station, recalling a completed ticket will not remove the ticket from Ready status on third-party platforms.

Expeditors and head chefs use the term All Day to refer to a count of a particular item that requires preparation across all tickets in the queue. To view a specific item across all open tickets:

1. Open Square for KDS.
2. Tap ≡.
3. Tap the item(s) you want to see All-Day Counts for. Items will be highlighted across all tickets, and you’ll see the All-Day Counts.
4. To see the fullscreen view of your All-Day Counts, tap View all counts > View Fullscreen.

Once you mark an item as completed, it will automatically be subtracted from the All-Day Count.