Guide · kitchen display

Put a screen in the kitchen — KOTs on glass, not paper.

A kitchen display is a spare screen with three habits: it shows every fired KOT the moment the floor fires it, it lets each station see only what that station cooks, and it counts the same dish across tables so the tandoor makes nine naans as one batch. Any old laptop or tablet you already own can be that screen — here is the whole setup.

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The walkthrough

Old tablet to a running kitchen — four steps.

Pair the kitchen device to your till

On the main register, open Settings → Multi-terminal and mint a code for a till — it lives for five minutes. On the kitchen device (an old laptop, a spare tablet with a keyboard, anything that runs the app), choose 'Join a hub' and enter the code. The two now share the floor, the orders and the kitchen board over your shop's own network — internet or not.

EasyKOT multi-terminal settings on the host till: the hub is running with a fresh pairing code displayed, listening on the store's local network

Step 1 — the till mints a five-minute code; the kitchen device joins with it.

Sign it in with the chef's PIN

This is the whole trick: sign the kitchen device in with a staff PIN whose role is Chef. A chef PIN locks that screen to the kitchen board — it cannot wander into the register, the money or the settings, and every route leads back to the pass. The till stays the till; the kitchen screen can only ever be the kitchen screen.

Tell the screen what this station cooks

Under the board's header sits a 'Cooks' row — one checkbox per menu category. The tandoor screen ticks Tandoor and Roti & Naan; the wok screen ticks Chinese. A ticket then shows each screen only its own lines, with '+2 items at other stations' so nobody serves half a table. Leave everything unticked and the screen simply shows the whole kitchen.

The EasyKOT kitchen board filtered to a station: the Cooks row has Tandoor and Roti & Naan ticked, a ticket shows its tandoor lines with '+3 items at other stations', and the key reads Done here instead of Bump

Step 3 — this screen cooks Tandoor and Roti & Naan; the rest of the table shows as a count, not clutter.

Cook off the prep lane, bump when it leaves the pass

Flip the header toggle to 'Prep + tickets' and the same board regroups by dish: '9 Butter Naan' with a chip per table, so the tandoor cooks one batch instead of reading five tickets. Notes never fold into a batch — 'less spicy' stays its own line. When a ticket's food goes out, the chef hits Bump (or 'Done here' on a station screen) and it leaves the board.

The EasyKOT prep lane beside the ticket rail: a Cook Together list headed by 9 Butter Naan with one chip per table, each other dish with its own count, and the full tickets on the right

Step 4 — the same board regrouped by dish: one batch of nine naans, not five tickets to cross-read.

The chef PIN needs to exist first. Staff and their PINs are created in the owner dashboard at easykot.com, not on the till — add a person with the Chef role there, let it sync, then sign the kitchen screen in. The staff & PINs guide is the five-minute version.

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The one setting that matters

Who clears a ticket — the settle, or the chef?

Kitchens fall into two camps, and one toggle serves both. It lives in Settings → Register: "Clear kitchen tickets on settle".

Dine-in default — leave it on. Food goes out, the table pays, the check settles, and its ticket leaves the board by itself. Chefs forget to bump; a pass that silts up with cooked-and-paid tickets stops being read at all.
Pay-first counter — turn it off. If guests pay before the food is cooked, a settle must not clear the board — the ticket now waits for a real Bump, and paid food cannot vanish off the pass uncooked.
It is per register, and it is yours — not a support call. Flip it in Settings the day your service style changes.

EasyKOT register settings: the 'Clear kitchen tickets on settle' toggle switched on, explaining that a settled check leaves the kitchen screen on its own and that tickets stay until the chef bumps them if customers pay before the food is cooked

Kitchen screen questions

Straight answers.

What hardware do I need for the kitchen screen?

Anything that runs the register app — a five-year-old laptop, a desktop with a cheap monitor, a tablet. There is no proprietary KDS box to buy. The board is designed for wet-hand, at-a-distance kitchen use: big type, big keys, dark screen.

Does the kitchen screen need internet?

No. It pairs to your till over the shop's own Wi-Fi or LAN and keeps working through an outage — orders fired on the till reach the kitchen over that local link. With internet up, rounds can also arrive over the cloud a few seconds behind, which is how a kitchen in a different building stays current.

Can one kitchen run several screens with different jobs?

Yes — that is what the 'Cooks' checkboxes are for. Each screen picks its own categories, locally: tandoor, wok, drinks. A dish that belongs to no category shows on every screen on purpose — better two screens see it than none. The choice is per-device, so re-pairing a wiped device means ticking its categories again.

What happens to a ticket when the cashier settles the bill?

By default it leaves the board on its own — a settled check is done, and chefs forget to bump. If your counter takes payment before cooking (pay-first parcels), turn 'Clear kitchen tickets on settle' off in Settings → Register: every ticket then waits for a real bump, and paid food can never vanish off the pass uncooked.

What if a rush grows past the edge of the screen?

Tickets fill the board in columns, oldest top-left, and a rush grows sideways — the way paper fills a rail. When columns run past the screen's edge, the board says so with an 'N more →' key that pages across; a hidden ticket can no longer impersonate a short board.

Is this the same thing as the kitchen KOT printer?

No — they are siblings. Settings → 'Printers & KDS' routes the PAPER kitchen ticket to a printer at the pass; this guide's screen replaces or accompanies that paper. Plenty of kitchens run both for a while: the screen for the pass, paper as the fallback habit. The KOT printer has its own guide.

Does the KDS cost extra?

No. The kitchen display, the captain app and multi-terminal are all part of the one EasyKOT price — ₹299/month or ₹2,990/year plus GST, after the free 3 months. You spend money on hardware only if you don't already own a spare screen.

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