The Ordering tab under Settings is where store managers can configure delivery modes, payment options, and order notifications. Under the ordering settings, you can disable ordering, set the external online payment ID, or allow stores to edit or delete orders.
On This Page
- Select Delivery Options
- Enable Customer Ordering
- Enable Order Capture – Waiter Ordering
- Enable Shopping Basket Only Mode
- Email Customer on Order Status Change
- Hide or Show Comments
- Add Items to Order with a Single Click
- Set Order Processing Time
- Automatically Accept Orders
Select Your Delivery Options
Delivery modes allow you to specify how you can serve orders to your customers. GonnaOrder has three delivery modes you can choose from or combine to serve your customers best.
- Serve at Table: This delivery mode appears first on the list and will be useful to you if your restaurant has in-house serving tables. With this delivery mode, the customer usually sits within your premises and places an order via a QR code menu on the table or your GonnaOrder online store. This option will only work after you create tables for your store.
- Pickup: This applies to customers who want to pass through your physical store outlet while picking up their orders. Customers submit orders at the office or from home and pick them up in your physical store.
- Delivery at Address: With this delivery model, customers can place orders in your store and specify that they want them delivered at a specified address. You can select this mode if you have secured the services of riders or if you have other delivery logistics in place. Customers choosing this delivery mode for their order will be required to provide identifying information about themselves and the location to which the order will be delivered.
To select delivery modes for your store, click on Settings from the store side menu and then click Ordering. Selecting one or more delivery modes will automatically toggle the Ordering button to enable.
Note
Customers can choose the date and time for the Pickup and Delivery options. Future date and time selection for orders is controlled by options that are available under Settings > Schedules.
Enable Customer Ordering
This setting is used to control whether or not customers can submit orders to your store online. You can only enable customer orders if you have activated at least one delivery mode. When enabled, customers can add items to the basket and checkout. Store staff can also select items and submit customer orders using the order capture facility.
If you disable ordering, customers will use your catalog as a menu but cannot order or pay online. Two additional settings appear when customer ordering is disabled; Order capture and Shopping basket. Both are enabled by default.
Enable Order Capture – Waiter Ordering
Order capture is a feature that allows you to use GonnaOrder to take orders for customers – as you would do on a POS. It makes it easier for waiters to submit orders on behalf of customers without leaving the store administration panel.
The facility is always available for your store staff whenever customer ordering is enabled. Enabling customer ordering for a store also turns on order capture. Therefore, a store cannot support customer orders without supporting staff orders.
On the contrary, supporting staff orders while keeping customer orders disabled is possible. In that case, the manager disables customer ordering and leaves the Order capture setting enabled.
This configuration allows customers to view your menu without allowing them to submit or pay for orders online. In that case, the role of taking orders solely belongs to the store staff.
Below are the configuration checks to disable customer orders and enable staff orders:
Confirm that at least one delivery method is selected
Disable ordering
Enable order capture
Learn more about the order capture facility
If order capture is disabled, neither the customer menu nor the order capture interface for admin users allows new orders to be submitted to your store. However, store users can still add items to the shopping basket, regardless of whether the Shopping basket setting is enabled.
This scenario, where both customer and staff ordering is disabled, should be reserved for exceptional cases where the store does not wish to receive any orders.
Tips
- A store that supports customer orders (through the customer menu) must also support staff orders via order capture. Turning on ordering automatically enables the order capture setting.
- Store staff can add items to the shopping basket even when the shopping basket setting is disabled.
- You cannot disable the order capture facility when ordering is enabled.
Enable Shopping Basket Only Mode
The Shopping basket feature allows customers to select items from your menu and add them to a basket even when ordering is disabled. When this feature is enabled and ordering disabled, customers cannot submit orders through your online store but can still select items they would like served to them.
When the shopping basket is enabled, desktop users will see their selected items on the right side of the catalog. Below is how the shopping basket looks. Clicking on the Proceed button expands the basket allowing the customer to view the selected items on the order details page.
Also, orders placed when the Shopping basket is enabled and Ordering disabled will not be sent to your Orders Dashboard. That is to say, you cannot confirm or reject the order through your store dashboard, and neither can you print nor download the order.
The Shopping Basket setting is enabled and hidden automatically when you enable ordering.
Disabling ordering and shopping basket turns your catalog into a digital, view-only menu. Customers cannot click on store items, add items to the cart, or place orders.
Tips
- You can create a view-only menu for your store by disabling ordering and shopping basket.
- The shopping basket feature only works with the customer menu. It does not affect how store staff operates the order capture facility.
Email Customer on Order Status Change
Keeping your customer in the know is a core value that many businesses hold dearly. GonnaOrder lets you inform your customers via email when you accept or reject orders. However, you have to enable this setting from your store dashboard.
To do this, you visit the store dashboard, and on the ordering page, toggle the Email customer on order status change to yes.
When you activate this setting, customers will receive a short email notifying them of the status of their order. Note that a customer may opt not to provide you with their email, which means that not all customers will receive the notification. However, that is okay because they can still track their order on the checkout page.
The order status changes for which the customer will receive an email are:
- Order receipt: Order receipt email informs the customer that their order has arrived in the store. It is automated and is sent immediately after the customer submits an order. The order receipt email shows the customer the order number, order value, an order status follow-up link, and a store link. The store link makes it easier for customers to return to your store, while the follow-up link lets them view the order status from their browser even after closing the store.
- Order has been confirmed: The customer will receive a message that your store accepted their order. There are three cases when GonnaOrder will send an email regarding order confirmation.
- A customer will receive an email indicating their order has been accepted without mentioning any other details. This is a case where you or one of your staff members chooses to accept an order as placed.
- Another case is where you or one of your staff members accepts an order as placed and marks it as ready at the same time. In this case, the order notification email will inform the customer that the order is ready.
- The final scenario where an order confirmation email is sent is when you or your staff accept an order and choose to provide an estimated processing time. A similar email is sent when you have set the minimum and maximum order processing times for your store.
Order Status Email: Ready 
Order Status Email: Expected Time 
- Order has been rejected: There are two scenarios when an order rejection email can be sent to a customer. In the first case, you or another store staff member will have rejected an order without giving the customer further information. The email will only contain a message saying the order was not accepted.
Order Status: Order Rejected 
The second type of email sent to confirm order rejection includes a reason for rejection. The email informs the customer that the order has been rejected. Optionally, the email explains why the store could not process the order.
- Order is ready: This notifies the customer that you have finished processing their order, and they can pick it up, or in the case of table service and delivery at a specified address, they should receive it soon.
Hide or Show Comments
A customer may submit two types of comments alongside their order: order comments and order items comments.
Customers can type order comments on the checkout page just before submitting an order. This comment will then appear as a note at the bottom of the order details page when you view the order in your store.
You can hide the order comments field from customers, so you no longer receive special instructions or comments. Visit your store dashboard and go to Settings > Ordering. Find the Hide order comments button and click to toggle yes. Customers will no longer be able to submit order comments along with orders.
Other than order comments, customers may also add a comment for every item they include in their order. The comment input field is available to users on the product details page just before one adds an item to the cart. Order items comments appear under the item name on the order details.
To hide order items comments, go to your store dashboard, and under ordering settings, click the Hide order items comments button to toggle yes. Customers can no longer leave comments for the items they add to the cart.
Add Items to Order With a Single Click
A customer can add an item to their order with a single click. This helps reduce the number of clicks a customer makes to complete an order. By default, this setting is enabled for new stores.
You can enable this feature via Settings > Ordering. While on the ordering section, scroll down to find and enable the toggle button labeled One click add to basket.
Customers can click on the + symbol on a store product to add an item to the shopping basket. If a store product has an image, then clicking on the image once will add the item to the shopping basket.
If the user wanted to view the details of the store product, they would need to click on the item’s name, description, or price. Additionally, a one-click add-to basket only applies to items not associated with option groups or price variants.
When One click add to basket is disabled, customers will have to click anywhere on the product(including the image and the plus symbol) to view the product details page.
On the details page, a customer can click Add to your order to add an item to the basket. This means more clicks even when the customer knows what they want to order.
Tip
The one-click add-to-basket feature is enabled for all new stores by default. You can turn off this setting if you want customers to always view the long description before adding an item to their order.
Set Order Processing Time
Giving your customer an estimated order processing time may go a long way in increasing satisfaction rates and, therefore, customer retention. GonnaOrder allows you to set your minimum and maximum order processing time labeled as Minutes until the order is ready.
This setting is available in the store settings under the ordering tab. You should fill in the minimum and maximum time (in minutes) you typically need to process an order until it is ready.
The time you use here will show your customers who opt to receive order status change notification emails, particularly those who want to receive an order as soon as possible.
For example, if a customer submits a breakfast order at 6:31 AM and they have chosen to receive it as soon as possible, GonnaOrder will notify them via email that the order will be ready between 6:46 AM and 7:31 AM based on the minimum and maximum ordering times we set in the previous image.
GonnaOrder adds the minimum order processing time to when an order is submitted to arrive at the earliest possible time when the order can be ready. Similarly, GonnaOrder will use the store’s maximum order processing time to calculate when the customer can pick up or have the order delivered.
In a different case, if a customer chooses to have their order at a later date but without specifying the time, GonnaOrder will insert the said date into the notification email and notify the customer that the order should be ready on the given date.
Automatically Accept Orders
Often, you do not need to accept orders manually. This is usually possible because you have aligned the product catalog and have the capacity to fulfill every new order. In such cases, automatically accepting new orders relieves your staff of the duty to look through orders and accept them for processing.
This setting is best used with the automatic order printing feature so that orders are automatically accepted and printed out simultaneously. The kitchen staff/waiter can then collect the receipt from the printer and prepare/serve the respective order.
The setting is available on your store dashboard under Settings >Ordering.
Automatically Accept Orders in a Multi-catalog Setup
The automatic order acceptance setting is controlled by individual store settings. Therefore, in a multi-store setup, orders are automatically accepted only if the child store has the setting activated.
Orders will not be accepted if the setting is disabled for the child store, even if the setting is active on the parent.
You must, therefore, enable the setting in all child stores when necessary.
Order Status Changes and Notifications for Automatically Accepted Orders
Notifications for automatically accepted orders
Accepting orders automatically affects how you get notified of new orders. GonnaOrder provides multiple notification channels and methods and you will always have options to choose from.
Notifications that continue to work
Notifications that don’t work for automatically accepted orders
How the Order Status Changes
The status of automatically accepted orders changes from Sent to Accepted upon submission. This does not require any action from the waiter. The new orders immediately appear on the Confirmed orders tab instead of the open orders tab. Your store may also send an order confirmation email if the respective setting is enabled.
