Restaurant Order Pad
Restaurant Order Pad is a full featured Point of Sale app for Android tablets.
This is my first project in working with the Android SDK and development tools. This is also my first project in working
with the Java programming language. I did not create this project for financial gain, I created it to learn Java and learn the
Android SDK.
This project originally started as a simple order pad app that a waiter/waitress could use for taking a customer's order at a
table. As development neared completion, We decided that this would work great as a base for a full featured
Point of Sale system.
Project Overview:
Our solution is comprised of 4 separate Android apps!
- The main Point of Sale app!
- Kitchen Video app! (Optional)
- Database Service app! (Optional, Required for multi-user mode!)
- Launcher app (Optional, Locks down the tablet so users can only use authorized apps!)
Point of Sale system features:
- Designed for 7" and 10" Android tablets. Smaller screens are unsupported at this time.
- 3 Modes of operation
- Restaurant - Ideal setup for many restaurants.
- Retail - Turns off the order types used by restaurant mode.
- Order Pad - Use only the original order pad functionality of the app without Point of Sale features.
- Employee sign in (if enabled)
- Employee dispatching (for restaurants who deliver, if enabled)
- Customer Database (Experimental!)
- Issue future credits
- Look up previous customer orders
- Flag customers as "No Checks" or "Do Not Serve"
- Use with Star TSP100 Series of thermal receipt printers. (TCP/IP only, Bluetooth printers not supported)
- Print various reports
- Support for printing kitchen tickets (or save paper and use our Kitchen Video app!)
- Support for printing packing tickets. Packing tickets show additional items that a packer may need to pack with the order.
- Use with a compatible cash drawer. We recommend an APG Vasario 320 with a MultiPro interface cable. (Can use multiple cash drawers, 1 per tablet)
- Item grouping in Nightly Z report
- Virtually unlimited buttons per page (category)
- Arrange buttons into sub-groups on each page
- Place the same button on multiple pages (categories)
- Create option groups for easy selection of ingredient changes, special requests, side dish selection, or other things that may require a selection.
- Built-in Discounts system. Automatically or manually apply discounts.
- Create macros to enhance/alter the functionality of a menu button.
- Attach special instructions to a specific line item in an order (can also create macro buttons and/or option groups to do this.)
- Create groups of items with 1 button (using a macro) (This makes it easier to make changes to individual items in the group, such as a 2 for $$ offer.)
- Split order interface (for restaurants.)
- Packing Slip feature (for restaurants.)
- Kitchen Video app. (or kitchen printing, for restaurants.)
- Database Service app. (for multiple terminals, database service is partially Experimental!)
- Launcher app. (locks down the tablet so employees can't use apps other than the POS apps!)
- Automatic backup of database/settings to SD card daily. (must be enabled.)
- Easy transfer of menu and options programming to other terminals. (via the database service.)
- Support for Paypal Here Sideloader. (Note: the Sideloader requires a sign-in every time it is called. This cannot be avoided and there is
no way to automatically sign-in.)
- API to pull data from our Inventory System
Yet to do:
- LOW - Refine Table selection
- LOW - Refine Reports interface
- MED - Easy terminal programming during first time run.
- LOW - Automatic sync of settings.
- MED - Extensive testing of database server (and fallback code for when server is unavailable)
- HIGH - Cloud Database option
- HIGH - Timekeeping
- LOW - Built-in method of swiping credit cards.
Published by: Thomas Penwell
Initially published on: June 1, 2014
Article last modified on: Sunday, February 1, 2015.
