What is online order integration?
It is the transfer of the order information coming from an online food ordering channel into the restaurant's POS or order management system.
The aim is to bring the order into the existing operational flow without the team having to enter it by hand again.
What information comes with an order?
Depending on the platform and the scope of the integration, data such as:
- the product,
- the quantity,
- the options,
- the order details,
- the payment type,
- the delivery details
can all be transferred.
Why does product matching matter?
The product on the online platform and the product on the POS have to match correctly.
Incorrect matching can produce:
- the wrong product,
- the wrong price,
- the wrong stock movement,
- faulty reporting.
Any of these.
How should prices be managed?
The price on the online channel and the restaurant's own price may be the same or different.
Which price will be used has to be settled when the integration is designed.
What happens when an order reaches the POS?
Ideally the order is taken into the restaurant operation and passed on to the relevant prep or kitchen process.
That way the team does not have to recreate the order on another screen.
Why does the payment type have to be matched correctly?
An order paid through an online platform is not the same as an order the restaurant will collect for itself.
So defining payment types correctly matters for financial reporting.
How should cancellations and changes be handled?
An integration should not be designed around the new-order scenario alone.
How cancellations, product changes and similar cases will be handled has to be settled too.
How should campaigns be handled?
Platform campaigns, discounts and the restaurant's own pricing models all have to be separated out correctly on the reporting side.
What happens if an order does not come through?
In failure scenarios:
- the visibility of the order,
- the retry mechanism,
- the alert to the user,
- who is responsible
all have to be clear.
Integration problems that could lose an order should be treated as critical for the operation.
Can several platforms be used together?
Depending on the integration structure supported, different online ordering channels can be connected to the same restaurant operation.
The basic goal here is to stop every new channel from creating another operational screen inside the restaurant.
How do online orders show up in reporting?
Bringing online orders into the same data structure as the other sales channels makes sales far easier to compare per channel.
In summary
The point of online food order integration is not simply to receive the order electronically.
The real value is in bringing an order from an outside channel properly into the restaurant's existing POS, kitchen, payment and reporting process.
Kerzz