Glossary
Restaurant and POS glossary
Plain-language definitions of the payment, kitchen, cost and staffing terms you’ll meet running a restaurant in Canada.
8
- 86
- Kitchen slang for an item that has run out or is unavailable.
A
- Average check
- Average sales per bill or per guest over a period.
B
- Back office
- The web dashboard where owners manage menus, staff, settings and reports.
- Bar tab
- An open bill a guest adds drinks to and pays at the end.
- Break-even point
- The sales needed to cover all costs, with no profit or loss.
C
- Card brand fee
- A small fee charged by the card network, such as Visa or Mastercard, on card volume.
- Cash drawer
- The till that holds cash, opened by the POS when a cash payment is taken.
- Chargeback
- A card payment reversed by the guest’s bank after a dispute.
- Cloud POS
- A POS that stores data online instead of on a server in the restaurant.
- Comp
- An item or bill given to a guest free of charge.
- Contactless payment
- Paying by tapping a card, phone or watch on a terminal.
- Covers
- The number of guests served in a period.
- Credit card surcharge
- An extra fee added to a bill when a guest pays by credit card.
D
- Delivery commission
- The percentage a delivery app keeps from each order.
- Delivery integration
- Delivery app orders flowing straight into the POS and kitchen.
- Digital receipt
- A receipt sent by text or email instead of printed.
- Discount control
- Rules for who can apply which discounts, and when.
E
- Effective rate
- Total card processing fees divided by total card sales for a period.
- Expo (expeditor)
- The person or station that checks and sends out completed orders.
F
- Flat-rate pricing
- One bundled percentage charged on every card payment, whatever the card.
- Floor plan
- A map of tables and sections in the POS that shows each table’s status.
- Food cost percentage
- The cost of ingredients as a share of food sales.
G
- GST, HST and PST
- The sales taxes charged on restaurant sales in Canada, which vary by province.
H
- Happy hour
- A set time with discounted prices, usually on drinks and snacks.
I
- Interac debit
- Canada’s debit card network, used to pay directly from a bank account.
- Interchange
- The fee a card-issuing bank receives on each card payment, set by the card network.
- Interchange-plus pricing
- Card processing pricing that passes interchange through at cost and adds a set margin.
- Inventory management
- Tracking stock on hand, usage and reorders.
K
- Kitchen display system (KDS)
- A screen in the kitchen that shows orders instead of printed tickets.
- Kitchen printer
- A printer that prints order tickets for each kitchen or bar station.
L
- Labour cost percentage
- Total labour cost as a share of sales for the same period.
M
- Menu engineering
- Analysing each item’s popularity and profit to shape the menu.
- Menu management
- Creating and updating menus, items, prices and modifiers in the POS.
- Merchant account
- The account with a payment processor that lets a business accept card payments.
- Mobile POS
- Taking orders and payments on a phone or tablet away from the counter.
- Modifier
- An option added to a menu item, such as doneness, extras or removals.
- Multi-location management
- Running several restaurants from one POS account.
N
- No-show
- A booked party that doesn’t arrive and doesn’t cancel.
O
- Offline mode
- A POS’s ability to keep taking orders when the internet drops.
- Order routing
- Sending each item on an order to the station that prepares it.
P
- Par level
- The amount of a product you want on hand before the next delivery.
- Payment processor
- The company that moves card payments between your business, the card networks and banks.
- Payment terminal
- The device guests tap, insert or swipe their card on to pay.
- Plate cost
- The ingredient cost of one portion of a dish.
- POS system
- The point of sale software and devices a restaurant uses to take orders and payments.
- Pre-authorisation
- Holding an amount on a guest’s card before the final bill, often for a bar tab.
- Prime cost
- Cost of goods sold plus total labour cost, often shown as a share of sales.
- Processing statement
- The monthly statement from your payment processor listing card sales and fees.
R
- Recipe costing
- Calculating the cost of a recipe from its ingredients and yields.
- Reorder point
- The stock level at which you order more of a product.
- Reservation system
- Software for recording and managing table bookings.
S
- Sales reports
- Summaries of sales by item, category, server, payment type and time.
- Seat ordering
- Recording which seat ordered each item on a table’s bill.
- SMS notifications
- Text messages a restaurant sends to guests, such as booking confirmations.
- Split bill
- Dividing one table’s bill into several payments.
T
- Table management
- Tracking table status, merges, transfers and timing during service.
- Table turnover
- How many times a table is used by a new party during a service.
- Tableside ordering
- Entering orders on a handheld device at the table instead of a fixed terminal.
- Takeout and curbside pickup
- Orders the guest collects, in store or at the curb.
- Tap to Pay
- Accepting contactless cards and wallets on a phone, with no separate terminal.
- Third-party delivery
- Orders placed and delivered through apps such as Uber Eats, DoorDash and SkipTheDishes.
- Ticket time
- How long an order takes from being sent to the kitchen to being ready.
- Time clock
- Recording when staff start and finish shifts.
- Tip pool
- Combining tips and sharing them among staff by a set formula.
- Tip-out
- The share of a server’s tips paid to support staff such as bussers, bartenders or kitchen.
U
- User permissions
- Settings that control what each staff role can do in the POS.
V
- Void
- Removing an item from an order, usually before it’s made or paid.
W
- Waitlist
- A queue of walk-in guests waiting for a table.
- Waste tracking
- Recording food thrown away, with reasons, to reduce it.
Y
- Yield
- The usable amount of an ingredient after trimming and cooking.
Z
- Z report (day-end report)
- The end-of-day summary of sales, payments and cash.
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