What is a kitchen display system (KDS)?
A kitchen display system (KDS) is a screen in the kitchen that shows incoming orders in place of paper tickets.
A KDS takes the orders the POS would have printed as kitchen tickets and shows them on a screen instead. Each order appears as a card with its items, modifiers, notes, table or order type, and a timer that starts when the order arrives. Cooks tap items as they finish them and bump the ticket when the order is ready.
The timer is the main reason kitchens switch. Paper tickets do not tell you which order has waited longest. A KDS colours tickets as they age, so the expo or head chef can see what is late at a glance. Many also show an all-day count, the total of each item still to cook across every open ticket, which helps the line batch fries or patties.
Most kitchens run a KDS by station, just like printers: the grill screen shows grill items, the bar screen shows drinks. Some keep a printer as backup or for the expo. A KDS needs a reliable local network, a screen that can handle heat and a mount out of the splash zone.
SeroPOS has KDS Mode built into the app. Turn it on in Settings on a tablet or desktop and the screen becomes a Kitchen Display with station chips, On time, Attention (8 minutes or more) and Late (15 minutes or more) counters, tap-to-tick lines, SERVE to bump, an All Day panel and a Recall panel for tickets bumped in the last two hours. The back office also has a web kitchen screen.
At 7:02 pm Table 4's order lands on the grill screen. By 7:10 its card turns to Attention and by 7:17 it shows as Late. The All Day panel reads 9 burgers and 6 chicken sandwiches across all open tickets, so the grill cook drops 9 patties at once instead of cooking ticket by ticket.