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Cloud 9 Payments

Building your menu in the web portal

Menus are built in the web portal. The tablet can do it too, but the portal is faster, and you can keep two browser tabs of the same organization open, one on modifiers and one on items, without losing your place.

Before you build

Have these ready and the build goes quickly:

  • The printed or PDF menu.
  • A list of which modifiers are required on which items.
  • The remote printers (expo, kitchen, bar) and which items go to each.
  • Tax rates, configured. Items link to a tax rate as you build them.
  • At least two modifier groups built up front, one for food and one for the bar, before you touch a single item.

Build order

TableTurn menu structureMenu: FoodMenu: BarAppetizersEntréesBeerDraftBottledMozzarella SticksWingsNY StripHouse LagerCoronaMenuCategorySubcategoryItemThe register lists a menu's categories in one column and scrolls when there are more than fit, which is one reason to split Food and Bar.
Build in this order: menu, category, subcategory (optional), item. Each level holds the next.

The order is fixed, because each level holds the next. Start with at least one menu, such as "Dining Menu", or separate Food and Bar menus. Add at least one category to each menu to hold items: Appetizers, Entrées, Desserts. Subcategories are optional and nest under a category for finer organization and reporting, like Red, White and Sparkling under Wine. Items come last. Each one is attached to a menu and a category, and to a subcategory where you use them.

Why more than one menu

Two reasons. Sales reporting separates by menu, so Food and Bar menus give you food and bar totals without a report filter. And the register lists categories in a single column that scrolls once it is full, so a large menu split into two stays one screen each. A menu can also carry its own set of modifier groups, which lets a bartender have a shorter modifier flow than a server keying a complex entrée.

Item fields worth knowing

An item has four names: the register button label, the kitchen ticket name, the online ordering name and the receipt name. "Chx Parm" can sit on the button while "Chicken Parmesan" prints on the receipt. It can also carry a different price for each channel: dine-in, online ordering, delivery and to-go.

The item form has a section navigator down its left side, so you can jump straight to Register Settings instead of scrolling. One setting there, Enter item details when added to ticket, controls whether the modifier screen opens on its own the moment the item is added.

Filtering the items list

The Items list has a filter icon for multi-select filters: only tax-exempt items, only tax-inclusive, only items with all mods enabled, and combinations of those. Use it to audit a build before go-live.

Register Preview

Register Preview renders the live register layout in the browser: categories, items, modifier choices, mod-tag upcharges and prices, as a tablet shows them. Click Edit and drag to reorder categories, items and the hot buttons along the bottom. There is a Dark Mode toggle to preview the register's dark theme. A merchant can review the whole build from a laptop without a tablet in hand.

Cash discounting and dual pricing

Under Settings → Payments → Tender Types → Tender Type Adjustments, each tender can raise or lower the price by a percentage. A lower cash price than card price is set up as a discount on cash, not a surcharge on cards. Talk to us about how your pricing program should be configured before turning this on; the receipt wording matters.