How does a guest pay, and what happens after?

Paying by card, the order number and live status page, the itemised receipt, order history, and what happens if an order is rejected or refunded.

Part of How do guests order and pay at the table?. This part covers paying and after: the payment, the order number and live status page, the receipt, order history, and what happens if something goes wrong.

Paying

The guest pays by card — Apple Pay and Google Pay work too. The payment goes straight to the venue's own Stripe account (the price is exactly what the menu showed — guests are never charged a platform fee at the table (the small platform fee is the venue's, never added to your bill); on a collection or delivery order a venue may choose to add its small order fee to the total, and if so it is shown plainly before you pay, and prices are re-checked server-side so a stale page can never mis-charge). On success they see "Thanks — your order is on its way to the team!" and the order rings on the venue's Orders screen. The confirmation names their order number — the same short reference ("#K4T2") your team sees on the Orders screen and the pass screens, so a guest asking after their food and the member of staff answering are talking about the same order — and offers a Track your order link.

That link opens a live status page. It leads with a Paid chip and the order number, says "Thanks — your order is with the team" with the table and the time it was placed (on your venue's clock), and follows the order along: Order placed, Being prepared, Ready ("it's on its way to your table" — the moment your team marks the last part done) and Delivered. Order more takes them straight back to the same table's menu — nothing to retype or rescan — and there's a Check for updates button while the order is still open (the page also refreshes itself, and catches up as soon as the phone's connection comes back). If a check can't get through — a dropped signal, say — the last status stays on screen with a quiet "Reconnecting… this page will catch up by itself." line, which clears as soon as a check succeeds. If your venue stops taking orders online, the page says so instead — your venue's name, then "no longer takes orders online — this receipt stays here." — and offers no Order more; if it simply couldn't check your venue this time, it hides Order more quietly with the same Reconnecting line — never telling the guest you've stopped taking orders — and keeps checking until it can say for sure. Beside it on a computer (below it on a phone), a Your receipt card lists the dishes with their choices, any promotion or loyalty reward that came off, any gift-card cover and what the card was charged, and any refund. If the order is rejected it says so with your team's reason and the money that's coming back.

The receipt

An itemised receipt email follows — every dish with its chosen options and its allergens (the dish's plus those of the options picked), the tip, any promotion or gift-card cover, and the total, plus a VAT breakdown and the venue's VAT number where the venue is VAT-registered. At venues that also run a loyalty scheme, members who sign in at the checkout (a quick emailed code the first time — ticking Keep me signed in on this device for 30 days saves them the code after that) earn on the order automatically, and the receipt quietly says what they earned and how close the next reward is; ordering as a guest always works, it just doesn't earn. Guests who aren't members and didn't tick the join box see a one-line invitation to join the venue's loyalty scheme.

Order history

Guests who sign in to the venue's guest account page (on every plan, and with any paid Order & Pay, Gift cards, Loyalty or Events product) see a My orders section (alongside their bookings, where the venue takes bookings) — every past table order itemised, with what they paid and anything refunded. It matches by the email they ordered with, so it works even if they've never made a booking.

If something goes wrong

Guests can't cancel a placed order from their phone — it's already being prepared, so they should speak to the team at the venue. If the venue rejects an order, the guest is refunded in full automatically (card money back to their card, gift-card cover back onto their card, and a loyalty reward used on the order straight back onto their loyalty balance) and emailed the reason. If the venue refunds just some item(s) — a dish that ran out, say — the rest of the order carries on as normal, the refunded item shows struck through in the guest's order history, and the confirmation email names exactly what was refunded. And if a payment ever completes while the venue's ordering is switched off, it's refunded automatically — a paid guest is never left stranded.

Related: How do guests order and pay at the table? · What does a guest see at the order checkout? · How do I set up and run Order & Pay? · How do refunds, fees, receipts and VAT work in Order & Pay?