How do I switch on collection and delivery?

Switch collection and delivery on step by step — Stripe, ordering hours, the allergen check, the delivery area and fee bands, free delivery, promotions and VAT.

Part of How do I set up collection and delivery ordering?. This part covers switching them on: the step-by-step window, switching collection on, and delivery — its area, fee bands, delivery time, free delivery, promotions and VAT.

Setting it up step by step

The quickest way is Set up collection and delivery, at the top of the Collection & delivery section. A step-by-step window asks the main choices in order:

• Which ways — Collection and Delivery, each on or off (switching one on asks the allergen question below; delivery needs collection on too). Without Stripe they can't be switched on: the owner can click Connect Stripe on this step — your answers are kept, and Stripe brings you back to the same step when you finish.
• Hours — your opening hours or its own times, and Last orders, for each way that's on.
• Waiting and time slots — the wait time, how far apart the time slots are, orders per slot and how many days ahead guests can order.
• Delivery area and fees — how far you deliver, the fee bands, free delivery over and alcohol on delivery (only when delivery is on).
• Paying — the minimum order, cash, a card taken at the venue and passing the order fee on.
• Review — each way of ordering in one line, what switches on or off, and anything still missing. Click Save collection and delivery — it's saved straight away.

The window won't go on past a step with a problem (delivery without an area, a wait outside 5 to 180 minutes) and says why. Everything else — the busy adjustment, the unseen-order alert, pausing, the VAT on the delivery fee and the ready text — stays on the page below for fine-tuning, and every row there still works on its own.

Switching collection on

Collection has its own on/off switch, and switching it on is checked properly first:

• Stripe connected — guests pay through your own Stripe account, exactly as with at-table ordering.
• Ordering hours — collection follows your venue's opening hours by default (Opening hours), or set Its own times for separate collection hours. Either way, a Last orders offset stops new orders a set number of minutes before closing, so the kitchen isn't handed an order at one minute to close. Either way, a day you've marked as closed under Special hours takes no collection or delivery orders, and order-ahead won't offer that day. When a channel is closed, the ordering page says why and when it's back — "Closed today (bank holiday) — collection is back Tuesday from 12:00".
• The allergen check — flipping a channel on checks your menu's allergen information and warns you with a count of dishes that have none, with a tick to acknowledge before continuing. It warns — it never blocks — because allergen information is your venue's legal responsibility, and guests ordering remotely must be able to see it in writing.

Switching a channel off is always allowed, instantly. Orders already placed stay on the board for your team to finish.

Delivery builds on collection

Delivery has the same switch and settings as collection, plus its own — and it can't go live on its own: the switch-on check says "Collection needs to be on first — delivery builds on it." Before delivery can go live you also need to set how far you deliver (your Delivery area) and add at least one delivery fee band. The section's checklist tells you exactly what's missing.

• Delivery area — a distance from your venue, in miles. At checkout the guest's address is checked against it automatically (measured as driving distance) — an address outside the area is refused politely before any payment is taken.
• Delivery fees — distance-banded: "up to N miles" at a set price, with as many bands as you need. The matching band's fee is added to the guest's total as its own line before they pay; an address beyond your last band but inside your delivery area pays the last band's fee.
• Delivery time — a delivery order's promise is worked out from your wait time plus the driving time to the guest's address (3 minutes per mile) plus a 5-minute buffer, rounded to the nearest 5 minutes, and shown as a range — "about 35–45 minutes" — on the checkout, the receipt, the guest's status page and the board. A time the guest picks is a fixed time, not a range.
• If the address check isn't working — the check runs on Google Maps. If it ever fails, delivery orders are refused with a "try again" message, the delivery card here and the Orders screen show an amber warning, and a bell alert goes out; it clears itself the moment a check succeeds. Collection carries on regardless.
• Free delivery over — optionally waive the delivery fee for orders over a spend amount. Leave it empty and delivery is never free. Under the threshold, the basket shows how close the guest is ("Add £N more for free delivery").
• Free-delivery promotions — a promotion available on delivery orders can also waive the delivery fee: tick Free delivery when creating it. Set the discount to 0 to make it a free-delivery-only code, or keep a discount and it does both. The address and delivery-area checks still apply as normal.
• Promotions on collection and delivery — any money-off promotion can be ticked for Collection orders and/or Delivery orders under Where it works (a promotion with neither ticked stays at-table only), with the same minimum spend, whole-order-or-qualifying-items basis and dish/category scope that table-order promotions have. For "50% off your first collection order", choose The guest's first order under Conditions and pick what counts as their first — First order on that channel, First order of any kind or First visit of any kind; it's matched by the email the guest gives at checkout, and a regular diner who has never ordered for collection still qualifies on that channel. For "a free dessert when you order two mains for delivery", create a Free item when you buy promotion ticked for delivery — the cheapest dessert in the order comes off at its real price, once per order or once for every two mains up to a cap you set — and add a Certain days of the week condition to make it Tuesdays only (on Order & Pay orders every condition you add has to be met). See How do promo codes and automatic offers work?.
• VAT on the delivery fee — if your venue is VAT-registered, set the VAT rate the delivery fee carries; it's frozen onto each order at the moment it's placed, so a later change never rewrites old orders. Ask your accountant which rate applies — ResoFlow never guesses tax.
• Takeaway VAT rate per dish — some food is taxed differently taken away than eaten in. Once you've started setting up collection or delivery, each dish's form on the Menu page gains a Takeaway VAT rate field (and the category form can bulk-apply one): collection and delivery orders freeze that rate onto the line, while eat-in orders keep the dish's ordinary rate. Left "Not set", takeaway orders simply use the same rate as eating in. Ask your accountant which rates apply.

Related: How do I set up collection and delivery ordering? · How do I set collection and delivery times and fees? · What do guests see when they order collection or delivery? · How do I connect Stripe? · Different prices per channel · How do promo codes and automatic offers work?