Receipt & kitchen printing

Two documents come off a printer: a receipt for the customer and a kitchen ticket (KOT — kitchen order ticket) for whoever is making the order. They can go to the same printer or to different ones.

Where to find it

Dashboard → Storefront → Design (/configuration/design/design-settings) — Admin, Co-Admin — for the printer logo and receipt details

Printers themselves are configured on each device, under Partner app → Settings → General → Printer.

Printer types

Type	What it is
Bluetooth	A thermal printer paired to the device
Star Bluetooth	Star-brand Bluetooth printers, which need their own handling — see below
Sunmi	The printer built into a Sunmi all-in-one Android terminal
PrintNode	Cloud printing to any printer on a computer running the PrintNode client
Browser	Prints through the browser’s own dialog — fine for testing, not for service

What is offered depends on the device:

Platform	Available
Web	Browser, PrintNode
Android	Everything — Bluetooth, Star, Sunmi, PrintNode, browser
iOS	Bluetooth and Star (pair in iOS Settings first), plus PrintNode and browser

Star printers are a special case

Several common Star models — the TSP143 and TSP100 families among them — are graphics-only: they silently discard the ordinary text commands other printers accept. They are driven as images instead, which is why choosing Star Bluetooth rather than plain Bluetooth matters, and why the model and language selectors disappear when you do.

A Star printer that connects, reports no error and prints nothing is almost always one configured as a generic Bluetooth printer.

Setting one up

1. Pair the hardware first, in the device’s own Bluetooth settings. On iOS this is required before the app can see it at all.

2. Open Printer settings in the partner app and choose the type. Pick Star Bluetooth for a Star printer, even though plain Bluetooth appears to find it.

3. Select the printer and print a test page. Do this before service, not during it.

4. Choose what prints automatically — a receipt, a kitchen ticket, or both — and whether printing happens on acceptance.

5. Print one real order end to end and read what comes out.

What is on a receipt

• Your logo — the printer logo from your brand settings, not your app logo. Thermal printers are monochrome and low resolution, so a simplified mark reads far better than a detailed one. It is cached, so it still prints when the network drops.
• Your header and footer, several lines each, for address, hours, social handles or a thank-you.
• The order: dishes, variants, add-ons, notes, totals, taxes and charges.
• Tax identifier and company registration, from brand settings, where your jurisdiction requires them on a receipt.
• The customer’s reward points, and a QR code for their account.
• Everything in your customers’ language, with the currency symbol transliterated where a thermal printer cannot render it.

The print queue

Printing is queued rather than fired and forgotten, which is what makes it survive a printer going to sleep.

Each job carries a priority and a type — receipt, kitchen ticket, test or custom — and moves through pending → printing → success, or failed, from where it is retried. A job can also be cancelled.

The practical consequence: a printer that was off for ten minutes catches up when it comes back, rather than losing everything. If jobs are piling up, the printer is the problem, not the app.

Kitchen tickets

A kitchen ticket is a stripped-down list of what to make — no prices, no customer details, no logo. A dedicated kitchen printer is worth having if your counter printer is anywhere the kitchen cannot reach.

The kitchen display prints kitchen tickets too, one printer per screen, and its trigger is off by default so a newly paired screen does not spool paper before anyone has configured a printer. See Kitchen display.

The POS register prints receipts, kitchen tickets and till reports, and kicks the cash drawer on a cash payment. The kiosk prints the customer’s receipt with their pickup code.

Reprinting

Any order can be reprinted from its detail view, in the partner app, the POS register and the kitchen display. It is one of the most-used features on a busy counter, so it is worth showing new staff on their first shift.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Try this
Connects but prints nothing	A Star printer configured as generic Bluetooth. Change the type
Nothing prints at all	Check auto-print is on, the printer is chosen, and the paper is in
Prints only sometimes	Bluetooth range or sleep — the queue will catch up when it wakes
Jobs are stacking up	The printer, not the app. Power, paper, pairing
Garbled characters	Usually a character set the printer cannot render; simplify the header and footer text
The logo is a black smudge	Too detailed for thermal. Use a simplified monochrome mark
Nothing appears on iOS	Pair in iOS Settings first — the app cannot pair it for you
The kitchen display never prints	Its print trigger defaults to off

Related: Kitchen display · POS register · Branding · Live orders