Table Statuses

Every table on the Floor Plan has a status that tells staff at a glance what’s happening. Statuses are colour-coded on the card border and shown as status pills at the top of the screen.

​

Overview

Statuses drive everything: the colour on the floor plan, the filter pills, the badge stack, and the buttons visible in the Table Session modal.

​

The status catalogue

​

Reading the card border

The table card border encodes status visually:

• 1 state → uniform border colour.
• 2 states → diagonal split (e.g. Ordering + Preparing shows two colours diagonally).
• 3+ states → one colour per side (top / right / bottom / left).

This lets waiters see complex states at a glance: an Ordering + Preparing + Split table has three border colours without needing to open the modal.

​

Badge stack

Beside the border colours, small badges sit at the bottom-right of each card:

• Temp — this is a temporary table.
• Stuck — session is missing (see Stuck Tables).
• Split — an active split payment is configured on the bill.
• Preparing — count of items currently in the kitchen (from KDS realtime).
• Waiting — count of items completed by kitchen but not marked served.

​

Change a table’s status

Open the table. The Table Session modal shows 5 status buttons across the top:

• Open (starts a session on a free table)
• Ordering
• Served
• Billing
• Reserved

Tap the button matching the new state. The floor plan updates immediately.

​

The Bill Confirm modal

If you tap Billing while items are still preparing in the kitchen, DishInk shows a Bill Confirm warning:

2 items are still in the kitchen. Are you sure you want to move to billing?

Choose Wait to cancel, or Bill anyway if the guests have decided to leave. This warning uses cached KDS items, so it works even when the tablet is offline.

​

Closing without payment

Closing a table with an unpaid balance requires a Manager PIN. This is a deliberate friction point: it’s how you write off a bad debt (walked out without paying, comp’d the meal, etc.). The reason for the close is recorded in the manager audit log.

​

Reserved is table-level, not session-level

Reserved is a state of the table, not a session. That means:

• A Reserved table is still Free — no session, no bill.
• When the guest arrives, you tap Open to start the session; Reserved clears automatically.
• You cannot mark a table Reserved if it’s already active (Ordering, Preparing, etc.). Close the current session first.

See Reservations for the full flow.

​

Stuck state

If a table appears busy on the floor plan but the Table Session modal shows “No session found”, the table is Stuck. DishInk waits 600 ms before revealing this state, to avoid flashing “Stuck” during normal loading. Managers can Force-Reset the table (Manager PIN required). See Stuck Tables.

​

Split lock effects on status

When a bill has an active split payment:

• Merge is blocked.
• Table Transfer is blocked.
• Item Transfers in and out are blocked.
• Discount edits on split-locked lines are blocked.
• Quick-discount chips in the Table Session modal are locked (greyed out).

Clear the split before performing any of the above.

​

Tips & best practices

​

Common mistakes

• Marking Billing too early. Preparing items are still in the kitchen. Wait or explicitly acknowledge the warning.
• Trying to Reserve an active table. Close the session first.
• Ignoring split lock. If a button is greyed out with a split badge visible, the split is blocking you — resolve it first.
• Force-resetting instead of investigating. Stuck tables usually mean an offline write hasn’t synced. Wait 10 seconds first.

​

Related pages

• Floor Plan
• Stuck Tables
• Reservations
• Merging Tables
• Split Bills
• Closing Tables