Cool Features
Kitchen Display System (KDS)
Put a screen in the kitchen that shows orders as they are rung up, moves them from pending to cooking to ready, and replaces the paper ticket entirely.
5 min read · Updated August 27, 2026
The Kitchen Display is a screen for the people making the food. Orders appear the moment the cashier takes payment, the kitchen moves each one through its stages, and nobody is shouting across a counter or squinting at a smudged ticket.
KDS is one of the Cool Features, included in every account. Open it at /kds on any device signed in to your business.
The three states
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Just arrived. Nobody has started it. |
| Cooking | Someone has picked it up and is making it. |
| Ready | Done, waiting to be handed over. |
The kitchen taps an order to advance it. The value is not the tap; it is that "who is doing this one?" stops being a question anyone has to ask out loud.
Order type — dine-in, takeout, delivery — is shown on each ticket, because it changes the packaging and sometimes the order of work.
When the queue clears, the screen says All caught up! No active orders, which is a genuinely useful signal during a rush.
What reaches the kitchen
Not every sale is a cooking job. An order of nothing but bottled drinks, canned softdrinks or packed snacks is finished the moment it is paid for. It never reaches the display, because there is nothing for the kitchen to do with it — and a ticket for something already handed across the counter is how a board stops being trusted.
Kasenso works this out from the products themselves. A product marked Sold as-is on its Menu page — the switch for something you buy and resell unchanged — counts as handed over rather than made. An order goes to the kitchen as soon as one line is anything else.
Anything the kitchen might have to act on still comes through:
- A dish with a recipe, and a product with no recipe at all.
- A combo with even one cooked item in it.
- A sold-as-is item where the cashier picked a choice or typed a note, because both are instructions for someone.
If a drink is still landing on the display, that switch is almost certainly off. Open the product under Menu, turn on Sold as-is and pick the stock item it draws down — which also makes each sale deduct your real stock instead of booking a flat cost. See set up your menu and recipes.
Set it up
- Any device with a browser works — an old tablet, a spare laptop, a monitor on a stick. It does not need to be the same kind of device as your till.
- Sign in with a staff account that has KDS access. See staff permissions.
- Open /kds and leave it open.
- Mount it where the person cooking can read it without stepping away from the heat, and out of the way of splashes and steam.
Screen size matters more than screen quality. A ticket that has to be walked towards is a ticket that gets ignored.
Working with it
- Move orders promptly. A screen where everything sits in Pending is a screen nobody trusts, and once it is not trusted it is just a bright object on a wall.
- Clear all orders exists for the end of service. It clears the board; it does not touch your sales records.
- Do not run it as your only display on a device that also takes orders. A kitchen screen should be visible continuously, not one tab among several.
When KDS earns its keep
It is worth it when more than one person cooks, when orders have several components arriving at different times, or when the counter and kitchen cannot see each other.
Below that — one person, a small menu, a counter you can turn around at — paper or memory is genuinely fine, and a screen is one more thing to keep clean. The threshold most shops cross is around two cooks or a delivery channel.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Kitchen Display free?
Yes. KDS is included in every account, alongside the full point of sale, shifts, inventory and reporting.
What hardware do I need for a kitchen display?
Any device with a modern browser that can stay signed in — an old Android tablet, a spare laptop, or a monitor attached to a small computer. Prioritise screen size and a position where it can be read from the cooking line.
Do orders appear on the KDS before payment?
Orders reach the kitchen display when the order is placed at the till. That is deliberate: a ticket that appears before the sale exists is how kitchens end up cooking orders that were never rung up.
Why doesn't my drinks-only order appear on the kitchen display?
Because there is nothing to cook. An order whose every line is marked Sold as-is is completed at payment instead of being sent to the kitchen. If a drink still appears, that switch is off on the product — see "What reaches the kitchen" above.
Does clearing the board delete my sales?
No. Clear all orders clears the display only. Sales, shifts and reports are untouched.
Can I use the KDS on a phone?
You can, but a phone is too small for a working kitchen screen. It is fine for checking the queue while away from the line, not as the kitchen's main display.