The complete PlateDash guide

PlateDash turns your printed menu into a live ordering system. Guests scan a QR code on their table, order from their own phone — no app, no account — and the order appears on your screen seconds later with a beep. You keep your menu, your prices and your money; we just move the order.

The shortest path from paper to ordering looks like this:

1. 1

   Create your account

   Sign up with your email and your restaurant's name. Your public menu link is created automatically.
2. 2

   Pick a plan

   In Settings, choose Starter or Pro. Payment takes a minute and your dashboard unlocks instantly.
3. 3

   Upload your menu

   Photograph your printed menu or upload the PDF. The AI reads items, prices, sizes, descriptions, tags and allergens into drafts.
4. 4

   Review and publish

   Check what the AI found, fix anything, then press Publish. Only the items you approve go live.
5. 5

   Print your QR codes

   Create one QR per table, download and print, and stick one on each table. Guests can now order.

Every step below is covered in detail in its own section — use the sidebar to jump straight to what you need.

1. 1

   Create your account

   On the login page, sign up with your email and your restaurant's name. We email you a confirmation link — click it once and your restaurant is created automatically the first time you sign in.
2. 2

   Pick a plan

   In Settings → Billing, choose Starter ($50/month) or Pro ($99/month). Payment is the activation — there is no free trial, but also no setup call and no waiting. The moment payment succeeds, your dashboard unlocks.

You never type your menu in. On the Menu page, drop in a photo of your printed menu or the PDF from your designer. The AI reads it in seconds and turns it into structured drafts: items, prices, sizes, descriptions, tags and allergens.

1. 1

   Open the Menu page

   This is the first screen you see after signing in — the upload box is at the top.
2. 2

   Upload photos or a PDF

   Take clear photos of each menu page, or upload the PDF directly. You can add several files in one go; each one is processed with its own progress bar.
3. 3

   Give the menu a name

   Something you will recognize later — Lunch, Dinner, Drinks. You can have as many menus as you like.
4. 4

   Wait a few seconds

   The AI extracts every item it can find. If the service is briefly busy, the upload retries automatically — you never need to re-upload.

Nothing the AI reads ever goes live on its own. Extracted items land as drafts — visible only to you in the dashboard, never to guests.

Scroll through the drafts, fix a price or a spelling where needed, then press the orange Publish button on the menu. A dialog lets you tick exactly which items go live — publish everything at once, or just the ten items you checked. Drafts stay drafts until you say otherwise.

After the first publish, the same flow covers menu changes: add new items as drafts, review, publish. Your guest menu only ever shows what you approved.

On the Menu page, click any item to edit it in place. You can change the name, price, description, sizes, tags and allergens — no re-upload needed for small changes.

Sizes and variants

Items that come in sizes (Small / Medium / Large, or 6-piece / 12-piece) get variants: each variant has its own label and price, and guests pick one when ordering. Add, edit or remove variants on the item itself.

Sold out without deleting

Run out of something mid-service? One toggle marks the item unavailable — it vanishes from the guest menu instantly and comes back with the same toggle tomorrow. No deleting, no re-adding.

Categories and multiple menus

Items live inside categories (Starters, Mains, Desserts), which you can add, rename and reorder. A restaurant can have several menus — Lunch and Dinner, or Dine-in and Ramadan — and each QR code can point at a specific one.

Items with photos sell better. Click an item, add a photo from your phone or computer, and it appears on the guest menu within seconds.

You do not need to worry about file size: photos are compressed automatically in the browser before upload — resized to a sensible resolution and converted to modern WebP — so pages stay fast even on slow restaurant Wi-Fi and guest 3G. Images are served from a global CDN, not from your database.

The QR Codes page creates print-ready QR codes that link each table to your menu. Each code encodes a unique URL like platedash…/m/your-restaurant/table-5 — that URL is how an order knows which table it came from.

1. 1

   Create codes

   Make a single code (Table 5, Patio 2) or a whole range at once (Tables 1 to 20). Each code gets its own label, which prints under the QR so staff and guests can read it.
2. 2

   Point them at a menu (optional)

   Have a lunch and a dinner menu? Choose which menu each code opens. Leave it on the default and guests see your main menu.
3. 3

   Download and print

   Download the PNG — the label you see in the dashboard is exactly what prints. Stick one on each table, and test-scan one with your own phone before service.

A guest scans the table code and your menu opens instantly in their browser — categories across the top, photos, prices, tags and allergens, with an item detail sheet for anything they tap. No app store, no sign-up, no password.

They add items (picking a size where you offer one), open the cart, enter their name and phone number, add a note for the kitchen if they like, and choose how to pay — cash at the table, or card if you have online payments switched on. Card payments run on a secure Stripe page and the guest returns to a confirmation with a proper invoice.

If the same table orders again — drinks later, dessert after — the new items simply join the table's running bill. One table, one bill, automatically.

The Orders page is your service screen. The second a guest places an order it appears with a sound alert — no refreshing, on any device you leave open.

Accept first, then cook

New cash orders arrive as New and wait for one tap: Accept sends them to the kitchen, Reject kills a prank order before anyone cooks it. This gate exists so a fake order never reaches your kitchen. Online card orders skip the gate — a verified payment is already proof of a real customer, so they land directly on the kitchen board.

The life of an order

Accepted orders move through Preparing → Served → Completed with one tap each. Every order card shows the table, the guest's name and phone, items with sizes and notes, the running total, and whether it is paid or unpaid.

One table, one bill

A second order from the same table never creates a second bill — items merge into the table's active order and the total updates. When the party pays and leaves, complete the order and the table is clean for the next guests.

Every order card has two print buttons, designed for standard 72mm thermal printers but working on any printer:

Bill— the customer receipt: items with prices, quantities, the total, plus your restaurant's address, phone and a footer note (a thank-you line, your Wi-Fi password, a GST number) from Settings → Print info.

Kitchen — the kitchen ticket: big, clear item text with sizes and notes, and no prices— exactly what the chef needs, nothing they don't.

On the Orders page, pick a month and open the Monthly report: order counts, revenue, paid versus unpaid, cash versus card, and a day-by-day breakdown — printable or saveable as a PDF straight from the browser.

The report reads from fast monthly rollups, not raw order scans, so even a busy restaurant's year-end summary opens instantly.

Settings holds your restaurant's identity: the display name guests see, and your public menu URL — platedash…/m/your-name — which is created automatically from your restaurant name at signup.

The same card holds your print info (address, phone, footer note) that appears on every printed bill.

Set your weekly hours once in Settings → Opening hours: open and close time per day, days off, and your timezone. Overnight hours like 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM are fully supported — the system understands that 1 AM belongs to yesterday's service.

Outside your hours, guests can still browse the menu but can't order; the menu shows a clear message with your next opening time. No more "sorry, we're closed" conversations.

The instant switch

For the unexpected — a private event, a holiday, an early close — flip the Open switch in the same card. It overrides the schedule instantly, and flipping it back on returns you to the normal hours. Guests always see the truth.

Online payments are bring-your-own-key: guests pay by card directly into your own Stripe account. PlateDash never holds your money — the payment settles with Stripe like any card payment you take today. The connection uses a Stripe restricted key, which limits exactly what PlateDash can do with your account.

Step 1 — Get your Stripe account ready

Create or log into your account at stripe.com and finish Stripe's business onboarding (business details and your bank account) so Stripe can pay out your money. Take real payments with a live-mode key; use test mode only if you want to rehearse the flow first.

Step 2 — Create the restricted key in Stripe

1. 1

   Open Developers → API keys

   In your Stripe dashboard, go to Developers, then API keys.
2. 2

   Click “Create restricted key”

   Give it a name you will recognize, for example “PlateDash”.
3. 3

   Set exactly two permissions

   Permission	Setting	Why PlateDash needs it
   Checkout Sessions	Write	To create the secure card-checkout page when a guest pays online.
   Webhook Endpoints	Write	To register one webhook on your account — this is how your kitchen learns a payment succeeded. Created automatically when you connect.
   Everything else	None	Leave every other permission off. PlateDash cannot touch payouts, refunds or your balance.

4. 4

   Create the key and copy it

   Stripe shows the key once — copy it right away. A live restricted key starts with rk_live_ (test keys start with rk_test_).

Step 3 — Connect in PlateDash

1. 1

   Paste the key in Settings → Payments

   Press Connect. PlateDash validates the key by registering its webhook on your account — if the key is wrong or a permission is missing, you get a clear error and nothing is saved.
2. 2

   Add your fee billing card

   Step 2 in the same card. $0 today — this card is charged once a month with the platform fee on online orders only (see Platform fees below).
3. 3

   Switch Online payments on

   Guests immediately see a Pay by card option at checkout. Cash stays available as long as you want it.

What happens on each online order

The guest pays on Stripe's secure page; the order stays hidden until Stripe itself confirms the payment to us (a signed webhook, cross-checked to the cent). Only then does the order appear — straight on the kitchen board, already marked paid, with the guest able to view a proper invoice. If the guest abandons the payment page, the hidden order cleans itself up and nothing reaches your screens.

The fee model is deliberately simple: cash orders are always fee-free, and online card orders carry a small platform fee — 2% on Starter, 1.5% on Pro. That is the entire commission story. No per-order fixed fee, no setup fee, no fee on cash.

How it is calculated

When a guest pays online, the fee is calculated on that order's total in your currency, converted to USD at the daily reference rate, and recorded on the order — the number never changes afterwards. Nothing is charged per order.

How it is charged

Once a month, on your billing date, the accumulated fees are charged automatically to the billing card you added in Settings — the same Lemon Squeezy billing relationship as your plan. If a monthly fee payment fails, online checkout pauses until the card is fixed; your menu and cash orders keep working either way.

Where to watch it

Settings → Platform fees shows the running total for the current period, how many online orders it came from, the exact date it charges, and a month-by-month history of past charges. You can verify every cent against the Orders report.

Settings → Billing → Manage billing opens your secure payment portal: update your card, download invoices, switch plans or cancel. Upgrades and downgrades apply immediately with proration handled by the payment provider; if you cancel, you keep full access until the end of the paid period. If a payment ever fails, you keep access while the provider retries — fix the card from the same portal.

Pro adds a dedicated kitchen screen. In Settings → Kitchen staff, create a staff account (email and a password you choose), share the login with your chef, and they open the Kitchen page — a full-screen live board with New, Cooking and Ready columns and a sound alert on every new order.

Staff accounts see only the kitchen board — no menus, no prices beyond the ticket, no settings, no billing. You can have up to 2 staff accounts, and removing one deletes its login completely, so a departing cook loses access on the spot.

Every card in your dashboard has a small ? button with a one-line explanation of what it does — the fastest answer is usually right there.

For anything else, write to support@platedash.com. Pro plans get priority replies during service hours.