Skip to main content

Taking payments

When the guest is ready to pay, tap Pay from the check. OrderUp opens the full-screen Payment screen, organized into three panels:

  • Order summary on the left — the check, with subtotal, tax, and total.
  • Amount entry in the center — the keypad, split helpers, or the inline card flow.
  • Payment methods on the right — the buttons your business has enabled.

Payment methods​

Your business decides which payment methods are available. The most common are:

  • Cash — Open the drawer, take the bill, enter the amount tendered. The POS computes change and prints the receipt.
  • Credit / debit card — Processed through CardConnect. The customer taps, dips, or swipes on the card reader paired to this device. EMV chip and contactless are supported.
  • Gift card — OrderUp's built-in gift card program. Swipe or scan the card; the POS authorizes against the available balance.
  • ACH — Bank-account payment for catering or large-ticket sales (if enabled by your business).
  • Integrated wallets — Apple Pay, Google Pay, and contactless cards work through the same tap-to-pay flow on the card reader. No separate button needed.

For card payments, the POS sends the amount to the reader and the customer completes the transaction on the device — your team never handles the card.

Tips​

After a card authorization completes, the POS shows the tip flow. Depending on your configuration:

  • On-device tip prompt — The reader asks the customer to choose a tip amount before the transaction posts (typical for full-service).
  • Add tip after — The tip is added at the POS based on a written total on the printed receipt (typical for sit-down restaurants where the customer signs and writes a tip).

Tips are tracked per employee for reporting and tip pooling. See End of day for how tips are reported and distributed.

Authorization vs. capture (in plain English)​

Card sales happen in two steps:

  • Authorization — When the customer pays, the issuing bank sets aside the money but doesn't actually move it. This is what the customer sees as a "pending" charge.
  • Capture — Later (typically at end-of-day or up to a few days afterward), OrderUp tells the processor to actually pull the funds. This is when the charge moves from pending to posted on the customer's statement.

Most OrderUp restaurants run on same-day capture: the POS captures each authorization shortly after the customer has paid, so you don't have to think about it. If you operate a tip-adjust workflow (servers add tips after the customer leaves), capture happens at end-of-day after tips are entered. Your manager configures this in Management → Settings → Payments.

Refunds and voids​

There are two ways to "undo" a card sale, and they're not the same thing:

  • Void — Cancels an authorization that hasn't been captured yet. No money has actually moved, so the customer sees the pending charge fall off — usually within a business day. Voids are free.
  • Refund — Returns money on a capture that has already settled. Funds move from your account back to the customer's. Refunds typically take 3–5 business days to land on the customer's statement.

To issue a refund or void:

  1. Find the original sale in Orders Hub (the search button on the home screen).
  2. Open the order and tap Refund (or Void if it hasn't captured yet).
  3. Choose full or partial refund. For partial, enter the amount.
  4. A manager PIN is required for both refunds and voids.

The customer's card receipt and any printed copies are reversed automatically. The refund posts to the same card the original sale was on — you cannot refund Card A's purchase to Card B.

Correcting a tip after it's captured​

If a tip was typed wrong and the sale has already captured (the common case once the guest is gone), don't use a partial refund — it would touch the whole sale, not just the tip. Instead:

  1. Find the sale in Orders Hub and tap Correct tip.
  2. Enter the tip the guest should actually be charged.
  3. A manager PIN is required, same as a refund or void.

This only ever lowers a tip that was typed too high — the meal itself is never touched, and there's no time limit on when you can fix it. If the tip should have been higher than what was charged, there's no way to add to a card that's already been charged — ring up the difference as a new payment on the check instead.

Cash refunds and pay-outs​

For cash refunds, open the drawer using the Pay Out action, hand over the cash, and record the reason. Pay-outs appear on the cash drawer report at end-of-day so the count reconciles.

Settlement and when you'll see the money​

Settlement is the daily handoff of captured transactions from CardConnect to your bank.

  • Cutoff time — Set a daily batch cutoff time for your restaurant in Management → Settings → Payments (in your local time zone). OrderUp closes out the batch once that time passes. Sales captured before cutoff settle that night; sales after cutoff roll into the next day.
  • Funding time — Funds typically arrive in your bank account 1–2 business days after settlement. Weekends and bank holidays add to the delay.
  • Where to track it — In Management → Reports → Daily CC Deposits, you'll see each settlement batch alongside the deposit that lands in your bank.

If a deposit is missing or the totals don't match, start with that report. Sales still awaiting a written tip at batch cutoff are automatically captured with no tip rather than left open, so a missing deposit is more often a declined or failed batch close — your manager can check for and retry those before the next settlement.

Cash drawers close out on the same cutoff. Any drawer shift still open from an earlier business day is automatically closed at your batch cutoff time (or 4:00 AM local time, if no cutoff is configured). OrderUp records the expected cash total for that shift but can't count it for you — check Cash Management the next morning for any drawer that was auto-closed so you can enter the actual count.

Common payment issues​

  • Reader disconnected. Bring the reader closer to the tablet, then tap Reconnect on the payment screen.
  • Card declined. Have the customer try another card. Repeated declines on the same device may mean the reader needs a firmware update (do this from Settings → Card readers).
  • Wrong amount on partial. Tap Cancel, restart the payment, and enter the partial amount on the keypad before choosing a method.
  • Missed a tip before batch close. Any sale still awaiting a written tip when the restaurant's daily batch cutoff hits is automatically captured with no tip added, so it doesn't sit open indefinitely. Once that happens, the tip can no longer be added to that same card charge — ring it up as a new payment on the check instead. (A tip that was captured too high can still be corrected — see Correcting a tip after it's captured.)

For broader troubleshooting, see Troubleshooting.