Skip to content
All posts

Keep Every Seat Accountable: Introducing Check Requirements

There are a few scenarios most operators know well. A table orders appetizers and drinks, the server closes the check before anyone orders a main course. A multi-course booking wraps up and one seat never ordered a beverage. At a venue where beverage minimums or cover charges matter, these gaps add up.

Check Requirements gives you a way to address this systematically, without relying on servers to catch it manually.

cactus_mobile_patio-400x250

How It Works

You configure Check Requirements at the department level. For each department, you can define one or more rules that specify what must be ordered per occupied seat before the check can move forward. A rule might require at least one beverage per seat, or an entree above a minimum price, or both. You set the thresholds based on what makes sense for your operation.

When a server attempts to send, print, or close a check, the system evaluates each seat against the active rules. Seats that meet the requirements proceed normally. Seats that do not trigger a warning at the Send stage, which the server can dismiss and continue. At Print and Pay, non-compliant seats are blocked until they are resolved.

How Seats Get Resolved

There are three ways a seat can satisfy a requirement. The first is a qualifying individual item, the seat ordered something that meets the rule on its own. The second is assignment to a shared item, where a bottle of wine or a shared appetizer can be allocated across multiple seats to satisfy the beverage or food requirement for each. The third is a per-seat exemption through Seat Info, which allows servers to mark a seat as No Bev when appropriate, such as for a designated driver or a non-dining guest.

This flexibility matters in practice. Shared bottles, shared desserts, and similar arrangements are common in full-service dining, and Check Requirements is built to handle them without forcing artificial workarounds.

_MG_3832

What It Changes for Operators

Check Requirements creates a consistent floor for what needs to happen before a check closes. It does not replace server judgment, but it adds a structural check that catches gaps before they become revenue lost. For operations running beverage minimums, prix fixe formats, or any service model where ordering coverage per seat matters, it provides a level of oversight that was previously hard to enforce at scale.

Rules are configured per department, so you can apply them where they make sense and leave other areas unaffected. Setup is straightforward and does not require changes to your menu structure.

If you have ever wished you had a way to catch missed covers before the check closes, Check Requirements is built for exactly that.

Simpler operations at every scale.
See how Squirrel Systems helps multi-unit operators eliminate manual data movement →