ServeForge - Restaurant And Cafe POS System

Take orders on a touch-first POS. Fire kitchen tickets. Close the drawer with a real Z report.

ServeForge is a complete point-of-sale and store management system for cafes, coffee shops and small restaurants. Staff take orders on a dark, touch-optimized POS screen; tickets go to the kitchen as clean deltas; bills are settled with split payments and change math; the drawer is closed with a proper Z report and over/short. Everything runs on your own server - no cloud subscription, no per-terminal fees. Your till is a tablet or any PC with a browser.

The POS terminal

• Floor plan grouped by area with live table status colors (free / occupied / bill requested) - refreshes itself, no reload
• Fast order screen: category tabs, big item tiles, option pop-ups (sizes, milks, toppings, sides) with required/optional groups, price deltas and pre-selected defaults
• Line and order notes, quantities, sold-out items marked on the tiles
• Quick-service mode for counter sales and takeaway - straight to the order screen, no table required; switch modes any time
• Staff PIN switching: one shared till, one tap on the lock button, a 4-6 digit PIN - every order, payment, void and register action is recorded under the right name
• Built-in time clock: staff punch in and out from the terminal; entries are correctable in the back office

Kitchen tickets (KOT)

• Delta-based sending - only the new lines fire each time; the kitchen never re-reads lines it has already cooked
• Kitchen display screen with ticket age warnings, or 80mm-friendly printed tickets via the browser - or both

Billing that adds up

• Order discounts (percent or fixed, capped so a check can never go negative), service charge, per-item tax rates in inclusive or exclusive mode
• Split payments - as many partial tenders as needed; cash tendering with change math; editable payment-method list
• Pre-payment bill printing and final receipts (80mm rolls, A4 works too)
• Refunds (manager-only): full or partial, with reason and optional restock - recorded against the register session and audit-logged
• Voiding sent lines or whole orders requires a manager - every void is audit-logged with who did it

Register sessions (X / Z reports)

• Open the drawer with an opening float; the session accumulates every payment and refund
• Live drawer expectation and a printable X report mid-shift
• On close, count the cash and ServeForge records the over/short; the Z report (totals by method, sales, tax, refunds, voids, guest count) is frozen as a snapshot and archived in the back office

Back office (Laravel + Filament)

• Dashboard: today's sales, open checks, average check, 14-day chart, top sellers, reorder alerts
• Menu management: categories, items with photos, option groups, per-item tax rates, sold-out (86) toggle
• Simple stock: per-item quantity, low-stock threshold, adjustment log, auto sold-out at zero
• Date-range reports: summary, by payment method, by menu item, by day; full order history with daily order numbers
• Staff roles: admin / manager / cashier / waiter / kitchen - a settings toggle controls whether waiters can take payments
• Read-only audit log for every sensitive action (voids, refunds, register open/close, PIN switches)
• A public restaurant homepage fed by your live menu - update a price once, it changes everywhere; every section editable from the admin

Made for easy self-hosting

• Browser install wizard - upload, open your site, fill in DB and admin details. No Composer, no SSH, no code editing
• Runs on ordinary shared hosting: no websockets, no queue workers, no cron, assets pre-built
• No special hardware: receipts, bills, kitchen tickets and Z reports print through the normal browser dialog, sized for 80mm thermal rolls
• Several devices at once: the till, waiters' tablets and the kitchen display are just browser sessions against the same server

What you get

• Full source code (Laravel + Filament, unencrypted) with browser-based web installer
• HTML documentation with screenshots and FAQ
• Demo data seeder: a fully stocked demo cafe with staff, floor plan, menu and two weeks of sales history

Card and other non-cash payments are recorded, not processed - keep using your existing card terminal; ServeForge keeps the books. Sister product to ScanServe, our QR table-ordering system: each runs standalone, together they cover the register side and the table side.

Features

• Floor plan with live table status colors (free / occupied / bill requested)
• Quick-service mode for counter sales and takeaway
• Option pop-ups: sizes, milks, toppings, sides - required/optional groups with price deltas
• Delta-based kitchen tickets: kitchen display screen and/or 80mm printed KOT
• Split payments, cash tendering with change math, discounts and service charge
• Per-item tax rates in inclusive or exclusive mode
• Manager-only refunds and voids - every action audit-logged
• Register sessions: opening float, X report mid-shift, Z report with over/short on close
• Staff PIN switching on one shared till + built-in time clock
• Back office: dashboard, menu management, simple stock with low-stock alerts, date-range reports
• Staff roles: admin / manager / cashier / waiter / kitchen
• Public restaurant homepage fed by your live menu
• Browser install wizard - no Composer, no SSH, no code editing
• Runs on ordinary shared hosting: no cron, no websockets, assets pre-built

Requirements

• PHP 8.3+ (pdo, mbstring, openssl, fileinfo, intl; gd recommended) - the installer checks this for you
• MySQL 8 / MariaDB 10.6+ or SQLite - ordinary shared hosting works
• Apache or Nginx; HTTPS recommended
• A tablet or any PC with a modern browser as the till

Instructions

1. Upload the ZIP to your server and extract it
2. Open your site in a browser - the install wizard starts automatically
3. Fill in database details and create your admin account in the wizard
4. Log in to the back office, add your menu, floor plan and staff (or load the included demo data)
5. Open the POS on your tablet or PC and start taking orders

Full step-by-step HTML documentation with screenshots is included in the package.