KOT printing explained: stations, routing and printer setup

What a KOT is, and what it isn't

A KOT (Kitchen Order Ticket) is the instruction to cook. It lists items, quantities and modifiers — and deliberately carries no prices, because the kitchen doesn't need them and printing money figures in a kitchen invites confusion.

It's distinct from two other slips people often conflate:

• KOT — goes to the kitchen/bar. Items only, no prices. Printed when the order is fired.
• Check (or provisional bill) — goes to the guest before payment, with prices, so they can verify the order. Not a tax invoice.
• Tax invoice / final bill — the legal document, with GSTIN, invoice number and tax breakdown. See the GST guide.

Keeping these three separate is what lets a guest add a round of drinks after the check is printed without anyone reprinting a tax invoice.

Station routing: the part that saves real time

If one order contains a paneer tikka, a dal and a cold coffee, the food belongs to the kitchen and the coffee belongs to the bar. Printing the whole ticket in both places means each station has to read past items that aren't theirs — which is how a drink gets missed on a busy night.

Proper routing splits one order into separate tickets per station. Set it up by mapping each menu category to a station once:

Do this once and it's automatic forever. Waiters stop deciding where things go, which removes a whole class of mistake.

Choosing thermal printers: 58 mm or 80 mm

Thermal printers need no ink — they burn onto heat-sensitive paper. Two roll widths dominate:

• 80 mm — about 42–48 characters per line. Use for bills and busy kitchens; item names don't wrap awkwardly.
• 58 mm — about 32 characters. Cheaper and more compact, fine for a bar with short drink names. Long item names will wrap.

Practical advice: use 80 mm for the kitchen and the cash counter, and 58 mm only where space is genuinely tight. Also prefer LAN/Ethernet printers over USB for kitchen stations. A LAN printer can be shared by any device on the network, so a captain tablet's order can print in the kitchen without being tethered to the billing PC.

One environmental note people learn the hard way: thermal paper fades with heat. Don't mount the printer directly above a tandoor or range, and don't expect thermal bills to survive as archival records — keep digital copies.

Silent printing: why the browser dialog matters

If your POS runs in a browser, printing normally opens the operating system's print dialog and someone has to click "Print." Forty times an hour, that's unusable.

The fix is a small local print helper (for example QZ Tray) installed on the billing machine. The POS sends raw ESC/POS commands straight to the printer, so tickets appear instantly with no dialog and no margins to fight. When evaluating any browser-based POS, ask specifically how it achieves silent printing — and test it on your hardware before you buy.

Handling additions and cancellations

Guests change their minds after the order has been fired. How your system handles that is where disputes between floor and kitchen come from.

Two rules make it manageable. First, additions should print as a new KOT containing only the new items — never a reprint of the whole ticket, or the kitchen may cook the first items twice. Second, a removal after firing should print an explicit cancellation slip at the station that received it, so the cook has paper proof to stop. A silent deletion on the cashier's screen is invisible to the kitchen; the dish still arrives, and someone pays for it.

It's also worth requiring manager approval to remove an item already sent. That's not distrust of staff — it's the control that makes your wastage numbers meaningful, and it creates a trail when a dish is comped.

Should you use a kitchen display instead of paper?

A KDS is a screen in the kitchen showing live orders, replacing or supplementing printed tickets. It's genuinely better in some ways — no paper cost, orders can't be lost or grease-stained, and you get timing data on how long tickets take.

The honest trade-offs: a screen needs power and a stable mount in a hot, wet environment, and if the tablet dies mid-service you need a fallback. Many kitchens run both — screen as primary, printer as backup. That's a sensible default rather than a compromise.

A setup checklist

• ✓ Every menu category mapped to exactly one station
• ✓ 80 mm printers at kitchen and cash counter; LAN rather than USB for kitchen
• ✓ Silent printing tested on your actual printer models
• ✓ Additions print as new KOTs, not full reprints
• ✓ Cancellation slips print at the affected station
• ✓ Manager approval required to remove a fired item
• ✓ Printers not mounted directly over heat
• ✓ Spare paper rolls somewhere the staff can actually find at 9pm