Setting Up Modifiers

Modifiers are applied modifications to an Item entry. Modifiers are very customizable in Sail POS, but initial setup can be a little daunting at first. This guide will walk you through the ins and outs of how modifiers work and how to configure them.

In the POS section of Backoffice, under Modifiers, you will see the following sections:

The following sections in this document describe each of these concepts and how they relate. At a high level, here are the individual concepts summarized:

 

Modifier Items

When a modifier is applied to an Item, they are ultimately child Items under its parent Item. These child Items used as modifiers have many of the same properties as a normal Item, including the ability to prompt for additional modifiers (eg. a Side Salad Modifier Item, may prompt for dressing selections). The Modifier Items area works almost identically to the normal Items area, but is designed to house Items that are strictly for modifications. Take the following California Burger rang in as an example:

Medium, American, Fries, Tomato and Avocado are all Modifier Items with their individual pricing applied to each. As you can see below, the ‘American’ Modifier Item setup looks very similar to a normal Item setup. Modifier Items have their own list in the menu, under Modifiers --> Modifier Items.

 

Modifier Types

A Modifier Type defines how a modifier prompt reacts and the available selections given to the user. Your system comes with a typical list of Modifier Types, but you can customize or add additional types as needed

These are the most common modifier types, and are included with all default installations of Sail POS:

Click New Modifier Type to add your own.

When defining a Modifier Type, in the Details tab you can specify:

1. A name.
2. The Type: Standard for most modifier types, or Pizza Builder for pizza toppings (its modifiers can be placed on the left half, the whole, or the right half).

Whether the user is allowed to select multiple options, or only one, is set on the Modifier Set (see Modifier Sets below).

On the Modifiers tab you define what options can be applied (click New Modifier to add one). You can also drag them up and down by the handle on the left (1) to specify in what order they will be prompted.

In addition, you can specify a percentage that will be applied to the Modifier Item price, in the Price % column (2). For example, if you have an ‘American Cheese’ Modifier Item that costs $1.50 - when you want to ‘Add’ that item, you want to charge the full $1.50 (100%). However, if you want to specify that they would like ‘No’ ‘American Cheese’, you wouldn’t want to charge for that, thus it is set to 0% of the price so it rings up for $0.00.

The other columns:

• Online: the modifier is available for online ordering.
• Default: the modifier that is pre-selected online for the ingredients an item already comes with. One modifier per type.
• Deduct: online ordering only. Choosing this modifier for an ingredient the item already comes with takes off the portion the guest already paid for. Leave it on for options that change or replace what comes on the item (Add, No, Easy-On), and turn it off for options added on top (Extra), so those charge their full amount.
• Modifier %: how the modifier is counted when a set limits the quantity (e.g. a ‘Double’ modifier at 200% counts as 2).
• Inventory %: how much the modifier takes off inventory when it is used.
• Print Seq: the order the modifier prints on kitchen tickets, kitchen video and receipts (lowest first). Leave 0 to keep the order it was entered in.

 

Modifier Sets

A Modifier Set houses a collection of Items to be prompted. It also defines how the prompt reacts by configuring its Modifier Type described above. For example, if you have a cheeseburger on your menu, you would want to prompt the user for what type of cheese they would like. A ‘Cheese Selection’ Modifier Set would be created that would specify a ‘Toggle’ Modifier Type with a Maximum Quantity of 1, and various cheese Items would be assigned to the Modifier Set, such as American, Cheddar, etc. See below:

On the Details tab you give the set a Name, choose its Modifier Type, and set how many selections can be made (Minimum and Maximum Quantity; a Maximum Quantity of 1 allows a single selection). On the Modifier Items tab you add the Items in the set.

 

Modifier Prompts

There are 2 different ways that modifiers can be applied to an item, each are described below:

All Ingredients

The All Ingredients set is the list of modifiers that can be applied to any item, at any time, by selecting the item on the order and pressing Modify. As shown below, this Modifier Set typically contains all of the Items in the ‘Standard Ingredients’ Modifier Item Category, while applying the ‘Standard’ Modifier Type. (An Item can use a different set here: its Default Modifier Set, on the Item’s Details tab under Terminal & Behavior.)

This is also an example of a Modifier Set that is setup to use ‘Select Category’. As you can see it groups the Modifier Items into tabs based on the Item’s Item Category.

 

Prompted Modifiers

Prompted modifiers are a list of Modifier Sets to be prompted, in a particular order, when the Item is rang in.

Let’s continue using the burger example. When ringing in a burger you may want to prompt the user for various things. In the example below, we specify that we would like to prompt for the cook temp, the cheese and a side with their burger. This is done on the Item’s Modifiers tab, under Prompted Sets, by specifying the various Modifier Sets that contain the appropriate selections. The Title is what the terminal shows above the choices.

This is how the cheese prompt looks on the terminal: