Glossary
The words that come up,
explained without the sales copy.
35 terms from the trades we build for — ordering and delivery, tills and kitchens, payments, bookings, and the UK rules that apply to them. Where a rate or a date is quoted, it is the published one.
Ordering and delivery
- Commission rateThe percentage of each order an aggregator keeps, agreed per restaurant and usually quoted before VAT.
- Average order value (AOV)Total takings divided by the number of orders — the number that decides whether anything else you change is worth doing.
- Order throttlingA cap on how many orders can be accepted in a time slot, so a sudden rush cannot promise food the kitchen has no chance of cooking.
- Delivery zoneA defined area with its own delivery charge and minimum order, drawn by postcode, by radius or by driving distance.
- Road-distance delivery pricingCharging by the distance a driver actually drives rather than by a straight line on a map.
- Minimum order value (MOV)The smallest order a shop will deliver, usually set per zone rather than across the board.
- Click and collectOrdering and paying online, then collecting in person — the highest-margin order a shop can take.
- Scheduled ordersOrders placed now for a time later, which need the kitchen to be told at the right moment rather than immediately.
- AggregatorA marketplace that lists many restaurants, owns the customer relationship and charges commission per order.
- White-label orderingA vendor platform carrying your branding, which looks like your own system until you want to change something or leave.
Tills and kitchen
- EPOSElectronic point of sale — the till, plus everything it records about what was sold.
- PLUPrice look-up code — the short code that identifies a product on a till.
- ModifierAn option attached to an item that changes its price, its preparation or both.
- Z reportThe end-of-day report that totals the session and closes it; an X report shows the same figures without closing anything.
- Station routingSending each part of an order to the station that makes it — fryer, grill, cold prep, bar.
- Kitchen display system (KDS)A screen that shows every live order in one queue, by station, with the time since each was paid for.
- CloudPRNTA protocol where the kitchen printer polls a web address for jobs, so no computer in the shop has to act as a print server.
- Bump barThe control used to clear a finished order from a kitchen screen — and to bring it back when somebody clears the wrong one.
- Self-service kioskA screen in the shop where the customer places and pays for their own order.
Payments
- Card present and card not presentWhether the card was physically at the sale, which changes the fee, the fraud rules and who carries the loss on a dispute.
- ChargebackA card payment reversed by the cardholder’s bank, decided on the evidence the merchant can produce.
- Payment gateway and acquirerThe gateway moves the payment data; the acquirer holds the merchant account and settles the money to your bank.
- Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)The requirement for an extra verification step on most online card payments in the UK, enforced from 14 March 2022.
- PCI DSS and SAQ AThe card industry security standard, and the shortest self-assessment — available only if card details never touch your own systems.
- TokenisationReplacing a card number with a reference that is useless to anybody else, so repeat payments work without you ever holding the card.
- SettlementWhen the money actually reaches your bank, which is not when the customer paid.
- Apple Wallet passA real pass installed in the phone’s wallet — signed, updatable and shown on the lock screen — not a picture of a loyalty card.
Bookings
- No-showA booking that never arrives, and the single largest avoidable cost in an appointment business.
- Booking depositMoney taken at the time of booking, either as a charge or as a card held against a no-show.
- Slot capacityHow much work can genuinely be done in one time slot, which is what availability should be calculated from.
- Lead timeThe minimum notice before a booking or order can be accepted, set per service rather than across the board.
Rules and data
- PPDS and Natasha’s LawFood packed before it is ordered, at the place it is sold, must carry its name and a full ingredients list with the 14 allergens emphasised — in force since 1 October 2021.
- Allergen informationThe 14 regulated allergens, which must be available to a customer before they order, in writing or clearly signposted.
- Marketing consentPermission to send marketing — which existing customers can give by not opting out, and everyone else has to give actively.
- Data controller and processorYou decide what happens to your customers’ data and are the controller; a supplier acting on your instructions is a processor.
Questions
About this glossary.
Who is this glossary for?
Owners and managers of takeaways, cafés, salons, shops and producers who are being sold something and want to know what the words mean. Every term is one somebody in those trades would actually type, not vocabulary we use internally.
Are the figures in here checked?
Yes, and each is dated and credited on the page that uses it. Where an authority publishes a number - Uber Eats’ rate card, the FCA on Strong Customer Authentication, the FSA on PPDS labelling - it is cited and linked. Where nobody publishes one, the entry says so rather than quoting a figure from a comparison site.
Why is each entry so short?
Because a glossary that pads is a glossary nobody reads. Each term gets a direct answer, two or three paragraphs of what it means in practice, and the three questions people actually ask next. If a subject needs more than that, it gets an article instead.
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