Orders gives any business that takes customer orders — food, retail, services, pickup of any kind — one place where every order lands, whatever channel it came from. This guide takes you from zero to your first completed order.
1. License the app
In the Hub (nowaitn.com), open My Apps and license Orders. Assign a seat to each staff member who will take orders, work the queue, or record payments. Seat capabilities control who can do what — viewing orders, advancing them, and recording payments are separate permissions you can grant per person.
2. Build your catalog
Your catalog is the single source of truth for what customers can order and what it costs. Add items in the Products app — a name, a price, and optionally a description, photo, and category. The same catalog powers your hosted ordering page, so you never maintain a separate menu.
3. Share your ordering page
Every organization gets a hosted ordering page at 0rder.app/your-name — your catalog rendered as a public menu with a cart and checkout. Print it as a QR code at your counter, link it from your website or social profiles, and you're taking orders with no website build. See Set up your hosted ordering page.
4. Work the queue
New orders appear on your dashboard at orders.nowaitn.com the moment they're placed. Open an order to see its items, tap Start preparing when you begin, and Ready for pickup when it's done — the customer's tracking page updates within seconds and they're notified automatically at each step.
5. Get paid
For counter service, record cash or an external card-terminal payment right on the order — the running balance and paid badge keep both sides honest. See Taking payments at the counter.
Where orders can come from
Beyond the hosted page, orders can be created by staff through the API, by your own website or point-of-sale integration, or by an AI agent through the platform's MCP tools — every channel produces the same order record in the same queue, so your process doesn't change based on where the order started.