Dashboard: build your menu, scan it in and declare allergens

Menu Builder is where you create the menu that guests see in the app and on the website, and that your till and kitchen use. Scan a paper menu to start, then check each dish, set its price and VAT rate, choose where it is sold (eating in, Order Ahead, delivery or catering) and declare its allergens. The allergen declaration is stored once and printed on kitchen tickets and receipts, and the dashboard can produce an A4 allergen sheet and labels for food you pack yourself.

How do you start?

Open Menu Builder in the sidebar. You need the manage menu permission. You can add dishes by hand, or scan a photo of your paper menu: the scan reads the names and prices into dishes that you then check. A scan is a draft. Read every line before you publish it, because a misread price is a real price once it is live. The guide to menus and AI menu scanning explains what the scan can and cannot do.

What can you set on a dish?

The name, description, price and photo. The VAT rate, which you can set on a dish or on a whole section; a dish can have its own rate for takeaway. Sizes and extras, such as a large portion or extra cheese, and quick modifiers. Whether the dish is available for Order Ahead, delivery, the till or none. A catering item is sold in a catering unit with the number of people it serves and is kept off Order Ahead and delivery automatically.

Use sections to group dishes the way guests read them. Put your best sellers first.

How do you declare allergens?

Open a dish and set what it contains and what it may contain, add a note and, if you pack the dish yourself, the ingredients. A dish you have not declared tells guests: The place has not listed allergens for this dish. Ask them before you order. A dish declared with nothing in it says: The place lists no allergens for this dish. Mosey never says a dish is allergen free or safe; it says what you declared.

Each change to a declaration is saved with who made it and when. If you change a declaration, orders already rung keep the version the guest was shown. The old free-text allergies from earlier menus were mapped across by exact names, and anything the system could not map is kept as a note: check every dish and re-declare where needed.

What prints and where?

The declared allergens appear on the kitchen ticket, the kitchen display, the receipt and the order confirmation email, headed Allergen information from the place. The A4 allergen sheet is a matrix of dishes against allergens, produced from the dashboard as a PDF and ready for the wall. Labels for food packed on site list the ingredients with the 14 allergens in bold, and a dish with no ingredient list is not printed; it is listed so you can complete it. The native till app does not show allergen chips on its order screen yet; the web till does.

The allergen guide explains the law and the routine.

How do you copy a menu to another venue?

If you run several places, you can copy a menu across; the allergen declaration is copied too, with its own history entry. See running several venues.

What about prices?

Menu prices are what guests pay, including VAT. If a VAT rate changes, Mosey proposes the change, you confirm it, and you choose to keep the shelf price or keep what the place earns. See the VAT guide.

Which tools use the menu?

The till, Order Ahead, delivery, the kitchen display and your page in the app. A well-built menu is the cheapest improvement you can make. Read how to write a menu that sells next.