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Pay at the table by QR code

Guests scan the table code, watch the bill build, split by item, tip and pay from their phone. The cheque closes in your POS, with no terminal to bring over.

A smiling diner holds the bill at a restaurant table

Each guest scans the table's QR code, splits, tips and pays from their phone, and the cheque closes in your POS.

Pay at table with one QR code per table

Print the code once and leave it on the table. Whoever scans it gets the cheque that table has open right now. A new party never sees the last party's bill.

  • Static code tied to the table, whatever cheque is open
  • Opens in the browser, nothing for the guest to install
  • Each new party sees only its own cheque

The bill updates as the kitchen fires

Items show up on the guest's screen as your staff ring them in, at the price they were rung in at. If someone applies a discount at the station, the phone shows it too.

  • Live cheque pulled item by item from your POS
  • Modifiers, comps and discounts show as they're applied
  • Tax and service charges on their own lines, not buried in a total

Split it however the table wants

Guests can split by item, split evenly or type in an amount. Each one pays their own share, and what's left to pay updates on everyone else's screen.

Payment closes the cheque in your POS

Each payment posts against the cheque open in your POS. The table clears on the floor plan without anyone re-keying it. The itemized digital receipt goes out at the same moment.

How pay at table works

  1. Print the codes

    One code per table, from your floor plan. They never change, so put them on a stand, a menu or a sticker.

  2. Guests scan

    The code opens the table's live bill in the phone's browser. No app, no account, no waiting for the server.

  3. Split and pay

    Each guest pays by item, evenly or by amount, and the remaining balance updates on every phone.

  4. The table closes

    The payment posts to your POS, and every guest gets an itemized receipt for their share.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What people ask us before they sign up.

Pay at table lets guests pay from their own phone without waiting for the server or the card machine. With Smartbills, guests scan the QR code on the table, watch the bill update as items are rung in, split it however they like and pay, and the payment closes the cheque in your POS.

No. The QR code opens a web page in the phone's browser. Guests who already use the Smartbills app get the receipt filed there and can pay with a saved card, but nobody has to install anything.

No. Pay at table shows and settles a cheque your staff rang in on your POS. It doesn't put the menu on the guest's phone or send orders to the kitchen. Your service style and kitchen flow stay as they are.

Guests pick the tip on their own screen, starting from a suggestion calculated on the pre-tax subtotal that they can change or replace with their own amount. The tip posts to the cheque with the payment and flows into your existing tip pooling and payroll the same way a terminal tip does.

The cheque stays open. Anything rung in after a partial payment shows up as a new balance on the remaining guests' screens, and they can pay it the same way or on the terminal. Your POS always has the final word on what's owed.

It works with the POS platforms Smartbills already connects to for digital receipts, including Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed and Shopify POS. If your POS can expose an open cheque and take a payment against it, pay at table will work on it.

Your existing payment processor, wherever the integration allows it. Funds land in the same account on the same schedule as a terminal sale. Your deposits reconcile the way they do today. If you don't have a processor of your own, Smartbills can arrange one.

Yes. A bar tab works exactly like a dinner cheque, and the live bill is arguably more useful at the bar, because guests who can watch their tab build up dispute it far less often at closing time.

Get started

Win back the last ten minutes of every meal.

We'll show you pay at table running on your own floor plan.