Food Truck

POS setup and configuration for a food truck. From an empty account to taking orders at the window: what to buy, what to switch on, and the daily flow.

What it does

A food truck is counter service at its most compact: one window, a queue, no tables, and very little room for equipment. This guide walks through setting POSolid up for that — what to buy, how the pieces connect, which settings to turn on and (just as importantly) which to turn off, so your order screen stays as fast as the queue demands.

The short version: one Android tablet can be your whole till — it runs POSolid, runs the Print Agent, and drives the receipt printer through a single cable.

What you need

"Optional" means your choice — not an upsell. Every optional line above is hardware you may or may not want; none of it unlocks anything in POSolid. The Kitchen Display, the Customer Display Board, pager numbers, QR Menu and extra users and devices are included in your subscription from day one, with no per-device or per-feature charge. You can switch any of them on later, in the middle of a season, without changing plan or paying more. The only thing you'd ever spend money on is the physical equipment itself — and only if you decide you want it.

How everything connects

The simplest truck has no router at all — just a tablet and a cable:

Tablet (POSolid + Print Agent) --( mobile internet )--> POSolid
Tablet                         --( USB OTG cable )---> Thermal printer

Add a 4G/5G router as soon as you want a second device or a network printer:

Router (4G/5G + Wi-Fi) --( mobile internet )--> POSolid
Tablet, phones, screen --( local Wi-Fi )-----> Router
Print Agent tablet     --( USB cable or local Wi-Fi )--> Printers

Three things are worth understanding:

1. Every device reaches POSolid over the internet. Tablets, phones and the customer screen just open POSolid in a browser. Nothing needs to be installed on them.
2. The Print Agent runs on one device only — the tablet at the window. It collects print jobs from POSolid and sends them to the printer. It only makes outgoing connections, so there's nothing to configure on the router.
3. Printers are reached by cable or local network. A USB OTG cable is the simplest; a Wi-Fi printer works too, as long as it's on the same local network as the tablet running the Print Agent.

Getting started

1. Create your organization — see Create Your Account. Set your country, currency and, if you're in Poland, your tax settings.
2. Build your menu in Menu → Catalog: a few categories (e.g. Burgers, Sides, Drinks), your items, and modifiers for extras and sauces. If you already have a printed menu, the Menu Scanner in AI Tools can do the first pass for you.
3. Tune the register in Settings → Orders configuration — this is the step that makes POSolid feel like a truck rather than a restaurant:
   • Assign table to order — turn off. You have no tables.
   • Order type selector — turn off, or leave it on with takeaway as the default.
   • Require payment before accepting order — turn on. At a window, people pay first.
   • Assign pager number to order — turn on only if you hand out buzzers; otherwise the order number does the job.
4. Install the Print Agent on the tablet (Settings → Printers → Connect, then the Android installer) and link it with the one-time code — see Printing.
5. Pair your printers. For a thermal printer: plug it into the tablet with the USB OTG cable, run a scan in Settings → Printers, and click Pair when it appears in the USB list. Poland: add your fiscal printer the same way and turn on its fiscal option — see Supported Fiscal Printers. A fiscal printer on its own is enough to start; see "Do you need a thermal printer?" below.
6. Choose how the kitchen works — nothing, a Kitchen Display, or printed tickets. See "Setting up the kitchen" below; a one-person truck can skip this entirely.
7. Add your staff in Staff & Roles and give each person a PIN so they can swap at the window in a second — see Quick Access with a PIN.
8. Install POSolid as an app on the tablet so it runs full-screen with no browser bar — see Install the App.
9. Do a dry run before you open: take a test order, take payment, check the receipt prints, then look at Reports to confirm it landed.

Do you need a thermal printer?

If you're in Poland and have a fiscal printer, probably not — at least not to start.

A fiscal printer already prints the fiscal receipt, the daily report and the return protocol. On top of that, when it is the only printer connected to your Print Agent, POSolid sends the guest pre-check to it too, as a non-fiscal printout — no fiscal counters are touched. So a truck with just a fiscal printer can trade, take payments, hand guests a pre-check, and close the day, with nothing else attached.

Two things a fiscal printer can't cover:

• Kitchen tickets. Printed kitchen tickets only go to an ESC/POS thermal printer. If a station is set to print and there's no thermal printer, the ticket is silently skipped — so if you want printed tickets, budget for a second printer or use the Kitchen Display instead.
• Being outside Poland. With no fiscal device in the picture, a thermal printer becomes your only way to print anything at all.

One more thing worth knowing: the pre-check falls back to the fiscal printer only while it's your sole printer. The moment you add a thermal printer, pre-checks go there instead — which is usually what you want, since it keeps the fiscal roll for fiscal documents.

Setting up the kitchen

A truck has three sensible ways to run the kitchen. Pick the one that matches how you work — you can change your mind later without redoing anything else.

1. Nothing at all — the person at the window cooks.

If an item isn't assigned to a prep station, it never joins a kitchen queue: it counts as ready the moment the order is taken. For a one- or two-person truck this is usually the right answer. No extra hardware, no extra screen, no extra taps.

2. A Kitchen Display on a second tablet.

Assign your items to a prep station, then open the Kitchen Display on a spare tablet or phone propped up by the grill. Items appear the second an order is sent, and the cook moves each one Queue → In Progress → Ready. Worth it when a cook works out of sight of the window, or when you're regularly holding more orders in your head than you're comfortable with. Any device with a browser will do — it doesn't need the Print Agent, and it doesn't need to be the same brand as your till.

3. Printed kitchen tickets — no kitchen screen at all.

A manager can point a prep station at a printer instead of a screen. Items for that station never appear on a board — a ticket prints by itself the moment the order is sent. This is the classic paper-ticket workflow, and in a truck it's often the most practical of the three: nothing to charge, nothing to wake up, nothing to touch with wet hands.

You can hang a second thermal printer by the pass, or let the receipt printer you already have print both — a station is allowed to share the till's printer. A second printer is tidier once you're busy, because a kitchen ticket and a guest receipt stop competing for the same roll.

This is the one job a fiscal printer can't do: kitchen tickets need an ESC/POS thermal printer. If you have only a fiscal printer, pick option 1 or 2 instead.

If you print tickets and keep a Kitchen Display open somewhere, keep it to a single screen. Each open board watches for new orders on its own, so an auto-printing station can produce one ticket per open screen.

Pagers (optional).

If you hand out buzzers, turn on Assign pager number to order in Settings → Orders configuration and type the buzzer's number when taking the order. The number then travels with the order: it shows on the order in the register, on the Kitchen Display card, and on the guest pre-check, so anyone can match food to guest without shouting. Printed kitchen tickets carry the order number rather than the pager number — if the cook needs to know the buzzer, use the Kitchen Display instead of tickets.

Pagers are worth it when guests wander off — a market pitch, a festival, a truck with seating nearby. If people simply stand and wait, the order number does the same job for free.

Recommended setup

Start at the level that matches your crew, and grow into the next one.

Minimum — one person at the window

Tablet + one printer + phone hotspot. In Poland that one printer can be the fiscal printer; elsewhere it's a thermal one. One person takes the order, takes payment, and hands over the food. No router, no kitchen screen, no second printer, no extra logins. This is genuinely enough to trade.

Recommended — two or three people

Add a 4G/5G router so the connection doesn't depend on someone's phone, and a second phone for taking orders further down the queue while the window keeps serving. Turn on pager numbers if you hand out buzzers. Give everyone a PIN.

Full — busy truck or a regular pitch

Add a small screen facing customers running the Customer Display Board, so people watch for their number instead of asking. If a cook works behind a separate hatch, add a Kitchen Display screen. Put up a QR Menu so the queue can read the menu (and order) while they wait. Turn on Work Shifts so hours are recorded, and Discount Cards if you run a loyalty scheme.

Recommendations worth following whatever your size:

• Buy the printer and the tablet together, and test them as a pair before your first service. USB OTG is reliable but the cable matters — use the one that came with the printer or a known-good OTG adapter.
• Prefer one tablet doing everything over splitting the till across devices. Fewer devices means fewer things to charge and fewer things to fail at the window.
• Carry a second way online. A spare SIM or a colleague's hotspot has saved more services than any other backup.
• Keep the order screen bare. Every field you leave switched on is a tap someone makes a hundred times a day.
• Close the fiscal day at the end of each service, not the next morning — see Printing.

Key things to know

• You need internet during service. POSolid runs in the cloud; there's no offline mode. Plan your connection first, not last.
• The tablet is the print device. If it sleeps, dies, or leaves the truck, printing stops. Keep it plugged in and awake.
• Nothing is lost if the printer drops. Print jobs queue up and print themselves once the Print Agent is back online.
• No tables means no table settings. Leaving table assignment on just adds a step nobody uses — turn it off.
• Order numbers work fine without pagers. Call the number, or show it on a customer screen. Pager numbers are only worth turning on if you actually hand out buzzers.
• Poland: the fiscal printer is not optional, and the daily report has to be printed to close the fiscal day.
• Staff PINs beat passwords at a window. Nobody types an email address with greasy hands during a lunch rush.

FAQ

Q: Do I really need a router?
A: Not for one tablet — a phone hotspot is enough to get trading. Add a 4G/5G router when you want a second device, a network printer, or a connection that doesn't disappear when someone walks off with their phone.

Q: Can one tablet do everything?
A: Yes. An Android tablet can run POSolid, run the Print Agent, and drive the receipt printer over a single USB OTG cable. That's the most convenient setup for a truck and the one we'd suggest starting with.

Q: What happens if the internet drops mid-service?
A: POSolid needs a connection, so you won't be able to take new orders until it's back. This is why a backup hotspot or a second SIM is worth having.

Q: Do I need a kitchen display in a truck?
A: Usually not — in a small truck the person cooking can see the counter. It becomes useful when a cook works out of sight of the window, or when you're consistently juggling more orders than you can hold in your head. See "Setting up the kitchen" for the three options.

Q: Can I print kitchen tickets instead of buying a second tablet?
A: Yes. A manager can assign a prep station to a printer, and tickets then print automatically as orders come in — those items never appear on a kitchen screen. You can add a second thermal printer by the pass or let your existing receipt printer print both.

Q: Do I need a card terminal, and does POSolid control it?
A: You need one if you want to take cards, and it comes from your payment provider. POSolid doesn't drive the terminal — you record which payment method was used, so your receipts and reports match what the terminal took.

Q: How do customers know their order is ready?
A: Call the order number, hand out pagers, or put a small screen in the window running the Customer Display Board — it shows in-progress and ready order numbers automatically.

Q: Do I need a fiscal printer?
A: In Poland, yes — it's a legal requirement for recording sales. Elsewhere, an ordinary ESC/POS thermal printer is all you need.

Q: Can I run with only the fiscal printer, and skip the thermal one?
A: In Poland, yes. The fiscal printer prints the fiscal receipt and the daily report, and while it's your only printer it prints the guest pre-check as a non-fiscal document too. The exception is printed kitchen tickets, which need an ESC/POS thermal printer — use the Kitchen Display instead if you don't want a second printer.

Q: Can I take card payments through POSolid?
A: POSolid records which payment method was used; the card terminal itself is separate hardware from your payment provider. Choose which methods your staff can pick in Settings → Orders configuration.