Settings : Sub-Department Printer & KDS Routing

Every prep ticket in Club Caddie routes by one setting: the sub-department printer setting. This article shows how Club Caddie decides where every item prints, how to set it up, and where to go for the related pieces (cloud printers, KDS screens, receipt printers).

Adjusting an existing setup? The Troubleshooting section near the bottom is organized by symptom.

How Club Caddie decides what prints where

There are three separate printing lanes, and they don't share settings:

The one rule to remember: prep tickets follow the item's sub-department. An item in the "Appetizers" sub-department prints wherever Appetizers is pointed. The item itself, the terminal you rang it on, and the server who sent it don't change that.

So when something prints to the wrong place, work in this order:

1. Is the item in the right sub-department? Check the item in Settings → Inventory Management → find the item → the Action menu (⋮) on its row → View / Edit → the Department and Sub Department fields.
2. Is that sub-department pointed at the right printer or KDS? That's the rest of this article.

Set the printer and KDS for a sub-department

Step 1: Click the Settings icon (top-right), then click Register Settings in the left-hand menu. The Register Settings screen opens with a row of tabs along the top.

Step 2: Select the Department tab along the top.

Step 3: Find the sub-department you want to route (for example, Appetizers) and click the gear icon on that row. The sub-department settings popup opens.

Step 4: In the Printer field, choose or type where this sub-department's tickets should print:

• The dropdown offers No Printer, Bar, and Kitchen to start.
• You can also type your own printer name — the field accepts any name.
• No Printer means items in this sub-department won't generate a prep ticket at all.

Step 5 (optional): In the KDS field, choose Expo KDS if you want this sub-department's items to appear on the kitchen display screen. No KDS keeps them off the screen. Printer and KDS are independent — you can print a paper ticket AND show the order on the KDS at the same time.

Step 6: Click Save.

Step 7: Verify it stuck. Reopen the gear popup and confirm the Printer and KDS values you entered are still there — the check takes five seconds. If a value didn't hold, re-enter it and save again.

Send one sub-department to multiple printers

To print the same ticket at more than one station, enter multiple printer names in the Printer field separated by commas: Kitchen, Bar

• Spaces around the commas don't matter — Club Caddie trims them.

• Each name in the list gets its own copy of the ticket, and each printed copy is labeled at the bottom (for example, "--- Kitchen Copy ---").
• If one printer in the list is offline, the other printers still get their copies.

Real-world example: your hot station and cold station both need to see appetizer tickets. Set the Appetizers sub-department Printer field to Kitchen, Expo and both stations print at send time.

How printer names actually match

Name matching works differently for local printers vs. cloud printers:

Local (Windows) printers — desktop app: the name you enter is matched against your Windows printer names, and the match is "contains," not "exact." A ticket prints on every installed Windows printer whose name contains your identifier, capitalization ignored. So the identifier Kitchen matches a Windows printer named "Star Kitchen Printer" — and it would ALSO match "Kitchen Backup" if that's installed. Practical rules:

• Make sure the Windows printer's name includes the identifier you entered (rename it in Windows → Devices and Printers if needed).
• Keep identifiers distinct — don't use identifiers that are substrings of each other (e.g. Bar and Barn) or one ticket will print at both.

Cautionary example: say your bar printer's identifier is Bar and the banquet barn's is Barn. Every drink ticket routed to Bar also prints out in the barn — because the name "Barn" contains "Bar." Rename one of them so neither name appears inside the other.

Cloud printers: routing uses the printer's Tag (set when you add the printer under Settings → Register Settings → Printer tab). Enter/select the Tag in the sub-department Printer field. Matching works the same "contains" way here: the name you enter just has to appear inside the printer's Tag, capitalization ignored — so keep Tags distinct from each other too. Full setup, including the Title-vs-Tag rule, is in Hardware: Setup Guide To Cloud Printing.

KDS: the other half of routing

If your kitchen uses a display screen instead of (or alongside) paper:

1. Turn KDS on: Settings → Register Settings → KDS tab → Enable KDS.
2. Point each sub-department at the screen: gear popup → KDS field → Expo KDS (Step 5 above).
3. View orders: log in at clubcaddie.online with your Club Caddie credentials and open Kitchen from the left menu.

Working the KDS screen (bumping orders, history, summaries) is covered in the KDS articles linked below.

Troubleshooting

Items not printing anywhere: the item is usually sitting in a sub-department with no printer set — or one set to No Printer. Check the item's Sub Department (Inventory Management → the item's Action menu (⋮) → View / Edit), then confirm that sub-department's Printer field isn't set to No Printer.

Ticket printing at the wrong station: the sub-department is pointed at the wrong identifier, or the identifier matches more than one Windows printer name — remember, matching is "contains." Fix the identifier in the sub-department's gear popup, or rename the overlapping Windows printer so only the right one contains it.

Only one station prints when two should: put both names in the Printer field, separated by a comma: Kitchen, Bar.

Saved value not showing when you reopen the popup: re-enter it and save again, then confirm it holds. If it keeps reverting, contact support.

Order sent, no ticket, no error: the desktop app doesn't show an alert when an identifier matches no available printer — the ticket just doesn't print. Confirm the printer is on, online in Windows, and its name contains your identifier.

New sub-department not showing in the register: sub-departments also need role access — assign them under Manage Roles → Department Permissions, then log out and back in. See Settings : Department - Create A New Sub-Department.

Printer hardware problems (error lights, offline printers, paper jams): see the hardware articles below.