What are Prep Tables?

Simply put, prep tables are tables where you make products. Many commissaries designate specific food to be made on a specific table. Many companies that assemble items or kits may make them on specific tables, as well. Prep tables in Connect allow you to track what items you make on what tables.

There are several reasons a company may do this:

Allergens – you may have one table where allergens such as peanut products are never used. This reduces the likelihood of contamination when preparing to make a new food item.
Contamination Tracking – by always making specific foods on specific tables, any potential contamination is both limited and easy to trace. Since food is assigned to a specific table, you can quickly identify which food items may have also been exposed.
Available Parts – If you are assembling kits or items, you may store specific parts/ingredients at different tables.

Setting up Prep Tables

If the use of prep tables and/or table sheets are desired, please be sure the configuration is turned on by Lightspeed.

You will then need to tell Connect what your prep tables are and what food is made on each table. To do this, navigate to Facility on the nav bar. In the center of the screen, you will a section titled Preparation Tables. All your current preparation tables appear here. To create a prep table, simply click the + icon in the top right corner of the header bar. A box will appear for you to enter your new prep table’s name. Enter the name and click on the green check mark. If you wish to cancel, clicking the red x will close the box without saving anything.

Once your table has been saved, it will appear in the list below.

Oh no! We spelled Breakfast wrong. To edit that name, click that row and it will turn blue. Now click the Edit button, type the correct name and click the green checkmark. The corrected name will appear in the list now.

Assigning Products to a Preparation Table

Now that we have a few prep tables made, let’s look at how to assign products to a prep table.

Navigate to the Products section of the website, and find the product you wish to assign to a table. You can search names or SKUs by typing in the search box in the upper right corner. Click the row of the product you wish to add to your new table.

A window will open to the right with details about this item. One of these details is the prep table that this item is assigned to. To change that prep table, simply choose the correct table from the drop-down list, then click the blue save button to save your change.

What are Table Sheets?

Table sheets are reports that can be generated in Connect that summarize what items need to be made on a specific table on a specific day. Table sheets can only be used if Prep Tables are in use.

From our test environment, let's look at table sheets for 7/4/21. Note that this is a test environment, and placeholder data may be visible in some of the provided screenshots.

Rollup Table Sheet Report

This report will give you a breakdown of what to make by table.

Navigate to Reports and choose the correct packout date. In our example, we will choose the packout date of 7/4/21. These are the items that are due to the customer on 7/4, and will be made on 7/3. Let’s just choose All tables and All Customers first. Then check the box for Print as Roll up Sheet.

Now select View Report. You will see a report that breaks down all the items to be made for 7/4 by each prep table. At the top of the page, in green text, you will see the Customers and Locations who have ordered these items. Then in blue text, you will see the name of the prep table where these items will be made, followed by the total number of items to be made on the table for 7/4. Below that in the product column, you will see the quantity of each item to be made, followed by the item name. Then you will find a space for the staff to initial after cleaning in between each item.

Master Table Sheet

This table sheet report will give you a breakdown of what will be made for each customer without viewing the tables they will be made on.

We will choose the same filters; except we will now check the Master Sheet checkbox. Select View Report.

We can now see that Duluth Bowling ordered 35 total items to be made for 7/4 delivery and we can see the breakdown of those items. Page 2 shows the breakdown for the customer Amex Vend.

Plain Table Sheet

Now let's assume that your commissary makes all the food for one customer, then moves to the next customer. You still break down the food by prep tables, but you do not want your customers combined. You have two choices. You can select the Customer in the filter list and then print a roll up sheet. You would have to do this for each customer, which may not be the best use of time. Enter the plain Table Sheet. This table sheet will give you all your table sheets for the day, grouped by Customer then tables.

The filters would look like this:

And now you can see that on that first table – the Breakfast Table – Duluth Bowling ordered 11 of those 16 items. This page will be followed by the rest of Duluth Bowling’s table items and then it will move to the next customer’s tables.

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