Deliveries, zones and drivers

Sahen is built for kitchens that deliver with their own drivers. After each daily cutoff, every locked delivery becomes a bag with a known address, and your team plans who takes it. This guide covers zones, addresses, trips, the driver app and what the customer is told along the way.

Delivery zones

A delivery zone is an area you serve, such as a group of neighbourhoods. You create zones in your business settings, and each zone carries a price for one physical drop. When a pack is sold, the delivery rate is fixed on its invoice: free, the zone's price, or a custom rate. Seven eating days in one bag count as one drop.

Addresses and map pins

Each customer address has a delivery zone and can carry a map pin. Customers add addresses in the app, and your team can add them when creating a customer. The pin is what the driver navigates to, so ask customers to set one.

At cutoff, Sahen saves the address and pin onto that delivery. If the customer edits their address later, the driver route, delivery list, labels and receipts still show the address that was locked. A saved address that a locked delivery uses cannot be edited or deleted.

Manifests and receipts

For each day, the console prints:

• A delivery manifest, grouped by zone, with each stop's address and meals. It also counts stops without a map pin.
• Delivery receipts on an 80mm receipt printer, each with a QR code and the list of meals in the bag. See production sheet and printing.

Planning trips

Open Deliveries → Routes for the day. Choose Add trip and pick a driver; only active drivers are offered. A driver can have several trips in one day (Trip 1, Trip 2). Move deliveries between trips one at a time or a whole zone at once. Deliveries not on a trip stay under Unassigned. A planned trip with no scanned bags can be deleted, and its stops return to Unassigned.

The driver app

Drivers use one Sahen driver app for every kitchen. They are invited from Business → Team with the Driver role and cannot open the console. See team and roles.

1. Sign in with their email and a 6-digit code. The invitation must be accepted first.
2. See today's stops and their trips, with stops, delivered count and cash to collect.
3. Scan to confirm pickup: scan each bag's receipt QR code before leaving. The app warns if bags are still unscanned when the trip starts.
4. Start the trip. If the kitchen has set up the optional route optimisation with Sahen (it needs a pickup location and a routing key on our side), the app orders up to 25 pinned stops.
5. At each stop, collect cash if due, then mark delivered.

When all of its stops are delivered, the trip is complete and your team sees it as Completed.

What the customer is told

The customer app sends push notifications at four stages:

A customer whose bag is the first stop gets "heading to you" straight away rather than both messages. On supported phones, the same stages also show on the lock screen. The kitchen's name is on every message.

Cancelling a delivery after cutoff

Plans change. Your team can cancel a delivery that is locked or in production from the delivery's menu. Sahen then:

• Returns the meal credits for those eating days.
• Adds replacement eating days on a later delivery, so the customer loses nothing.

A delivery already out with a driver cannot be cancelled. Use Return to kitchen to bring it back first. A delivery can also be moved to another date; it keeps the address that was locked.

When a driver is removed

Removing a driver from the team, or making them inactive, stops them signing in to the driver app: they see that their profile is inactive. Inactive drivers are not offered when adding a trip. Before removing a driver, hand their open trips to someone else and settle the cash they hold in Deliveries → Driver cash. See payments and invoices.

Whether the driver app is included depends on your plan; see pricing.

Related

• Skips, pauses and patterns
• Customer app and white label
• Glossary