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Glossary
Restaurant tech glossary
Plain definitions of the till, kitchen-display, fiscal and compliance terms that come up across SterkChef and the wider trade. Two or three sentences each, enough to settle a question without scrolling.
Apps and surfaces
- POS
- Point of sale: the till where orders are entered, payment is taken and receipts print. SterkChef POS is offline-first and pairs with the fiscal device each country requires. Read more →
- KDS
- Kitchen display system: the screen on the pass that replaces the docket printer. Lines route to the station that cooks them, hot, cold, bar or pastry, prep time is tracked per item and late tickets turn red. Read more →
- Kiosk
- A self-service ordering terminal in the venue. The guest reads the menu in their own language, builds a cart and pays without speaking to anyone at the counter. Read more →
- Backoffice
- The web panel where managers set up menus, taxes, staff and sites, and pull the reports. It is not used during service; its job is set-up and what happens after close. Read more →
- Mini-POS
- A compact till for single-operator venues such as a coffee shop, a hatch or a pop-up. It keeps a local SQLite database so it can trade with no line at all. Read more →
- Waiter app
- A tablet app for front of house. The order goes in at the table, the kitchen has it immediately, and the bill comes back to the same tablet to be closed. Read more →
- Delivery app
- The courier's mobile app: take the dispatch, navigate to the address, confirm the handover. Built on React Native, so iOS and Android run from one codebase. Read more →
- QR ordering
- A guest-facing page reached by scanning a sticker on the table. Guests read and pay without a cashier, which is useful when the floor is thinly staffed. Read more →
Fiscal devices and e-invoicing
- FDM
- Fiscal Data Module: Belgium's certified black box, which signs every receipt for hospitality VAT purposes. Required above the turnover threshold; SterkChef pairs with the certified device from day one. Read more →
- GKS
- Geregistreerd KassaSysteem: the formal name of the Belgian registered till regime that the FDM forms part of. Read more →
- TSE
- Technische Sicherheitseinrichtung: Germany's mandatory hardware security module for cash registers. Every transaction is signed by the TSE, so the trail cannot be altered afterwards. Read more →
- NF525
- The French certification standard for till software. An NF525-certified system guarantees that receipt sequencing is tamper-evident. Read more →
- VeriFactu
- The Spanish tax agency's framework for till systems that send each invoice to the authority in real time, voluntarily. It is becoming the standard in practice. Read more →
- TicketBAI
- The compliance regime for Spain's Basque Country (Álava, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa), under which each invoice is signed and chained, then forwarded to the regional tax authority. Read more →
- RT
- Registratore Telematico: Italy's electronic till, which transmits the day's takings to the Agenzia delle Entrate. Read more →
- SDI
- Sistema di Interscambio: Italy's national e-invoicing platform. Every B2B invoice in Italy passes through SDI. Read more →
- ÖKC
- Ödeme Kaydedici Cihaz: the electronic till required in Turkish retail and hospitality. SterkChef supports the GİB-certified ÖKC range. Read more →
- Peppol
- Pan-European Public Procurement OnLine: the standard network for exchanging structured e-invoices and orders across borders. SterkChef sends and receives on the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 profile. Read more →
- Peppol BIS 3.0
- Business Interoperability Specification: the current Peppol profile, which defines the UBL invoice structure, the mandatory fields and the validation rules. Read more →
- UBL
- Universal Business Language: the OASIS-standard XML format used by Peppol and by many national e-invoicing schemes. SterkChef emits UBL 2.1 documents. Read more →
- e-Fatura
- Turkey's e-invoicing system for B2B transactions above a turnover threshold. SterkChef formats invoices to the GİB schema. Read more →
HR, safety and data
- Dimona
- The Belgian declaration system that registers every employment start, end and shift with the social-security authority. It is filed electronically before the employee starts. Read more →
- CAO
- Collectieve ArbeidsOvereenkomst: the Belgian collective labour agreement covering pay scales, hours and conditions per sector. SterkChef HR maps each employee to the right CAO. Read more →
- HACCP
- Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points: the food-safety framework used across the trade. SterkChef writes cold-chain and prep-temperature readings into the HACCP record. Read more →
- GDPR
- General Data Protection Regulation: the EU-wide data-protection law. SterkChef holds guest, loyalty and HR data with explicit consent and retention windows you can set. Read more →
Operations and tech
- FIFO
- First in, first out: rotation in which the oldest stock is used first. The default for anything that does not perish. Read more →
- FEFO
- First expired, first out: rotation by best-before date rather than by delivery date. The default for perishables, and SterkChef applies it across recipes on its own. Read more →
- Cold chain
- Temperature control from the supplier's van to the plate. A break in the chain raises a HACCP alert in SterkChef. Read more →
- IoT (cold chain)
- Internet of Things: probes that report fridge and freezer temperature on an interval. SterkChef takes the readings and writes them into the HACCP log. Read more →
- Tauri
- A Rust-based framework for building native desktop apps from a web codebase. SterkChef POS, KDS, Kiosk, Takeaway and Mini-POS ship as Tauri 2 apps, so they run on Windows, macOS and Linux without Electron's footprint.
- PWA
- Progressive Web App: a site that can be installed and runs offline. SterkChef POS doubles as a PWA, so it can go on hardware that will not take a native install.
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