The alerts a café owner actually gets from the Servatto Manager app
11 November 2026
Most café owners don't want more notifications. They want the few that mean "go and look at this now": the docket printer has stopped, the kiosk has dropped off, a big catering order has just come in. Everything else can wait in a list.
That's how alerts in the Servatto Manager app are set up. Here's what it tells you today, how loudly, and what it doesn't do.
Kitchen and devices
- A printer not responding. Servatto doesn't decide a printer is broken just because it's been quiet. A quiet printer is normal at 3 pm. It alerts when there's evidence: a docket or label has been waiting about three minutes and hasn't printed, or the tablet the printer is attached to has stopped checking in while orders are arriving.
- A printer that needs attention. On a current Kitchen app, the printer itself can report paper out or the cover open. If that lasts a minute, you hear about it. That's long enough to change a roll without your phone going off.
- A kiosk offline. If a self-order kiosk hasn't checked in for 10 minutes, you're told customers can't order on it.
- A kiosk that can't take cards. If the kiosk is online but its card payments have been down for five minutes, you get one alert, and one more when cards work again.
- A customer screen offline. If an order-ready TV hasn't checked in for 10 minutes, it's noted in the app's Alerts list. It doesn't buzz your phone.
Orders
- A cancelled order. If a customer or a platform cancels an order, you're told, with who cancelled it and the reason if there is one. Orders that were never paid for, such as an unpaid phone order the counter took over, aren't counted as lost sales and don't trigger it.
- A big order. Set an amount, say $200, and any order over it alerts you. It's off until you set one, and the amount is shared by the business.
- Every new order, if you really want it. This is off unless you switch it on, shop by shop.
- Order feed down. If orders from your supported POS or your delivery connection have stopped reaching the kitchen screen for more than two minutes, you'll hear about it.
- A storefront still paused. If a delivery storefront has been paused for over an hour with nothing set to resume it, you get a reminder, so it doesn't stay off all afternoon.
Delivery comes through your own Otter account, which is an unofficial beta connection. It needs your own Otter subscription, and it may be interrupted or blocked. Keep Otter's tablet or website handy as a fallback.
Refunds over your limits
In the Back Office (Settings → Register locking & refunds) you can set two refund alerts: one for any single refund over an amount, and one for when a shop's refunds for the day pass an amount. Both are off until you fill them in. Alerts come by email and on the Manager app. There's a third case you'll hear about too: a refund over the manager-PIN limit that went through without a manager.
People
There's a long shift alert when someone is still clocked in after 12 hours, sent only to owners and managers. It's only raised where the shop's timecards come from a connected POS. Clock-ins on the Servatto Register don't raise it today.
Each morning, and the account
At 8:30 am shop time you get a short summary: yesterday's sales and orders for each shop, compared with the same day last week. You'll also hear if a payment for Servatto fails, if the account goes read-only, or when a free trial is about to end.
Choosing how loud
Not everything buzzes. A cancelled order is urgent. Printer, kiosk, feed and big-order alerts are warnings. Minor things, such as a shop going unusually quiet or a screen offline, wait in the Alerts tab and never buzz.
On each phone you can:
- switch any kind of alert off for that phone (it still shows in Alerts)
- set quiet hours, such as 10 pm to 7 am, when warnings wait until morning; a cancelled order still comes through
- send yourself a test notification
Staff accounts don't see the people, billing or morning-summary alerts.
What it doesn't do
- It doesn't alert on fridge or food-safety temperatures.
- It doesn't fix anything for you. It tells you which shop and which device, so you or your team can act.
- Order alerts come from Servatto's live order feed for the shop, so they're only as good as that connection.
Getting it
Servatto Manager is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, with no monthly fee. The Android version is in testing. Sign in with your Back Office login, allow notifications, and open Account → Notification settings to choose what buzzes. Questions: [email protected].
Servatto publishes this post and sells the software described in it.