Hotels & shortlets
One system from the poolside to room 402
A hotel is several food and beverage businesses sharing a kitchen, and at the end of the night none of their numbers agree.
Room 402
A guest orders from the bed at eleven
The code in the room opens room service's own catalog, on room service's own hours.
Room 402
Scan from the bed
₦7,800Pasta & chicken
Room service · 24 hours
Several businesses, one kitchen
A property has never really been one operation
The restaurant, the pool bar and room service each have their own menu, their own hours and their own way of taking an order. Usually one of them is a printed card that went out of date in March.
What they share is a kitchen and a bank account, which is where the trouble starts. Three processes produce three sets of numbers, and at the end of the night none of them agree with the till.
Outlets
An outlet is a catalog, a set of hours and a code
One account, several rooms. Each outlet runs its own menu and its own prices without a separate subscription.
The restaurant
Table codes, the full menu, and service hours that match the room's.
The pool bar
Its own shorter catalog at its own prices, live only while the bar is open.
Room service
A code in the room running on its own schedule, including the hours when the restaurant is closed.
Events and functions
A catalog you turn on for the night and turn off again afterwards.
The shop, or the welcome pack
Retail items with a real count behind them, sold the same way as everything else.
One report for the property
Not per outlet, and not assembled by hand on a Monday morning.
And several properties
Outlets sit inside one property. A second property is its own branch, with its own stock, team and takings, reached from the same login.
One queue
The kitchen works a single list, tagged by where it came from
Three ordering processes means three things for the kitchen to watch, and the one nobody is watching is the one that runs late.
In Tab every order joins one queue whatever door it came through, whether a table, a lounger, a room or a message. Each ticket carries its origin, so the pass knows whether the plate is walking to table nine or going up to 402.
The Lagos Grill · Table 12
- 2× Suya PlatterKitchen
- 2× Jollof & ChickenKitchen
- 4× ChapmanBar
The end of the night
One settlement instead of three streams to reconcile
Collections from every outlet arrive at your bank as a single figure by T+1. Not one per outlet, and not a reconciliation exercise for somebody's Monday.
Guests pay at the point of order by card (NGN or USD), or by bank transfer. Where you would rather take it on a terminal you already own, collect on the machine and record it in Tab so the order and the money still line up.
Order #2041 · Amaka Stores
₦28,000
- Method
- Card · paid in Tab
- Matched to
- The order
Settles to your bank · T+1
Shortlets
A property with no front desk still has things to sell
A shortlet guest arrives by code, lets themselves in, and for the rest of the stay there is nobody to ask. Anything you might have sold them, like breakfast, a late checkout, the welcome pack or laundry, goes unsold because there is no way to offer it.
A code on the counter is the front desk. It opens a catalog you control, at prices you set, on the hours you choose, and the guest pays from their own phone without either of you needing to be there.
Setting up a property
From one outlet to all of them
Start with one outlet
Usually the restaurant. Load the menu, set the service hours, put codes on the tables.
Add the others
Pool bar, room service, the shop, each with its own catalog and prices, all on the same account.
Put stock under the menu
So the bar running low reaches the floor before a guest is the one who finds out.
Choose how you collect
Collect in Tab across every outlet, use the terminals you already have, or both together.
Turn on the report
One morning report for the property instead of chasing three people for three sets of numbers.
Across the property
Several outlets, one account, one set of numbers
Each outlet keeps its own menu, prices and hours. The money and the reporting do not fragment with them.
Inventory
Stock levels that move as you sell · Low-stock and reorder alerts · Cost price, selling price and margin per item · One catalog behind every channel
Sell everywhere
WhatsApp ordering · Your own storefront on your own link · QR codes for tables, counters and shelves · Bookings, covers and ticketed events
Orders & fulfilment
Live order queue across every channel · Station and counter printing · Fulfilment states from order to handover · Team roles and permissions
Get paid
Collect in Tab by card (NGN or USD), or bank transfer · Or collect on your own POS machine and record the payment in Tab · T+1 settlement to your bank · Every payment attached to the order it paid for, with nothing matched by hand · An end-of-day close you read rather than assemble
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Before you sign up
What Tab does not do for a property
Better to know now than in month three.
Tab is a food, beverage and retail system. It does not handle rooms: no property management, no room bookings, no folio.
F&B charges cannot be posted to a guest's room bill today. If room charging is essential, tell us early so we can be straight with you about fit.
There is no housekeeping or maintenance workflow. Tab covers what you sell, not how the property is run.
For a large property with an existing enterprise F&B stack, Tab is likely to overlap rather than replace.
Questions properties ask
The things hotels and shortlets check first
- Can each outlet have its own menu and prices?
- Yes. Outlets carry their own catalog, prices and service hours while sitting on one account. One property, several rooms.
- Can charges go to the room bill?
- Not today. Tab collects payment at the point of order rather than posting to a folio. If room charging is essential, raise it before you go further.
- Does room service work when the restaurant is closed?
- Yes. Service hours sit on the outlet, so the in-room catalog runs on its own schedule.
- How do staff see orders from three different places?
- As one queue, with each ticket tagged by where it came from. The kitchen works a single list rather than watching three channels.
- I run shortlets, not a hotel. Is this relevant?
- Yes, and it is one of the clearer cases. A code in the apartment is the front desk you do not have: breakfast, late checkout, the welcome pack and laundry, all offered and paid for without anyone being on site.
- Can I see the property as a whole and each outlet separately?
- Yes. Orders and takings are tagged by outlet, so the property report and the outlet view come from the same record.
Talk to us about your property
Tell us about the business and we'll come back with a quote, or start setting up straight away.
Tab in other kinds of business
Retail & boutiques
Sell the same stock in the shop and in the chat
See how retail runs TabRestaurants & bars
Take the order sooner. Turn the table faster.
See how restaurants run Tab
Provisions stores
Know what's on the shelf, and what it earned
Talk to us about your shop