Serving Times, start to finish.

Serving Times replaces the paper schedule. Managers build each week in one place, the app checks it for problems, upper management can approve it, and the team sees the published schedule on their phones by scanning the QR code on the printout.

What you can do

• Build the week on one screen, with quick-fill times, copy-last-week, and live checks for time off, availability, roles and double-booking.
• Keep time off in one place, whether it came by text, email, in person, or from the staff page.
• Get the week approved by upper management before it goes out, with notes on specific days.
• Publish and print a clean employee copy (AM/PM, no private notes) and a management copy (24-hour, with notes).
• Give staff their own page: they scan the QR code, enter a PIN, see their shifts, and request time off.
• Run more than one location from one account, and invite owners, managers and approvers.

Who does what

Go to servingtimes.com and choose Create an account. Confirm your email address from the message we send, then sign in.

The first time you sign in, name your restaurant and this location, then choose how to start.

Your first week, step by step

• Set your restaurant settings: the name printed on schedules, the usual closing time, and daily staffing targets (Settings & backup).
• Check the roles (Server, Bartender, Host, Support) and add your own, such as Food runner.
• Add your team: names, the roles each person can work, recurring days off, and a weekly hours target.
• Record any time off you already know about.
• Build the week on Weekly schedule, or copy last week and adjust it.
• Fix anything under Before you publish, then Publish.
• Print from Print & share. The QR code for the staff page is on the printout.
• Set PINs for your team so they can use the staff page.
• Invite your approver and other managers from Team access (optional).

Add a shift

1. Hover over (or tap) an empty cell and select +.
2. Check the team member, date and role.
3. Set the start time, and either an end time or At close.
4. Add manager notes if needed. Staff never see these.
5. Select Save shift. It saves automatically; watch for All changes saved at the top right.

Copy last week

Most weeks look like the last one. Copy last week brings the previous week’s shifts into this week. Anything already scheduled for a person on a day stays as it is, and time off isn’t copied, so check the notices afterwards.

The checks

Serving Times checks the week as you build it. Shifts with a problem show a warning mark, and Before you publish lists them all.

Staffing and hours at a glance

1. Open Time off and select Add request.
2. Choose the team member, the first and last day, and the type: PTO, Unpaid, or Unavailable.
3. Note where it came from (text, email, in person, paper) and any private notes.
4. Save it as Pending, or decide it straight away.

Requests staff send from the staff page appear here automatically as Pending, with the source Staff portal. Approve or decline them the same way.

Select Add team member, or Edit on a card, to set:

• Qualified roles: the roles this person can be scheduled in.
• Recurring unavailable days: days they never work (the checks flag shifts on them).
• Weekly hours target: a planning reminder, not payroll or legal overtime.
• Staff page PIN: see The staff page.

When a location requires approval, a week can only be published after an owner or approver approves it. Owners turn this on or off per location.

Submit a week

1. Fix any Must fix problems.
2. Select Submit or publish at the top of the schedule.
3. Add a note for the approver if it helps, such as “Two new servers start Wednesday”.
4. Select Submit for approval. Everyone who can approve gets an email.

Turn approval on or off (owners)

In Settings & backup → Locations, use Require approval before publishing. With approval off, Publish works directly.

When a week is submitted you get an email. Review schedule opens it directly, or sign in and open Approvals. The number next to Approvals is how many weeks are waiting.

1. Read the week. It’s exactly what the manager submitted.
2. Add notes for the whole week or a specific day if something needs attention.
3. Select Approve, or Request changes and say what to change.
4. The manager is emailed either way.

Publishing saves a fixed copy of the week. The staff page shows it, and Print & share can print it. Later edits don’t change the published copy until you publish again.

• Schedule version: preview the current draft, or the last published copy.
• View by: Everyone, one Role (only that role’s shifts, for example the bar schedule; other-role days show “–”), or one Person (their whole week with the role on each shift and their total hours). The CSV download follows the same choice.
• Print / PDF: prints in landscape; choose “Save as PDF” to email it.
• Download CSV: opens in Excel or Google Sheets.

Set up a PIN

1. Open The team and select Edit on a person.
2. Under Staff page PIN, keep the suggested 4 digits or type your own (4 to 6 digits).
3. Select Set PIN, and tell the person their PIN yourself. It isn’t shown again.

Only people with a PIN appear on the staff page. Use Reset PIN if they forget it, and Remove PIN when someone leaves.

The link and QR code

The QR code is printed on every schedule from Print & share. You can also copy the link and text it to your team.

Security

Your manager gives you a PIN. You don’t need an account or an email address.

• Your phone stays signed in for 30 days. Tap Not you? on a shared phone.
• Requests show Pending until your manager decides, then Approved or Declined.
• Requests can start from today up to a year ahead, and cover up to 60 days.
• Forgot your PIN, or it says locked? Ask your manager to reset it.

1. Open Team access.
2. Enter the person’s email address and choose Owner, Manager or Approver.
3. Select Send invitation. The link works for 14 days.
4. They open the email, choose a password (or sign in if they already have an account), and they’re in.

• Change someone’s role with the menu next to their name, or remove their access.
• An organization always keeps at least one owner.
• You can send up to 20 invitations a day, and one per address every 10 minutes.

More than one location

Owners add locations in Settings & backup → Locations. Each location has its own schedule, team list, staff page link, and approval setting. Switch between them with the menu under your restaurant’s name in the sidebar.

The Manager schedule (in the sidebar) is the group’s week for managers: who runs each location every day, the forecast, banquets and events, and each manager’s tasks. It replaces the one big spreadsheet with one block per location.

Setting it up (owners)

1. Open Manager schedule and select Set up the manager schedule. It starts with common shift types (OM, No OM, Acct, Duties, Captain, On call, Off, Request, Vacation, Personal day, Closed) and tasks (Payroll, CGS inventory, Bev orders and more).
2. In Setup, add each manager with their home location. Days owed and comp days show on their week.
3. Adjust shift types: the short code shown in cells, the floor role, usual times, and whether it counts as a working day (Off, Vacation and Closed don’t).
4. In the task library, set a task to repeat on certain days (and, if you like, only on certain shift types). Repeating tasks attach themselves when you pick a matching shift or copy last week.

Home locations: who edits what

In Team access, owners give each person with the Manager role a home location. A manager (GM) edits only their home location’s block and can read every other location.

Filling in a location’s week

• On the Location tab, pick the location. Click a manager’s day to choose a shift, tick tasks from the library or type others, and add a note.
• Click a Forecast cell to enter covers, an event (“Pirates v Dodgers 6:40”), banquets (one per line), chef expo, orientation, or mark the day Closed.
• Borrow a manager gives someone from another location a row on this week.
• Copy last week fills empty days with last week’s shifts. Repeating tasks attach themselves; one-off tasks and notes stay with the week they were written for.

Seeing the whole group

• Group week, by location: each location’s OM, covers and banquet count for every day. Click a location to open its block.
• Group week, by manager: every manager’s week, colored by location, so travel between locations is easy to spot.
• Manager’s week: one person across all locations, with their tasks, notes, and days owed and comp days.

Importing the group’s spreadsheet (owners)

1. Open Manager schedule → Import and choose the Excel manager schedule (.xlsx).
2. For a demo, keep Replace people’s names with made-up ones ticked. The made-up names keep the same initials, so notes like “w/ER” still read right. Names are replaced on this computer before anything is saved. Open Other capitalized words we kept and tick any that are names we missed.
3. Read What we found (below), and choose what any shifts we didn’t recognize are. Your answers are remembered for next time.
4. Pick the week and select Import. Locations in the file that you don’t have yet are added, and each location in the file gets that week replaced.

Checks

The group week shows ⚠ on any day with something to fix, and a Checks list underneath. Each location’s block lists its own checks. Fix problems before submitting a week; reminders are worth a look.

Getting a location’s week approved

1. The location’s manager (GM) fills in the week and selects Submit for approval, with an optional note. Anything marked Fix in the checks has to be fixed first.
2. The owner or approver opens it (the email links straight to the manager schedule) and selects Approve, or Request changes with a note saying what to change.
3. Once approved, select Publish to managers’ phones.

The manager page

Owners set each manager’s PIN in Setup → Managers. The Manager page link and QR code are in Setup too. Managers open it on their phones, pick their name, enter their PIN, and see this week and next (published weeks only) across every location they work, then tap tasks to tick them off.

Tasks

The Tasks tab shows each task’s done/total for every day of the published week, and how much is done at each location.

Printing and Excel

The Print & export tab prints the week on screen: the group on one page, every location (a page each) or one location, one manager’s week with their tasks and balances, or task checklists with boxes to tick and initial. Download Excel saves the week in the group’s own spreadsheet layout, a block per location, and the Import tab reads that file straight back.

Showing it to the group

To show the manager schedule to your group, import a real week with Replace people’s names with made-up ones ticked, into a separate group if you like. Open Group week, then the must-fix list (a manager booked at two locations, a day with no OM). Fix one day and watch the warning clear. Submit two locations, Approve all submitted, Publish all approved, then scan the manager page QR code on a phone, sign in with a PIN set in Setup, and tick a task. Finish in Print & export.

Each person gets one 30-day free trial, on the first organization they create. No card is needed to start. Settings → Plan & billing shows how many days are left and what your locations will cost.

Press Subscribe to pay by card through Stripe. Subscribe before the trial’s last two days and the first charge waits until the trial ends. Adding or deleting a location changes the next bill. Manage billing opens Stripe, where you update your card, see invoices or cancel (you keep everything until the end of the period you paid for).

Read-only

If the trial ends without a subscription, or a subscription ends, the organization becomes read-only: everyone can still see, print and download every schedule, and staff can still send time-off requests, but editing, publishing and approvals pause until an owner subscribes. Nothing is deleted.

Deleting

In Settings, owners can delete a location or the whole organization (type its name to confirm). Anyone can delete their own account; organizations where you’re the only owner are deleted with it, and you’ll see them listed first. Deleting ends any subscription, so nothing is billed again.

Your work is saved as you go

Every change saves automatically; the top right says All changes saved. Earlier versions are kept, so a mistake can be undone; contact support to restore one. You can also Download backup at any time and Restore backup from a file. A downloaded backup covers the last 8 weeks onward; older weeks stay saved in your account.

Old weeks

You can schedule as far ahead as you like, and every past week is kept. Weeks older than 8 weeks are moved to the archive automatically so the schedule stays fast: they show with an Archived week banner, read-only, and still print from Print & share. Copy last week works from an archived week too. New shifts can’t be dated into an archived week.

• Build one week ahead, and publish before the weekend.
• Start from Copy last week, then adjust. Most weeks change less than you think.
• Keep recurring days off and roles up to date. The checks are only as good as the team details.
• Record time off the moment you hear about it, even as Pending.
• Use manager notes for private reminders. Staff never see them, and they don’t need re-approval.
• Print the employee copy for the board. The QR code saves you answering “when do I work?”.
• Reset a person’s PIN rather than sharing PINs between people.