Demo MealOrbit: food-delivery marketplace day

Demo MealOrbit connects 3,600 restaurants with customers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. It publishes menus, accepts card and cash-on-delivery orders, dispatches riders, calculates restaurant commissions, manages promotions and refunds, pays partners, and reports delivery profitability. OSERP connects restaurant onboarding, menu versions, customer, cart, order, kitchen status, rider, payment, settlement, commission, and finance.

1. Onboard restaurants and menus

Restaurant profiles store legal name, licence, tax registration, cuisine, branches, bank, settlement currency, commission plan, operating hours, delivery zones, and status. Menu versions record item, modifier, price, tax category, allergen, availability, preparation time, photo, effective dates, and approval.

Field	Demo value	Impact
Restaurant	Demo Spice Kitchen	Partner and payout scope
Branch	Marina outlet	Fulfilment location
Menu version	MK-2026-09	Price and tax history
Item	Chicken biryani	Order and revenue line
Commission	22%	Marketplace payable
Currency	AED	Customer settlement
Delivery zone	Marina 5 km	Rider dispatch
SLA	35 minutes	Customer credit

An unlicensed or bank-unverified restaurant cannot accept paid orders. A menu price change creates a new version; historical orders retain the old price.

2. Accept customer orders and payments

Order headers record customer, address, restaurant branch, channel, currency, payment method, promo, delivery fee, tax, tip, promised time, and external order ID. Lines record item, modifier, quantity, unit price, discount, tax, preparation time, and cancellation status.

A customer orders two biryanis at AED 38 each, adds AED 8 delivery, AED 5 tip, and applies AED 10 promotion. The total before tax is calculated line by line. Payment records gateway, authorisation, currency, amount, fee, transaction ID, and status. A failed payment leaves the order unpaid and does not enter the kitchen.

3. Coordinate kitchen and rider dispatch

Kitchen tickets store order, branch, item, quantity, start time, ready time, modifier, allergen alert, and status. Rider jobs record order, rider, vehicle, zone, pickup, delivery, route, timestamps, cash collected, and proof.

The dispatch engine checks rider capacity, zone, promised time, temperature policy, and cash limit. An order cancelled before preparation releases payment or creates a refund; a late cancellation records restaurant responsibility and customer communication. Rider status events are idempotent by provider event ID.

4. Calculate commission and restaurant payouts

Settlement headers record restaurant, period, orders, gross sales, discounts, tax, delivery, commission, payment fee, refunds, chargebacks, withholding, currency, and payout date. Lines link order, item, commission plan, promotion funding, and adjustment.

For AED 100,000 gross food sales, 22% commission is AED 22,000. A sponsor-funded AED 10 promotion is not automatically deducted from the restaurant; the funding rule determines the split. Restaurant statements show gross, commission, delivery, tax, refunds, chargebacks, and net payable. Duplicate payout batches are rejected by period and hash.

5. Manage promotions and customer credits

Promotion records store code, campaign, eligibility, item/zone, discount type, cap, funding owner, start/end dates, currency, and approval. Customer-credit records store order, reason, amount, currency, expiry, approver, and status.

A missing-item complaint creates AED 15 credit linked to order and evidence. Credits are liabilities until redeemed or expired under policy. A restaurant-funded discount and a marketplace-funded discount post to different accounts.

6. Control cash-on-delivery and refunds

COD records store order, rider, cash expected, cash collected, handover, deposit slip, bank, date, and variance. A rider shortfall creates an exception and manager review; it is not netted silently against future orders.

Refunds record order, payment, item, reason, amount, currency, policy result, gateway, approver, and status. Chargebacks reference original authorisation and evidence. A gateway retry with the same transaction ID is idempotent.

7. Procure packaging and manage partner costs

Purchase orders record supplier, branch, packaging SKU, quantity, UoM, currency, tax, delivery date, and approval. Inventory lots store carton, bag, seal, batch, and warehouse. Waste or spoilage requires reason, quantity, and approval.

Rider and platform costs record contractor, trip, incentive, mileage, vehicle, fuel, currency, tax, and approval. A bonus triggered by 95% on-time delivery is calculated from accepted delivery events, not a manually typed number.

8. Multi-country close and marketplace reporting

Orders may settle AED, SAR, or KWD while the group reports USD. Each order, receipt, payout, refund, supplier bill, and rider payment stores transaction rate, source, timestamp, realised FX, and revaluation status. Marketplace commission, restaurant payable, customer credit, tax, delivery revenue, rider cost, and FX remain separate.

Close reconciles orders to kitchen tickets, deliveries to rider events, payments to gateways, COD to bank, restaurant statements, promotions, refunds, chargebacks, packaging stock, rider incentives, tax, FX, and GL. Dashboards show gross merchandise value, conversion, average order value, prep time, delivery SLA, cancellation, take rate, partner payout ageing, and contribution margin.

KPI	Before OSERP discipline	After OSERP discipline	Improvement
Order-to-payout accuracy	92.8%	99.5%	+6.7 points
Delivery within SLA	78%	92%	+14 points
COD reconciliation cycle	8 days	2 days	75% faster
Refund turnaround	6 days	1 day	83% faster
Restaurant statement close	14 days	4 days	71% faster

Practice challenge

Onboard a restaurant and branch, publish a menu version, accept a card order with modifier and promotion, process kitchen and rider events, handle a failed payment, issue a customer credit, reconcile COD, calculate restaurant commission, run a payout, refund a missing item, settle a KWD supplier, revalue balances, and close the marketplace period. Explain every field, status, permission, formula, journal, tax result, API identifier, exception, and audit event.

Related: POS operations, Payment Receipt field guide, AR Invoice field guide, Inventory field guide, and API cookbook.