A burrito is one price and a dozen decisions. The receipt has to show both: the item line, then every choice underneath it, with the ones that cost extra priced and the ones that do not showing zero. Fill in the order below and the preview builds it line by line.
Complete the fields below and watch your receipt update as you type.
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Order a burrito and you have made eight or nine choices before you reach the till. Tortilla, rice, beans, protein, salsa, cheese, lettuce, sour cream, guacamole. One menu item, one price, and a long tail of decisions behind it.
A receipt that prints the burrito as a single line and stops has thrown all of that away. The customer cannot check the order was right, the kitchen cannot reconcile a complaint, and nobody can tell whether the guacamole was charged.
The convention that solves it is indented modifier lines beneath the parent item:
NO or SUB, because an omission is still a decision someone madeThat structure is what makes guacamole arguable. If guacamole appears as its own indented line with its upcharge beside it, the charge is explained on the document. If it is silently folded into the parent price, the first question at the counter is why the burrito cost more than the menu board said.
For catering and group orders this matters more, not less. A tray order with twelve builds is unreadable without modifier lines, and it is the order most likely to be queried later.
Useful to understand, because it removes an argument that comes up constantly in food retail.
Most US states tax prepared food fully while exempting or reducing tax on grocery food. Under the widely adopted Streamlined Sales and Use Tax framework, food counts as prepared if any one of three tests is met:
A burrito satisfies all three at once. It is hot, it is by definition a combination of ingredients sold as one item, and it is handed over with a fork and napkin. There is no version of the grocery-exemption argument that reaches it.
One detail worth knowing: Washington's Department of Revenue specifies that containers and packaging used to transport food do not count as eating utensils. A foil wrap is not a fork.
Cold items can differ. Some states treat cold food sold to go differently, and California has an additional threshold test that can pull takeout cold food back into the taxable column for businesses meeting certain sales percentages. If you sell cold bowls or packaged items alongside hot burritos, that distinction belongs in your POS, not in your head.
Rates vary too. Maine applies a dedicated prepared-food rate, and several jurisdictions set a higher rate for restaurant food than for general retail. Check your own state and locality.
Fast-casual sells the same burrito four ways: counter, pickup, drive-thru and delivery. The receipt should say which.
Two reasons. First, it is how a complaint gets traced; a missing side on a delivery order is a different failure from a missing side at the counter. Second, some states tax dine-in and takeout differently, and if the receipt does not record the order type there is no documentation behind the rate you applied.
New York is the clean case: prepared food is taxable regardless of whether it is eaten in, taken out or delivered. Plenty of other states are not that simple.
Tip on the pre-tax subtotal. That is the convention in most US jurisdictions. Some systems calculate the suggested tip on the post-tax total, which quietly inflates every prompt. If you are configuring tip percentages, base them on the subtotal.
Surcharges are taxable. Where a restaurant adds a separate surcharge to cover rising costs, sales tax applies to the surcharge amount as part of the total selling price. It is not a tax-free line.
Mandatory gratuity is usually taxable as well, unlike a voluntary tip. If you add a service charge to large parties, that distinction matters.
Show subtotal, tax and tip as three separate lines. A combined figure is the thing customers query and expense reviewers reject. The same logic applies across every restaurant receipt format.
The store — name, logo, address, phone, store number where you run more than one
The order — date and time, order number, order type, cashier or register, table or pickup name
The items — each parent item with quantity and price, modifier lines indented beneath it, add-ons priced
The money — subtotal, tax as its own line, any surcharge, tip line, total, payment method
For business customers, the modifier detail is what makes the receipt usable as an itemized receipt on an expense claim. A total with no breakdown is what gets sent back.
Use it to issue receipts for orders your restaurant actually served, to reprint a copy for a customer who lost theirs, or to work out your receipt layout before committing to a POS configuration.
Do not use a generated receipt to represent a meal that was not sold, to inflate a total, or to make a receipt appear to come from a restaurant you do not operate. Creating a receipt that misrepresents a transaction is prohibited under our Terms of Use, and where it supports an expense claim it is fraud.
Put your own restaurant name and logo on anything you issue. Browse other formats in receipt templates.
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