Restaurant Billing for Resorts and Hotels: KOT, GST and Charging Meals to the Room

28 October 2026 · 7 min read · StayDesk team

Most Indian resorts with a restaurant run two systems: one for rooms and another for food — a separate billing software, or a bill book. Every evening someone carries restaurant slips to the front desk and adds them to guests' rooms by hand. Slips go missing, guests dispute charges at checkout, and the restaurant's cash rarely matches the books. Here is how to run restaurant billing so that none of this happens.

The five things a resort restaurant needs

1. A quick way to take table and counter orders.
2. A kitchen order ticket (KOT) for every round of food, so nothing is missed or cooked twice.
3. A proper GST bill, printed on a thermal printer.
4. Charging an in-house guest's meal to their room, so it shows on the checkout bill.
5. Credit for regular outside customers, with a clear record of who owes what.

Table orders and KOTs

A KOT is the slip the kitchen cooks from. The rule that prevents most mistakes is simple: every time a table orders, a KOT goes to the kitchen with only the new items. The first round is KOT 1; when the table orders dessert later, only the dessert goes on KOT 2.

• Write kitchen notes on the KOT ("less spicy", "no onion") instead of shouting them across the counter.
• Never cancel an item silently after the KOT — record who cancelled it and why. Cancelled items after KOT are the most common way restaurant money leaks.
• Keep a tables board that shows which tables are occupied, for how long, and which have a printed bill waiting for payment.

GST on restaurant bills

Restaurant service is generally taxed at 5% without input tax credit. If the hotel is "specified premises" — broadly, a room was charged above ₹7,500 a night in the previous financial year — restaurant service there is 18% with ITC. Confirm which applies to you with your CA.

Two things to decide once: whether your menu prices include GST or GST is added on the bill, and whether you charge a service charge (which must be optional for the customer). Apply discounts before tax, and show CGST and SGST separately on the bill.

Charging meals to the guest's room

This is where separate systems fail. A guest eats lunch, signs a slip, and the slip has to reach the front desk before checkout. Done properly, the restaurant bill goes straight onto the guest's stay the moment it is settled, as a food & beverage line with the right GST. At checkout the guest sees one bill: room nights, extras and every meal.

• Only allow charging to guests who are checked in.
• Show the room number and guest name when choosing, so the bill goes to the right room.
• If the restaurant bill is cancelled, the room charge must be removed too.

Credit customers

Local regulars, drivers, tour operators and nearby offices often eat now and pay at the end of the week or month. Keep a customer account for each with name and mobile, put the unpaid part of each bill on their account, and record payments against it. A simple statement — bills, payments and running balance — ends most arguments, and a polite WhatsApp reminder with the amount due gets most dues paid.

The daily closing routine

1. No bill left open or unpaid at closing.
2. Cash in the drawer matches the cash in the day's report; UPI and card match the bank app.
3. Check every cancelled item and cancelled bill, with the reason.
4. Restaurant cash joins the property's monthly closing, so the month's books include it.

One system for rooms and the restaurant

StayDesk's Restaurant POS add-on does all of this inside the same software as your rooms: table and counter orders, KOT printing, GST bills on 58 mm / 80 mm thermal printers or A4, cash, UPI, card and split payments, credit customers, charge to room, a QR menu for tables and a daily sales report.