Hours

Your hours tell customers when you’re open and decide when they can place online, QR, and kiosk orders. Orders you ring up on the POS aren’t blocked by these hours.

Open the Hours tab in the Back Office at Settings > Profile > Hours . Managers and owners can edit it. From top to bottom, the tab shows:

A warning banner when the business isn’t taking online orders.
How Hours Work, a short explainer you can expand.
A status bar with today’s hours, the delayed start, the prep time, and the Order Settings link.
Hours review, which shows when someone last confirmed your hours.
Weekly hours and Special Hours, side by side.
Online Throttling Setup.

You can also reach these controls from any Back Office page. Click the pencil next to today’s hours at the top of the page. The dialog holds the order settings, weekly hours, and special hours.

Status bar and warnings

The status bar under How Hours Work shows today’s hours, the delayed start, and the prep time. While the business is temporarily closed, it shows that instead of today’s hours. While online ordering is paused, it shows when the pause ends instead of the delayed start.

A yellow banner at the top explains why customers can’t order online. Only one shows at a time:

Closed for good: the business is permanently closed, and no customer channel takes orders.
Temporarily closed: you closed the business with Close Business Temporarily. See Close the business temporarily.
Online ordering turned off: your hours still show to customers, but no online orders can be placed.
Paused: online ordering is paused until the time shown. See Pause online ordering.

If the banner says the Back Office couldn’t check whether ordering is paused, reload the page.

Set your weekly hours

Weekly hours are your regular schedule. Each day can have more than one opening, for example 11 AM–2 PM for lunch and 5 PM–10 PM for dinner.

In the Weekly hours card, click Edit.
Check each day you’re open. An unchecked day shows Closed.
For each open day, pick the opening and closing times. Times go in 15-minute steps. If the day has no hours yet, click Add Hours first.
To add another opening, click + after the last range. Click × to remove a range. The + isn’t offered once the last range closes at 11 PM or later.
Click Save. The button stays disabled until you change something.

To copy a day’s hours, use the shortcuts next to the day name. They appear once the day has hours:

The copy icon (Copy to next day) copies the hours to the next day. The last day in the list doesn’t have it.
Mon–Fri applies the hours to Monday through Friday.

A closing time can run past midnight, up to 5 AM the next morning. The opening time must be before midnight.

When you save, the Back Office checks each open day:

Each open day needs at least one time range.
The closing time must be after the opening time.
One range can’t be longer than 24 hours.
Ranges on the same day can’t overlap. That includes the after-midnight part of a late range.

New hours apply to orders right away. Your Selflane page and website update too.

Saving hours here doesn’t change your Google listing. To update Google, see Google Business Profile.

Set special hours

Special hours replace your weekly hours on the dates you choose. Use them for holidays, events, or a day you close early. A special day can also close the business for the whole day.

In the Special Hours card, click Add.
Under Dates, click one date. For a range, click the first date and then the last date. You can pick today or later, in your business’s time zone.
Choose Business is Closed, or choose Business is Open and enter that day’s hours.
Click Save.

A special day replaces the whole day’s weekly hours. It doesn’t add to them. Saving special hours for a date that already has them replaces the old ones.

The card lists upcoming special days only, with the holiday name next to the date when there is one. Click a row to edit it. Click the trash icon to delete it.

Order settings

Click Order Settings in the status bar to open the online ordering controls. The dialog has four parts.

For prep time and delayed start, choose a value and click Save. The Save and Reset buttons appear once you change the value.

Prep time

Prep Time for Online Orders is how long the kitchen usually needs for an order. ASAP orders are scheduled that many minutes out. The hint under the menu shows the current setting.

Choose from 10 minutes to 2 hours. For longer lead times, click Show extended options (3–18 hours).

Delivery orders get 25 more minutes on top of the prep time. Above 2 hours, delivery uses the prep time as is.

Delayed start

Delayed Start for Online Orders holds off online, QR table, and kiosk orders for a while after you open. Choose 0 to 60 minutes, in 5-minute steps.

For example, if you open at 10:00 AM and set a 30-minute delay, online orders start at 10:30 AM. The first delivery time is 25 minutes after that. Use it when staff need setup time before orders come in.

Pause online ordering

Pause online ordering when the kitchen falls behind. The business stays open for Dine In and keeps its posted hours.

Under Pause Online Ordering, click Pause.
Choose how long, from 10 minutes to 24 hours. For a set time, choose Pick a resume time…, pick the time in your business’s local time, and click Continue.
Check the resume time in the prompt. Optionally, type a reason, up to 200 characters.
Click Confirm.

While a pause runs, the dialog shows when it ends:

Resume Now takes online orders again right away.
Change sets a new end time. Leave the reason blank to keep the current one.

A pause can last up to one week. For a longer break, close the business temporarily instead.

A pause stops online orders, QR table orders, and kiosk orders. Orders on the POS carry on. Orders from DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grubhub may keep coming, so pause those in each marketplace too.

Online ordering starts again on its own at the end time.

Close the business temporarily

Use Close Business Temporarily for a longer closure, such as a remodel or a vacation. It stays in place until you reopen.

Under Close Business Temporarily, enter a Reason, from 4 to 200 characters. To fill in standard wording, click Remodeling or Vacation.
Click Yes, Close Business Temporarily.

While you’re closed:

Customers can’t place online, QR table, or kiosk orders. POS orders still go through.
Your Selflane page and website show your reason.
Your business still appears in search, and its page shows that it’s temporarily closed.

To reopen, open Order Settings again. Under Reopen Business, click Yes, Reopen Business.

Confirm your hours every six months

The Hours review card asks someone to check your hours every six months. It shows who last confirmed them and when, and when the next review is due.

The badge shows the review’s state:

Up to date — the review is current.
Overdue — more than six months have passed since the last review.
Not yet reviewed — no one has confirmed these hours yet.

To confirm:

Click Show the hours being confirmed to see your weekly hours and upcoming special days.
Check them. Fix anything that’s wrong in Weekly hours or Special Hours.
Click Confirm hours are current.

Once the review is current and the hours haven’t changed since, the button becomes a small Confirm again link. If you edit your hours after a review, the card asks you to confirm them again.

An overdue review is only a reminder. It never stops orders.

Answer holiday reminders

A week before each holiday on the Selflane calendar, a reminder appears as a tab in the setup panel on every Back Office page. It stays until the holiday itself. It covers holidays for your country and region, in the US and Canada.

Choose how you’re opening that day:

Regular hours — your weekly hours apply.
Set special hours — the special hours form opens for that date. Enter the hours and save.
Closed — the business is closed for the whole day.

If you change your weekly or special hours before the holiday, the reminder comes back so you can check it again.

Limit online orders per hour

Online Throttling Setup caps how many orders and items you take in an hour, so a rush doesn’t overload the kitchen. Most businesses don’t need it.

Next to Add rule for:, pick the day and the hour.
Click Add.
Enter the Max Number of Orders and the Max Number of Items. Each must be at least 5.
Click Save.

The grid shows only the hours that have a rule, with one column per day. Each cell shows the order and item caps. Click a cell to change it, or click the trash icon in the dialog to delete the rule. The badge next to the title counts your active rules.

Orders count toward the hour they’re due, not the hour they’re placed. Once an hour has more orders or more items than its cap, customers can’t choose that hour. That applies to online, QR table, and kiosk orders.

Orders from your POS and from delivery marketplaces count toward the hour’s total, but they’re never turned away. Set the caps with your in-house volume in mind.

Example: A restaurant open 11 AM–9 PM gets busy at lunch and dinner. The owner sets caps for 12 PM, 5 PM, and 6 PM only. Hours without a rule have no cap.

What if…

I saved weekly hours and got a warning that they changed on another device. Someone else saved the hours while you were editing. The latest hours load into the form. Make your change again and save.

Confirming my hours says they changed while I was reviewing. The preview opens with the latest hours. Check them again, then click Confirm hours are current.

I paused online ordering, but marketplace orders are still coming in. A Selflane pause doesn’t always reach DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grubhub. Pause the store in each marketplace’s own app.

A customer can’t pick a time during my lunch rush. If you have a rule for that hour under Online Throttling Setup, the hour may be full. Raise the caps, or delete the rule. If there’s no rule, check your delayed start and prep time.

Google Business Profile — update the hours on your Google listing.
Reservations — bookable items use these hours unless they have their own.
Settings overview