Operations
Cafeteria meal tracking: from sign-in sheets to QR meal records
How do you count meals served in a staff cafeteria without paper lists or card readers? Service hours, one record per meal per day, access by group and a monthly meal timesheet.
A cafeteria meal tracking system records which meal each staff member took, on which day and at which cafeteria. In hospitals, campuses and public buildings this count is often kept on a sign-in sheet, with tickets or with a counter at the till, and at month end the lists are gathered by hand to check against the caterer's invoice. The EnaFeedback cafeteria module does this with the QR, live display and NFC points your organization already has: staff scan the cafeteria, tap "I had my meal" while it's served, and the meal counts. This post explains how the module is set up, how the count stays reliable and how the monthly timesheet is produced.
Why sign-in sheets and counters fall short
On a sign-in sheet, signatures can be filled in all at once, the same person can sign twice and unreadable names don't match. A counter at the till tells you how many plates went out but not who took them. Card readers need installation and maintenance at every cafeteria. The result is the same: month-end reconciliation with the caterer happens without a reliable count by person and meal.
How it works
Staff scan the QR poster, live display or NFC tag at the cafeteria with their own phone. The cafeteria card opens in the web staff panel or the mobile app; while a meal is served, an I had my meal button appears. One tap records the meal, and the card shows the meal and time. Outside service hours the card shows the next meal and its time, and it refreshes on its own when service starts or ends.
No app download is required; staff can scan with the phone camera and record in the browser. The mobile app adds a cafeteria tile on the home screen, NFC-verified scans and a monthly My meals screen.
Service hours and night meals
An admin edits the organization's meal list (breakfast, lunch, dinner and a night meal by default) and draws each cafeteria's service hours:
- Separate hours for regular days and holidays; holidays come from the organization's working calendar and public holidays.
- One window per meal, at least 15 minutes; windows can't overlap.
- A day start time (04:00 by default): a night meal taken at 02:00 counts for the day the shift started.
Every cafeteria has its own name and internal note, separate from the location. Making a location a cafeteria is opt-in, and a removed cafeteria keeps its past records.
One record per meal per day
The rule that keeps the count reliable is simple: each person can record each meal once per operational day. A second record is refused, even at another cafeteria or from another device. The rule is also enforced in the database, so of two simultaneous taps only one counts.
If you like, only verified scans are accepted (the dynamic QR on a live display, or an NFC tag read by the mobile app), and the fresh session rule accepts records within 5 minutes of the scan. That stops anyone recording from their desk with a photo of the QR code.
Access by group: contractors and shifts
You can open a cafeteria to all active staff or limit it to personnel groups such as "Contract cleaning" or "Night shift". When someone without access scans the cafeteria, the card opens without the record button: "You cannot record meals here", the meals they took elsewhere today and the cafeterias they can use with their status right now. Write to my manager opens a prefilled message. These attempts are counted once per person, cafeteria and day, without names, as Denied scans in the report. Staff see the cafeterias they can use and their service hours under My cafeterias.
Manual records and voids
An admin adds a meal by hand with a note for someone who didn't have their phone, and voids a wrong record with a reason. A voided record isn't deleted, leaves the counts and stays visible with who voided it and why. The person concerned is told in their language; in the mobile My meals screen, voided meals are struck through and admin-added meals are marked. Everything is written to the audit log.
Reports and the monthly meal timesheet
The Records and reports screen shows total meals, staff, the daily average, the split by day and meal, counts per cafeteria and a weekday × hour heat map. Per-person records and statistics are there too.
On the Timesheet tab, the meals each person took each day appear as initials in the meal's color, with monthly counts per meal at the end of each row. Filter by cafeteria, group and name. Once a month is finalized, no records can be added or voided, and the Excel file comes out with timesheet, summary and records sheets (named in Turkish: Puantaj, Özet, Kayıtlar), marked as final. The meal timesheet is independent of the working time timesheet.
If you like, the Meal summary alert sends managers the counts per cafeteria and meal after each meal or once a day. The Meals today card on the admin home page shows the day's count.
What it doesn't do
The cafeteria module only counts. It doesn't calculate meal costs, prices or payroll deductions, and it takes no payments. You use the monthly timesheet in Excel to reconcile with the caterer or hand it to payroll.
Who runs it?
The ready-made Cafeteria manager role sees records and reports, adds and voids records, and edits cafeterias and service hours, without access to module settings (the staff card text, location proof and alerts). So the administrative and finance team runs the cafeteria without touching the rest of the system.
Frequently asked questions
Can the same person record lunch at two cafeterias? No. The one-record-per-meal-per-day rule applies across all cafeterias; the second record is refused.
Are guest or intern meals counted? The module counts people with a personnel record. Meals for guests without one are outside this module.
Can I measure food quality too? Yes, with a separate tool: put a staff survey or a feedback QR code in the cafeteria to collect views on taste, portions and hygiene. Meal records answer "how many ate", the survey answers "how was it".
The bottom line
A reliable cafeteria count starts with recording who took each meal, where and when, in one step. Learn more on the cafeteria meal records feature page and in the cafeteria help article, or request a demo to try it in your own organization.