Keep cash, but give it a ceiling
Cash is still normal in Kuwait food delivery, so do not switch it off. Most restaurants running their own drivers see 40 to 60 percent of orders paid in cash, and killing that overnight kills real revenue. What you do instead is put a ceiling on it. Cash stays open for anything under 25 KD — the family order, the late shawarma run, the regular from the same building. Between 25 and 50 KD, the order goes out only after a confirmation: one WhatsApp message with the location pin and the total, answered before the kitchen starts. Above 50 KD, cash stops.
A failed cash order costs you more than the food. Between ingredients, packaging and the driver's round trip to Jahra and back, most kitchens lose 3 to 6 KD every time nobody answers the door. Track it for one month and you will usually find fake and abandoned orders sitting between 3 and 8 percent of cash orders, against under 1 percent on prepaid. The pattern is boring and repeatable: a new number, an unusually large basket, an address with no landmark, ordering after midnight, far from your kitchen. Flag that combination and confirm before you cook.
Then make prepaid the easier option rather than the punishment. KNET is what people actually use, and it should be two taps, not a form. A restaurant taking direct orders on its own Shopify store with KNET at checkout keeps the 25 to 30 percent that Talabat and Deliveroo take, and has the money in the account before the driver moves. Give prepaid customers something small and visible — free delivery over 12 KD, or a drink on the house — and cash share drops on its own over two or three months, without anyone feeling refused.
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The money leaks between the driver and the drawer
Every driver leaves with a float and comes back with a number. Give each one 20 to 30 KD in small notes and coins at shift start, count it in front of him, and write it on the shift sheet. At the end of the shift he returns the float plus the collected total, counted against the order manifest — order number, address, amount, paid or not paid. This takes four minutes per driver. Skip it for a week and you will never find where the 18 KD went, because by then three drivers, two shifts and one returned order all have a story.
Reconcile the same night, never the next morning. Cash counted against the manifest, the variance written down, and anything over 1 KD explained before the driver leaves the branch. Most branches that hold this line watch their shortage fall from 15 or 20 KD a week to almost nothing within a month — not because someone was stealing, but because change, returned orders and a driver paying for parking all stopped being invisible. Keep the sheets for 90 days. When one branch in Hawally leaks and Salmiya does not, the sheets tell you which shift and which route.
Cap what a driver can carry. Above roughly 60 KD collected he drops the cash at the branch before continuing, especially on Friday and Saturday nights when the runs are long. It protects the money and it protects him. Also stop paying commission on any cash order without a matching manifest line — that one rule removes most of the grey area. And give the shift supervisor authority to refuse a cash order that failed the confirmation step, without calling you. If confirming needs the owner's permission at 1 a.m., nobody will confirm anything.
Catering is where you stop taking cash
Catering is where cash on delivery stops being a service and starts being a risk. One party tray order at 180 KD that nobody collects eats a week of margin, plus staff hours you cannot get back. The rule: anything above 50 KD, or anything cooked to order for a fixed date, is prepaid. No exception for a first-time customer, whatever the name on the invoice. Regulars with a history — a company that has paid you four times, a diwaniya you know — can hold an account, but that is credit you granted on purpose, not cash you hoped for.
The deposit rule that works: 50 percent at booking to hold the date, the balance 48 hours before delivery, and nothing leaves the kitchen unpaid. Below 100 KD, take the full amount up front — splitting a 70 KD order into two payments costs more in chasing than it earns in goodwill. Make the deposit non-refundable inside 72 hours of the event, and say so in writing in the same WhatsApp message where you confirm the menu, before any money moves. Ramadan and Eid weeks are full prepayment only, because you cannot resell 200 kebabs at 9 p.m.
Say it plainly and nobody argues. 'Big orders are prepaid so we can hold your date and buy the meat' is a reason people accept; 'company policy' is not. Send the KNET link in the same thread as the quote, so paying is one tap while the customer is still deciding. Expect to lose one enquiry in ten to the deposit — and expect that one to have been the order that would have vanished anyway. Track it for a quarter: branches that hold this line usually see catering revenue rise, because the kitchen stops absorbing no-shows.