Why did cancellations jump? Ask your AI about your POS orders
The weekly numbers look off: canceled orders are up, and the POS dashboard shows a count and a dollar total, nothing else. Is it the card reader? A new online ordering channel? A cashier ringing things up wrong? Finding out means opening order after order in the POS, writing down what each one says, and hoping a pattern shows up before closing time.
If your POS sends its orders to Mays, every canceled order is already there with its items, its hour, its channel and how it ended. Your AI app can do the opening-and-writing-down for you.
Part of our series Run your restaurant with your AI: one real situation per post, with the words you type and what happens in Mays. The prompts and results are illustrative examples.
What the owner types
"Canceled orders at Midtown look high this week. Compare them with last week: how many, how did they end, why were cards declined, which items, which hours and which channels?"
What the AI does in Mays
It asks Mays about cancellations and refunds at Midtown for this week, then for last week. Each answer is read-only and comes from the orders your POS (Square or Union) sends to Mays, on the location's calendar, for up to 31 days at a time:
- Orders, canceled orders, the cancel rate and the value of what was canceled.
- How each cancellation ended:
- card declined: canceled after a card payment failed;
- abandoned: canceled with no payment attempt;
- paid, then canceled or refunded in the POS, the closest thing to a refund count in the order data.
- The card decline reasons on canceled orders, top five.
- The items on canceled orders, most first.
- The hours cancellations happen, on the location's clock, and the channels (in person, online and so on, as the POS reports them).
- Repeat attempts, as counts only: the most cancellations by one customer, never who. A high number usually means one guest retrying a declined card.
- Discounts on completed orders, with line-level discounts by item.
What you see
Put side by side, the two weeks tell a story, for example (illustrative):
"This week: 41 canceled of 1,380 orders (3.0%), up from 17 (1.3%) last week. 29 were declined cards, mostly 'insufficient funds' and 'card expired'; 9 were abandoned with no payment; 3 were paid then refunded. 22 of the 41 came through the online channel, mostly between 7 and 9 am. One customer accounts for 6 cancellations. Items: mostly large lattes and breakfast sandwiches."
The AI's reading: the jump is mostly declined cards on online morning orders, with one guest retrying several times. That points at the online checkout, not at the counter. The next step is a question for your online ordering setup, not a talk with the cashiers.
Follow-ups that help
- "Which items get discounted most at Midtown this month?"
- "Show me the canceled online orders over $30 from Tuesday." (Single orders come from a separate look-up in Mays.)
- "How do net sales compare with last week?" (A period comparison.)
What it replaces
Before | With Mays connected to your AI |
|---|---|
Open canceled orders one by one in the POS | Every canceled order, summarized |
Write down decline codes on a notepad | Top decline reasons, counted |
Guess whether it's the counter or online | Cancellations by channel and hour |
Re-do it all for last week to compare | Ask for both weeks in one message |
Who can ask
Anyone who can view reports in Mays, for the locations they can see. It's read-only, so no actions setting is needed. Your POS must be connected to Mays: see Connecting Square or Connecting Union POS.
What Mays doesn't do here
The POS doesn't send everything, so Mays can't show:
- Comps and voids by employee or approver. The POS sync includes no employee on an order.
- Discount names. Only the amounts.
- Refunds issued later on a Square order that stays completed. Only orders the POS marks canceled are counted here.
It also can't fix a declined card. It can tell you where to look.
Guests appear only as an anonymous code in Mays, so the AI can tell a returning guest apart without seeing who they are. Card details are never sent; decline reasons arrive as the POS's codes.
Try it when the number looks off
- Connect Mays to ChatGPT, Claude or Grok from mays.app/ai (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok). Connect Mays to ChatGPT, Claude or Grok explains what it can see.
- Ask how cancellations ended, this week against last.
- Fix the channel or the hour that stands out.
Try Mays free for 30 days, with no credit card, and connect it to the AI you already use.