Likelihood to Recommend The terminals themselves don't seem to be well designed and have the appearance of being put together with off-the-shelf components. Hiding cables can be challenging. The design is slim and svelte enough, but it has the appearance of being more fragile (although it doesn't appear be particularly so). These terminals are best when left in a single location, at least in our implementation as switching revenue centers requires IT involvement.
Read full review For restaurants it's great, and that's the only scenario I'm really use to seeing it. However I do have to say that during Christmas time, our city has a craft bizarre where local artists are featured and sell their wares, and this Bizarre was using Toast POS. Therefore, I think it can really span across all avenues. It's great because of how it categorizes menus, and how you can run reports like a p-mix to see your top sellers, and bottom sellers, etc. The more I think of it, now, really any business that sells something and needs to track those sales, could use this POS. A tire store? Sure. A hat shop? Absolutely. The great thing about Toast is that it is just SO customizable! You can even make the buttons different colors, that's how customizable it is. Lastly, the ability to sell online has been a game-changer. I wish there was a little bit better formatting for online ordering, but really, you can add pictures, descriptions, modifiers, use discount codes, and accept gift cards all online. We didn't have to build out an online store, we just had to build out our menu buttons and we were all set.
Read full review Pros Screen layout/design for various outlets is pretty good and also flexible. There are several modules that interact with the platform, making integration easier. Stability in the environment is very good and we have very little downtime with the terminals. Management of multiple outlets is excellent and there are a lot of options. Add-on/value add features are robust. Read full review The ability for guest to select a receipt type. Allowing to enter in different types of orders (current in-store orders, future orders, house account orders, and more). The convenience of touch screen use and strong calibration. Ability to swivel tablet from employee to guest. Read full review Cons Integration with rGuest Seat is terrible, and it's a companion product. This definitely never lived up to its promise. The boot process for the terminals is long and ridiculously unprofessional looking. There are some sloppy defaults for the boot process and the initial setup is needlessly complicated. Shift management is confusing for staff, particularly when signing out at the end of a shift. Would like to see more work on this area. Read full review Though sales details are available in real time, the analytics take 2-3 days to post. So if you are looking for specific modifications you'll have to wait. Though you can edit the menus directly from the devices and move them around like you do on a smartphone, it doesn't give you a sorting option. If you're OCD like me, you have to alphabetize my hand. Read full review Likelihood to Renew There are many features I wish Toast had that it currently does not, but we are likely to renew this year because given Toast's recent increase in funding and expanding of their staff, we are hopeful some of these issues will finally be resolved in 2019. Plus, though I've never done it, I'd imagine that switching to another POS system would take a ton of time, money, and resources---things most businesses don't have a lot of. So we'll sit tight with Toast for now and see what they come up with this year in terms of fixing our biggest pain-points.
Read full review Usability Toast POS is a great basic POS tool, having some features I didn't think would be possible at this price point, such as:
processing CC payments in "offline mode" in case there is an internet outage kitchen display screens collecting payment from customers using a handheld right at their table pre-approving card payments to assure the customer has enough money to pay for their order, etc That being said, I still feel that Toast misses the mark on some things that I truly would consider 'common-sense' features, such as:
providing hardware that connects the Register Screen (Elo) to the Cash drawer so it doesn't fall off the table when flipped over for customer signature accepting physical and e-gift cards as payment on their own online ordering platform (ToastOO) a Rewards Program that allows for online enrollment, rather than holding up quick-serve lines to sign up a Promo code feature that allows you to add basic restrictions such as Limit 1 per customer, or date/time limitations increasing in-store operations efficiency by creating more straight-forward ways to manage restaurant/ToastOO hours, and Delivery/Takeout quote estimates Facing these issues after 3+ years has been a frustration. We hope Toast has some solutions in mind that they will be implementing in 2019.
Read full review Support Rating Support is hit or miss with this platform. If you get a tech that knows the system, the experience is excellent. There have been more instances of escalated tickets going unanswered, which I deem unacceptable. Even if the answer is "I don't know" or "we can't do that" I expect an answer. Contrast this with VMware, who will file a bug report if they can't resolve the immediate issue and then will follow up with you. When it comes to IG support, I don't have confidence that they'll pursue a concern very far and they've been lax with follow-up
Read full review It has been over a month with no resolution and just being passed form rep to rep
Read full review Alternatives Considered InfoGenesis had a great implementation team and worked with us closely on the rollout to ensure minimal disruption. Micros terminals had better design overall and looked like they'd have lasted for 100 years, but Oracle was not fun to work with. IG's reporting options have made our Finance people happy as well. We were concerned with multiple integrations on the platform it replaced, but all of these turned out to be non-issues and we were able to work with IG staff to get what we wanted out of it. I'd prefer the hardware to be thought out more thoroughly, as it's weak in appearance by comparison despite being very usable.
Read full review Toast is so much easier to use than Breadcrumb. The display is so much easier to navigate. The card readers are more quality with Toast. Chownow was hard because it had its own printer, different than our kitchen printer, for to go orders, but now with Toast's all in one ordering we get the to go orders sent to the kitchen with the same ease as if they were getting fired from the main floor.
Read full review Return on Investment Our previous platform required more than occasional love and care and was hard to develop solutions for. InfoGenesis terminals don't have a lot of trouble in operation, which leads to more uptime and happy customers. I previously mentioned rGuest Seat integration. We never got this to work as promised and got different answers from different resources when asked the same question. Server sprawl began almost immediately. We went from a two server design to five in the end and still have occasional problems with kitchen printers. Read full review I wish there are a way to permanently delete items from the database instead of just archiving I wish there was a way to remove old locations that are no longer in use for my company completely from view. The system overall is easy to navigate and make changes to. Read full review ScreenShots