Toast Point of Sale

The training materials on the site itself help you understand the product and how to use it most efficiently. Was especially helpful when training staff when we first brought the product onboard.

Easily allow you to add items and their associated prices, descriptions, and photos, which helped maximize the information provided for customers ordering online.

The inventory tracking was especially helpful not just for efficient service, but also for accountability with staff.

The customer service aspect. The chat feature on the website has long wait times, which isn't ideal in a restaurant setting when everything that's happening is so fast-paced. If an issue arises, swift solutions are key.

The actual design of the POS is quite plain, very grey and boxy. All functional, no fashion.

Online ordering.

Cloud-based menu allows for real-time menu updates without needing to refresh the POS system.

Intuitive menu setup.

Open API with LevelUp and other third parties.

Product Mix is very hard to use.

Hardware is not kept on site at Toast HQ and there are no technicians that can be sent out when there are issues with the hardware.

Ease of Use

Customer Service

Turn around time on support tickets

Updating non shared menu items when all locations menus are shared

More robust loyalty program

Integrated online ordering makes it a breeze. Once the customer places their order it goes directly to the kitchen!

Offline mode allows us to capture credit card sales even when the Internet is down.

Menu management allows me to make changes to the menu at one store and then automatically applies those changes to the rest of them.

Reporting is top notch and extremely informational.

PCI compliance burden is now off of me (unlike when we used "big box" POS companies in the past) and now falls directly on Toast Point of Sale.

Customer service, at times, could use some help

Cost of service

Reporting: there are several aspects of reporting that allows you to see down to the very detail of the order. You can also run a Vs report and see sales vs last year, which I particularly enjoy

Gift Cards! We were able to ditch the 3rd party that was selling our gift cards online and we can now sell them online as ecards. Not only that but if anyone ever has an issue with their GC you can pull up the GC info and drill down to every single order they have ever used it for.

Customization- you can customize reports or even views, such as Advanced Properties in the menu section. You can add different areas to view on that specific section AND make edits to them quickly!!

There are times when they make updates that will reset some of your options without you knowing. This happened recently with our EMV card readers when there was an update done that turned off the card readers and I had to go through a few settings to find it and turn it back on on All POS's.

They will roll out new functions with little to no detail in them.

Support is just okay. You use to be able to email them but now the only option is to call or chat in online which isn't always ideal. You have to go through a series of prompts via a bot until you get to a live person and then sometimes the connection is interrupted and you're disconnected.

Wish there was a way to modify what prints on the guest check. To my knowledge there still isn't a way to do that.

We are in a space with 10 other vendors, so the ability to swipe a card, pre-authorize it, and give it back to the customer so helpful!

The offline mode is another awesome perk! Should the internet go down, all the transactions are held and processed again once the connection is restored. This also allows us to take one of the handhelds to an event with us to sell drinks or merch.

Our previous POS required that my email be logged into the device which meant anyone could read through it. With Toast, it automatically sends out the receipts via text or email without having to have anything logged in.

This is one of the few POS systems that allows you to tip on gift cards which is extremely helpful. Most folks these days do not carry cash, so this allows them to still tip staff without having to run a separate card. They also offer electronic gift cards! We were able to put a link to the site on our website and social media to increase visibility.

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.

The Toast POS App itself has a very user-friendly interface. Training staff on the POS is straight-forward.

Though expected of any digital POS, they provide quick and mobile access to Sales & Accounting reporting.

ToastGo, which is Toast's new handheld order-taking & CC processing device, would be great for table-service restaurants trying to increase their customer turnover.

Toast Online Ordering (ToastOO) is an online ordering service offered for an additional monthly charge (we pay $50/mo), that allows your restaurant to put a link on your website where customers can "order direct" that is directly linked to the POS, so there is no manual entry involved. There is also no commission charge associated (as with GrubHub, UberEats, etc), just the flat monthly rate.

Accounting General Ledger Report is a life-saver for bookkeepers.

Toast has integration with AMEX so as I understand, you can accept AMEX payments without having an actual partnership with AMEX. AND you receive daily deposits from Toast's CC processing settlements quickly, which is always appreciated from a cashflow standpoint!

As a client of ToastPOS since Oct 2015, I have submitted a multitude of feature requests over the years. Some were considered and implemented, some were of course not. But I still have a list of (what I feel are) glaringly obvious features that are missing from the product that, had I known of them, I may not have chosen ToastPOS for my business in the first place (assuming other POS systems do offer these features?). I will lay them all out in detail here:

Gift cards are *not redeemable* on Toast's Online Ordering Platform (ToastOO). This includes both physical gift cards purchased in person through the POS *and* e-gift cards purchased online via a website that is directly linked to the POS. Aka a customer goes to our branded website to purchase an e-gift for our pizza shop, but when they go to our branded online ordering website to order pizza Delivery (also provided by Toast), they cannot use their e-gift card to pay. They must either call the shop or show up in person to pay using their gift card. Gift cards not being redeemable online is 100% a missed opportunity that frustrates every customer to whom we issue a gift card. This is also not a good method to entice customers who are loyal to 3rd party website such as Grubhub/UberEats, to switch to ordering direct from ToastOO (saving thousands in commissions). A customer would love FREE money to redeem at a restaurant they already regularly order delivery from, but not at the expense of not being able to order online. At the very least, until there is a solution, Toast should add verbiage to the gift card purchasing page (as well as on the checkout cart page) that states gift cards are not accepted as payment online, to better manage customer expectations.

Quote times are too complicated/difficult to manage. This is my staff's biggest pain-point operationally and is management's biggest pain-point since it is so difficult to train something so unintuitive. Say your standard quote time is 30 min Take-out and 60 min Delivery, but these vary all day long every day of the week depending on weather conditions, how busy we are, time of day, etc. Rather than a simple and straightforward "Take-out Quote Time"=30 and "Delivery Quote Time"=60 setting on the POS itself, you have to open a browser, login to the Toast Back-end, set “Default Prep Time (OO/API)”= 30mins & “Default Delivery Time” = 30mins, hit Save, and hit Publish separately. Yes, you have to add the two quotes together in order to come to the Delivery Quote that will be displayed on ToastOO (30 + 30 = 60). If we wanted Take-out to be 45, and Delivery 60, settings would be “Default Prep Time (OO/API)”= 45mins & “Default Delivery Time” = 15mins (45 + 15 = 60 minute delivery time), Save, + Publish. Unnecessarily complicated in a chaotic restaurant environment, especially when most restaurants are managing quote times across multiple 3rd party platforms on top of their own direct ordering website.

The online Ordering Schedule is too complicated/difficult to manage. Best explained with an example. If your restaurant is open until 10pm, and you want to accept orders up until 10pm, but your “Default Prep Time (OO/API)” is set to 30 minutes (aka 30 minute Take-out quote), you need to set your Online Ordering Take-out Schedule to be open until 10:30 pm in order to accept Takeout Orders up through 10pm.....and similarly for “Default Delivery Time” = 30 (which actually means a Delivery Quote time of 60 minutes, as explained above), you need to set the Delivery Schedule to close at 11:00pm in order to accept Delivery orders up through 10pm. The frustrating part is that this caveat isn't explained anywhere on the settings page, so you if you didn't happen upon this by attempting to place a Delivery order on your own website past 9pm (and not being allowed to), or noticing a late-night drop in Online Orders, you'd never know your website wasn't accepting orders up through 10pm as you wished.

Digital receipts. Toast cannot send digital emailed receipts for $0 orders. Aka if you are making an In-Kind donation (which we do several times per month) and the non-profit requires a receipt (which all do), you have to print the receipt and email them a picture of the paper copy. You cannot just email them a receipt stating the amount of the donation. This is frustrating as Tax Exempt businesses are typically the only customers these days who actually need receipts. It's a shame the ones we send them must look so unprofessional.

Toast Loyalty Rewards Program. Pro: purchases are linked to customer Credit Cards so points can add up automatically once they've linked their CC. Con: Because of this, you can only sign-up at the register itself (in-store). I instead would suggest customers be able to enroll online [make it part of the check-out process on ToastOO]. Then customers could enroll, and manage their associated CC's without holding up the line in-store. We are a quick-serve pizza-by-the-slice shop, and the goal is to move the line as quickly as possible, not having customers fumbling to sign up for a rewards program.

Bad Hardware. For 3+ years we've had to attach our Elo (think big check-out screen at the front register) to our cash drawer using 6 monster zip-ties, which looks very unprofessional. Toast does not provide any actual hardware (nuts/bolts/etc) to attach the ~$1k+ computer to the cash drawer so it doesn't fall off of the counter when flipped over for signature. Toast has only provided us with Velcro as a solution, which I, of course, do not trust considering the cost to replace the Elo when it inevitably crashes to the floor.

ToastOO Delivery Platform does not require a house number, a full 10-digit phone number, and we also have addresses within our delivery zone that get rejected from ordering direct because the system says their address is not in our zone. ToastOO Delivery is currently partnered with Mapbox for address verification. Valid House/Phone numbers are not required, which allows orders through with missing information. It requires our staff to spend unnecessary time on the phone, sometimes not being able to get ahold of the customer. This has been reported to Toast and they claim to be upgrading to a different mapping platform at some point in 2019. The 10-digit phone number issue was discovered as of 1/13/19 and has also been reported to Toast, with no follow-up as of yet. Mapbox rejecting customer addresses within our zone was discovered 10/2/18 and still has not been resolved; forcing those customers who can't get through to order from Grubhub, which of course costs us a hefty commission on orders that should be 0% commission.

Promo Codes are not robust enough for a modern digital age. Toast does allow setting up Promo Codes for customer use on ToastOO, but it cannot do basic functions such as limiting the dates/times the promo code can be redeemed, or Limiting the promo code to 1 redemption per user.

No branded app. It doesn't seem to me like it would be a far stretch for Toast to offer a branded App option. Restaurants want fewer partners, not more. Partnering with a 3rd party app company just adds one more menu to manage, aka rather than submitting in ToastPOS that we're out of "Green Peppers", and having that translate to ToastOO and a branded Toast App, we'd instead need to login to a 3rd party App provider to mark "out of Green Peppers", along with all other 3rd party online ordering platforms (Grubhub, etc). It gets to be too much for a small staff to manage, and an all-in-one solution with your already-created POS company/Menu, all linked together flawlessly, would be ideal.

General Ledger Accounting Report. This is a truly useful report for accounting purposes, but if you accept AMEX payments at your restaurant, this report does not account for AMEX fees, which you must manually calculate separately. Not a huge deal of course, but added time. UPDATE: As of 3/22/2019, Toast has finally updated the General Ledger report to include AMEX fees in your restaurant's accounting reports. It's no longer a separate manual calculation for bookkeepers. Hooray!

Menu Set-up Limitations. You cannot make certain items available for Delivery but not for Take-out, or vice versa.

No integration with Instagram. There is no partnership between Toast, despite Toast claiming on Twitter to be a restaurant's most important social media platform. Because of this, a restaurant using ToastOO cannot have a "Start an Order" button right on their Instagram page, making it most convenient for customers to order direct.

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.

The short cord on the tablet can create difficulty in turning the tablet for guest use.

The system occasionally runs slow and causes delays or double or triple entries of the same item.

There is a lack of training programs to train new users on Toast.

The backend and menu are easily configurable.

Using its API, you can quickly and easily connect other systems to work with your Toast installation.

There are excellent enterprise programming controls for the menu and employee management.

Pretty much everything in the system is straightforward and great for day-to-day management.

Some of the enterprise reporting features are not great. It is hard to get information broken down by restaurant/category/date. Most reports will only give an aggregate sum.

The API ecosystem is still growing so while most features you'd want to be available are built, there are some that we are still waiting on.

Sometimes their phone support is a bit lacking in information, especially in the tier-1 support.

Customer loyaty /rewards programs works very well on this POS system. We have had very good sucess with the program and it was easy to setup and implement.

Credit Card processing through Toast is extremely affordable.

The additional Kitchen Display and printer simplified our work flows and has allowed us to do more with less.

It is still a smaller company and fixes or updates are sometimes slow in arriving.

The tech support while complementary and included is not always the best trained. We have been struggling to get the inventory system implemented for months.

EASE OF USE - Being able to easily split checks is easier this way.

The ability to email/track receipts, and easy editing of closed checks.

Toast has knowledgeable salespeople, account manager, and great training.

The syncing is off sometimes and will randomly put products as negative stock in the inventory, which is irritating.

One downfall to the handheld tablets at our tables is that there is hardly any interaction with the waiter.

Occasionally there are some interface issues, but it happens very rarely compared to other systems I've used.

Easy to use.

Easy to train staff.

When you need call support a real person answers & you get your answers.

Good for price.

Menu setup could be a little less rushed & person who sets up should be available for the first few weeks of going live.

Online ordering. Orders come right to the kitchen, so that they can be fulfilled quickly.

Accounting. Day breakdowns show what hours sales are larger. It all gives detailed payment breakdowns by merchant and takes all the headache out of deposits.

Gift cards. They have the options of electronic gift cards or the traditional card. For other point of sales gifts cards are handled through a third party but with Toast it's included.

Some minor bug fixes here and there.

They are only android but would be nice to have mac.

Ability to have paper and digital receipts enabled at the same time.