Item: Toast Point of Sale
Rating: 8
Author: Elizabeth Hyman

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

If we didn't have Toast POS we would be out of business right now. Toast POS allows us to operate as a contactless curbside take out restaurant during this very difficult time of COVID-19. They have a decent online ordering platform that allows us to take all of our orders, including payments, virtually. We do have freestanding POS' within the restaurant (from the "before" times) that we use to adjust pars and ring in employee food orders as well. The back-office POS is very simple to use and is relatively intuitive. There is a lot of customization available across the board. You can create a main menu, and then submenus after that. Adding modifications is a breeze and can be set to the entire menu group or individual menu items. You can also make changes and adjustments right there at the POS (for when we were operating as a full service restaurant, it was very easy to 86 an item, or put a count on it). Toast POS is used by every single employee, by either using it as a timeclock or using it to run reports, or even ring in their food for the shift. Reporting is customizable for sales reports and labor reports, and overall is the main reason we can continue to do business.

Pros and Cons

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.

Return on Investment

We were able to continue to operate during COVID-19! If it weren't for online ordering, we would have had to close. We are a high volume restaurant. Taking phone orders isn't an option. We only took a 30% hit in sales due to COVID, and we are so lucky.
The online portal has allowed us to really turn more attention on customizing the items for better reporting purposes. Also, it integrates with 3rd party food delivery services so thats also a huge plus
They integrate with our accounting software as well, so another added benefit is the time saved with all the data being shared between the two. Gone are the days of entering in sales and labor. IT's all integrated!

Alternatives Considered

NCR Aloha POS

The user interface is where it's at with Toast POS. And the fact that it's cloud-based is another selling point. We don't have to have a PC to "host" NCR Aloha, and we don't have to worry about the PC crashing or rebooting and kicking everyone off during the dinner rush. I don't think NCR integrates with anything either, its just clunky and old software. And don't get me started on support. Their support was so terrible and continues to be. I recently had to call them because of an old gift card that was in their system and I was transferred 5x and eventually was put on hold for 10 minutes before I hung up. Anyhow, Toast is MUCH cheaper, and because it's cloud based, you can access it anywhere! We pay less and get so much more

Key Insights

Do you think Toast Point of Sale delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Toast Point of Sale's feature set?

Yes

Did Toast Point of Sale live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Toast Point of Sale go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Toast Point of Sale again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Restaurant365, Basecamp, Canva

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Toast is a piece of cake!

Overall Satisfaction with Toast Point of Sale