Toast POS Review: Is It Right for Your Business?

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Toast POS is a cloud-based point of sale software that allows you to run your business without the hassle of setting up and maintaining hardware. With this system, all you need is an internet connection. However, there are some complaints that have been made about the service. Read more in detail here: toast pos complaints.

Toast is a well-equipped POS system for cafés, full-service bars, and restaurants of all sizes. It has a built-in digital ordering and delivery system for your online or mobile app orders, as well as a complete menu and inventory management system. Kitchen display systems (KDS), self-ordering kiosks, and portable gadgets are among the hardware options available. Small restaurants, as well as those aiming to develop via multichannel sales and extend their client base, can benefit from Pricing for Toast options.

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What We Suggestion Toast For

Toast POS is regularly recommended in the food service sector and routinely rates as one of our top overall restaurant POS systems, getting a 4.15 out of 5 rating. Toast is one of the easiest systems to learn; it takes no time at all to teach new employees on the system. Toast has always been a tremendous supporter of the eateries it promotes. Toast looks to be a business that takes customer input seriously and uses it to produce new solutions when the industry meets new issues.

Toast is especially recommended for:

• Toast offers our preferred restaurant inventory management capabilities, receiving a 4.35 out of 5 rating. The inventory module is simple to use (and included in the baseline POS subscription).
• Restaurants that need digital ordering and delivery include the following: When the COVID-19 outbreak shut down in-person eating, Toast quickly incorporated built-in online ordering and delivery options to their POS. The system also includes a number of integration possibilities for third-party systems.
• Restaurants interested in offering paperless and contactless solutions should: To support paperless and contactless restaurant operations, Toast provides a hardware suite that comprises self-service kiosks, portable tablets, and kitchen display systems (KDS). It also has a QR-code ordering and payment system that allows customers to transform their cellphones into little self-service kiosks.
• Toast includes the functionality that every bar POS requires, such as swipe-to-open tabs and real-time inventory management, for full-service bars and restaurants. Toast may be customized for any kind of business thanks to modules for online ordering and self-service ordering.
• Coffee shops: With a score of 4.55 out of 5, Toast is our top pick for coffee cafes. Toast incorporates quick-service capabilities and a flexible set-up in addition to its comprehensive inventory control features, making it the perfect cafe-friendly POS system for businesses of all sizes.

What’s New

Toast bought xtraCHEF, a cloud-based restaurant management software that provides automated operational and financial management reporting, such as food and recipe costing, real versus theoretical deviation reporting, margin mix reports, and more, in June 2021. Toast’s inventory management is now the best available in a cloud restaurant POS as a result of this agreement.

When Toast Isn’t a Good Option

Toast is capable of handling high-volume operations and menus with many variations. However, when those two obstacles are combined, the system might suffer. Traditional American-style pizzerias, for example, may soon get caught in the Toast modifier interface because to their wide menus, many combinations, and high frequency of client alterations. Toast isn’t exactly a budget-friendly option.

• For micro-operations: While Toast offers a pay-as-you-go option, single-unit food trucks or ghost kitchens may find a two-year contract prohibitive on a tight budget, particularly during the offseason when they would need to spend more on marketing and digital ordering software, as well as vehicle maintenance to keep the business running.
• If you wish to use your own hardware, Toast is not for you. It works on proprietary tablets, so if you want the freedom of an iPad POS, you’ll have to go elsewhere.
• Toast is not a good choice for restaurants looking for a free or low-cost POS because of its optional installation costs, proprietary hardware, and costly add-ons.
• High-volume, conventional pizza shops: Toast’s basic functionality makes it a great option for pizzerias that run like full-service restaurants. Traditional pizza restaurants competing with Domino’s, on the other hand, will find the high-volume pizza functions constrained.

You didn’t find what you were searching for? Check out our list of the finest POS systems to pick the right one for your business.

Overview of the Toast Point of Sale

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Pricing for Toast

Toast has three price categories for their restaurant POS software: Starter, Essentials, and Growth. Hardware is available for purchase separately and must be purchased via Toast at custom quoted costs. Toast provides assistance installation, which is presently dependent on a quotation but was formerly marketed as beginning at $699. The installation charge will be greater for big or complicated restaurant ideas.

Toast was initially conceived as an alternative to higher-priced, legacy POS systems like Aloha and Micros. Compared to those systems, Toast is priced competitively. However, compared to other cloud-based and hybrid POS, Pricing for Toast is in the mid-to-high range (depending on the level of functionality you need).

Plans for Toast POS Pricing

Payments on Toast

• Built-in: The Toast Service and Support Team helps with payment processing.
• Flat Charge: Keeping track of your expenditures is simple with a single flat rate each transaction.
• This is a custom quotation depending on your card mix and sales volume.
• EMV and PCI compliant, as well as active fraud detection.
• When you lose internet connectivity, your payment will spool smoothly in the POS.

Toast is designed as an all-inclusive POS package. Toast subscribers are locked into Payments on Toast as well. Payments on Toast offers a single flat rate for processing all types of credit and debit card payments, with custom-quoted rates that depend on your card mix and sales volume. Payments on Toast is backed by Toast’s customer support team and seamlessly spools offline payments if you lose internet connectivity.

Our experts confirm that Payments on Toast processing rates are in line with industry standards. If you switch to Toast from another POS and payment processor, Toast is likely to match your current rates. However, if Toast will be your first restaurant POS, get rate quotes from other payment processors before signing up. Toast will usually try to match a rate if you can back it up with documentation.

Hardware Toasted

Toast runs on Android tablets created by Toast. These are available in a variety of sizes, ranging from freestanding terminals (Toast Flex) to portable tablets (ToastGo). Cash drawers, printers, scales, barcode scanners, and wall mounts are among the peripherals available. Offline functionality is improved by networking solutions such as wired and wireless routers, as well as wireless access points.

Toast also sells KDS displays, self-service kiosks, and contactless card and mobile wallet readers as add-ons (Toast Tap). Toast, in reality, is set up with our preferred KDS. It’s quite easy to use and has a lot of useful features. It contains day-to-day tallies that are simple to comprehend and multiple language settings that demonstrate the Toast team’s experience working in real eateries.

Beginner’s Kit

Toast offers a Beginner’s Kit option that bundles both software and hardware, plus Toast payment processing. It offers pay-as-you-go and standard paid plans, in which you can choose between a zero upfront cost and software subscription with a higher payment processing fee or an $800 upfront cost and $69 monthly software subscription with separate transaction rates. Both options will tie you to a long-term contract.

• The hardware package bundle contains the necessities, as well as the Toast POS Flex terminal, Toast Tap payment device, and network.
• The platform rate includes the card-present and card-not-present transaction rates for the pay-as-you-go plan.
• Subscriptions to the regular paid plan may be invoiced monthly or yearly.
• You may pay for your kit as a percentage of your sales using the pay-as-you-go option.
• Each additional terminal (including POS software, Toast Flex, and Toast Tap) costs $999.
• A guest display screen, a kitchen display screen, and a portable gadget (Toast Go) may all be added to your kit.
• Receipt printers ($199), kitchen printers ($299), and cash drawers ($149) are among the other accessories offered.

Toast Beginner’s Kit allows you to choose between a pay-as-you-go and standard plan. (Source: Toast)

Take a look at Toast’s hardware alternatives.

Features of Toast POS

• Customizable floor plans for dining room orders, quick-order screens for the bar, several check splitting choices (by seat number or drag-and-drop), and swipe-open bar tabs are all solid foundations.
• Reports created from real-time data, allowing you to make operational modifications on the go.
• The baseline POS includes a comprehensive inventory.
• Orders made online, via a mobile app, or through a QR code flow straight into your in-house order stream.
• Costs, inventory, menus, and data for all of your locations can be managed from a single dashboard.
• Toast TakeOut: A free online platform that promotes your business to new customers.
• Run an in-house delivery crew or a route delivery service.

Toast was created as a low-cost alternative to locally installed restaurant POS behemoths like Micros, so it’s no wonder that the Toast POS is a force to be reckoned with. Toast has you covered if you’ve gotten used to relying on in-the-moment flash reports for monitoring sales and labor expenditures.

You can manage many locations from a single dashboard with the back office suite. Digital ordering, delivery management, payroll, and labor management add-on modules are streamlined and jam-packed with useful features. You may define bulk pricing rules and insert menus for different dayparts to charge different prices for the same item whether purchased from the bar vs the dining room.

Inventory Toast

• There is no additional charge: Toast’s basic system contains inventory.
• Detailed training resources: One-on-one assistance is available, or you may utilize Toast University’s extensive online materials.
• Sync in-house and digital orders in real time to ensure that you never sell things that you don’t have.
• Red and green arrows show growing or declining vendor pricing, ensuring you always receive the greatest bargain.
• Make your own count: Make daily, weekly, or monthly physical counts worksheets and categorize them according to your storage spaces.
• You have access to the following information: Ingredient information is available at the point of sale. At a glance, the menu management report highlights the major profit drivers.

For food and beverage businesses, we choose Toast’s inventory module. Toast’s recent acquisition of xtraCHEF confirms its position as the finest cloud POS for restaurant inventory management. It’s simple to use straight away, but if you need more help, Toast offers one-on-one training sessions and a large resource library. The inventory module generates a plethora of useful at-a-glance reports that reveal the current worth of your inventory, while the linked menu management report assists in determining which menu items are underperforming.

To expedite physical counts, organize your inventory items according to their physical position. (Image courtesy of Toast)

To make inventory counting easier, you may set your virtual inventory to match your real shelving and storage layouts. Restaurant chains with several locations may manage their inventory from a single dashboard. Once you’ve entered all of your inventory and recipes into your Toast system, you’ll be able to show recipes for menu items directly in the POS, giving waiters and bartenders access to allergy and prep information.

Toast Ordering and Delivery through Digital

• Digitally dominant: accepts orders through web and mobile app.
• Use your own drivers, toast delivery drivers, or third-party applications as drivers.
• When your kitchen is busy, turn off digital orders to reduce traffic.
• 86’d products are never sold with centralized inventory since it syncs with real-time inventory.

Accept orders through the Toast TakeOut mobile ordering app and from Toast Online, your own mobile-friendly online platform. (Image courtesy of Toast)

Toast’s Toast TakeOut and Toast Delivery components are required if you wish to run an in-house ordering and delivery operation. These are included in the Essentials and Growth levels; basic users will have to pay a custom quotation pricing to add them. Customers may order takeout and delivery via your website, the Toast TakeOut website, or a mobile app through Toast TakeOut. They may also set up future orders and follow the progress of existing transactions in real time.

Do you wish to utilize Toast’s online ordering platform but don’t require a POS? Take a look at Toast Now.

Management of the Workforce

• Check for compliance: Calculate tip make-up amounts automatically when tipped employees fall below the local minimum wage.
• HR Hub: Onboard new recruits electronically for paperwork such as W-2s and payroll registration.
• Toast will keep you up to speed on local prevailing wage and labor legislation depending on your location.
• Tips: In Toast, you may set up tip computations or bulk input pooled tips through a.csv file.

At a custom-quoted charge, Toast’s full Payroll and Team Management module is offered as an optional add-on. This add-on functions as a full-fledged human resources solution, enabling you to digitally onboard new staff and even compute extra salaries for restaurants that accept tip credit. The module is updated with applicable labor laws depending on your region, assisting you in complying with restrictions such as California’s meal break legislation and New York’s Spread of Hours statute.

Toast Payroll and Team Management synchronizes your time clock and payroll system in real time. (Image courtesy of Toast)

Even without the Payroll and Team Management modules, Toast’s basic staff management features are extensive. You may still use the system as a time clock, and you can set up tip pools based on roles, hours worked, or a percentage of sales, and then publish the projected tips on server and bartender shift reports so they’re visible. Negative tip reporting is also possible, so waiters and bartenders are not taxed on money they tip out.

Reporting on Toast

• Real-time data is used to create a snapshot.
• Everyone can benefit from: The basic subscription includes this feature.
• Wherever you are: A mobile-optimized cloud-based app is available.
• Make your evening reporting more automated: Send a nightly report to all managers and owners by auto-email.
• Anyone may be tagged: Notes and checks may be tagged to certain managers in the manager log.

Toast offers real-time labor and COGS flash reports, allowing you to modify staffing numbers and sales methods as needed to improve your Conclusion. You may personalize your nightly reports as well as your management log using the Nightly Summary function. Then, at a predetermined time, you may send the whole bundle to your management team. What’s better? To keep everyone on the same page, utilize the “@” and “#” symbols to tag particular managers or check numbers where they are applicable.

In Toast’s Manager Log, you may tag managers and connect to check numbers. (Image courtesy of Toast)

Everything from employee efficiency to menu management is covered in Toast reports. Optional modules such as Salute to Loyalty and the KDS offer additional more reporting features, such as tracking customer incentives and kitchen ticket times.

Email Marketing Toast

• Integration with your POS is built-in to a single platform.
• Automatically gathers emails with little human input.
• Set up templates: Create and automate email campaigns using templates.
• Create customized messages depending on your customer’s previous purchases.
• Measure: Using straightforward reporting and analytics, you can track the success of your email campaign.

Toast’s built-in marketing tool assists you in generating more money for your company. (Image courtesy of Toast)

Email Marketing Toast is a built-in feature that directly integrates with your Toast POS system. This means you get to build your email list, run your marketing campaign and measure its performance, straight out of your POS platform. Like Square, it lets you design and automate targeted email campaigns; however, Toast is pricier and lacks the mobility that Square provides with a mobile marketing assistant. Email Marketing Toast comes free with the Growth subscription plan or as an add-on at $75 per month on a standard paid plan.

Salute to Loyalty

• One fixed monthly cost covers unlimited guest transactions.
• Sign-up method that is quick and easy: Simple registration at the checkout counter or online
• Points-based rewards program with customisable offers is simple and adaptable.
• Credit card-linked rewards are convenient—no loyalty cards are required.
• Involve your visitors: A rewards lookup tool is included so that your visitors may check their points at any time.
• Personalize the rewards: Create your own sign-up bonuses and birthday gifts.
• Remote installation: This service requires remote installation and has a one-time price.

Toast’s reward program allows customers to earn points for both in-store and online purchases. (Image courtesy of Toast)

Toast’s restaurant loyalty program offers a seamless and personalized way of building guest loyalty. Signup can be done at the point of checkout and points can be directly linked to their credit card so there’s no need to carry a loyalty card or sign in every time they visit. You can easily customize sign-up bonuses and set accrual and redemption rates, dollar to points exchange, and birthday rewards. This feature is available in Toast’s Growth subscription plan or as an add-on at $50 per month if you opt for a Beginner’s Kit with a standard paid plan.

Gift Cards from Toast

• Physical gift cards: In-store sales of branded physical gift cards
• E-gift cards: You may sell e-gift cards by email or text message.
• Convenient: Can be used to make online, phone, or in-store purchases.
• Manage everything from a single location: Gift card sales and administration features integrated into your POS
• Guest engagement: Guests may check the balance of their e-gift cards on your website or via an online buying site.
• Track and measure: Reporting on Toast and Analytics offer daily, weekly, and monthly sales data and detailed order history on each gift card transaction
• Remote installation: This service requires remote installation and has a one-time price.

Gift Cards from Toast can be used when paying by phone, online, and in-store. (Source: Toast)

Gift Cards from Toast, available both as a branded physical card and in electronic form, come with tools that make it easy to sell, track, and manage directly from your POS system. You can sell e-gift cards by email or by adding a button to your website or online ordering site, which can then be sent to the recipient via email or text along with a custom message. Gift cards are available in Toast’s Growth subscription plan or as an add-on at $50 per month with a standard paid plan.

Ease of Use for Toast

• Clean displays: Nested menus and modifiers allow for uncluttered, easy-to-read interfaces.
• To learn more, tap here: With easy swipes and screen touches, more choices become available.
• Customer service is accessible by phone, email, or online chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
• The school year has begun: Toast University, a comprehensive training resource, is constantly accessible online.
• Personal service: On the day your system goes live, a Toast representative will be on-site. To assist you in mastering the Toast ecosystem, in-person assistance is accessible at any time (by request, for a charge).

Toast, in our opinion, is one of the most user-friendly restaurant POS systems available. If you’re used to using a smartphone, you’ll feel right at home in the Toast environment. When you touch on almost any button on the POS screen, it brings up extra possibilities. Modifier menus may be layered and “forced” into sequences that keep your displays neat while also ensuring that adjustments like meat temps and sauces are never forgotten. In most situations, our expert taught workers on the Toast POS in one shift, which is less time than it takes them to learn the restaurant phone number.

Toast has a simple UI that is straightforward to use. (Image courtesy of Toast)

Because there aren’t as many colors to draw your attention to items in the back office, it’s a little more difficult to traverse. Once you’re familiar with the terminology—for example, if you need a record of voids and discounts, you’ll want to look at the “Exceptions” report—you’ll be able to discover what you need quickly. You may usually bulk upload.csv files to speed up the process when inputting huge volumes of data, such as tip pools or vendor bills.

Alternatives to Toast Restaurant Software

Toast is intended to function as a software, hardware, and payment system all in one. That’s enticing if Toast provides you a reasonable deal for payment processing, but it may not be a good match if you like to look around for the best prices. Toast also only works with Toast-provided tablets, so you’re out of luck if you want to use your own.

If any of these factors are a deal breaker for you, there are alternative options:

Do you prefer an iPad point-of-sale system? Check out our top iPad POS systems to choose the one that’s right for you.

What Users Have to Say About Toast POS

Toast users appreciate the POS software in general. On FinancesOnline, the Toast POS received a 98 percent customer satisfaction rating, as well as the Experts Choice award in 2019 and 2020.

Experts and people alike give this system excellent scores across the board:

Conclusion

Toast POS focuses only on the restaurant industry and is a leader in restaurant software innovation. This point-of-sale system is ideal for full-service restaurants of any kind. In its basic system, it is very intuitive, simple to use, and has comprehensive reporting tools. Toast is a great tool for restaurants looking to branch out into digital ordering, delivery, and contactless service. Visit Toast for a complete demonstration to discover whether this system is perfect for you.

Visit Toast POS for more information. for more information. for more information.

Toast POS is a new point of sale system that allows businesses to manage their inventory and sales. The system can be used on the web or through an app. Toast POS offers features like cash drawer, credit card reader, and barcode scanner. Reference: how to use toast pos system.

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