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Toast Point of Sale

Score8.1 out of 10

39 Reviews and Ratings

What is Toast Point of Sale?

Toast Point of Sale is a cloud-based restaurant point of sale solution provided as the foundation for Toast's all in one restaurant management solution which supports payment processing, as well as customer care, gift cards and loyalty, as well as back of house and back office (HR, payroll, schedule and shift management, etc.).

Toast Beware.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are a franchise that must use Toast due to a contract. It is our main POS. I run back office work, mainly accessing Toast via the web. Thus far, most of our issues have come from the billing department. The software glitched and did not charge clients their monthly fees for several months. At this time, we realized that Toast was charging us double for our Uber Eats integration. I have been going back and forth with Toast Support for over a month now.

Pros

  • Reports
  • Ease of use on POS side.

Cons

  • Being able to search invoices for longer than a six month period.
  • Consolidated reports. Many report options that give the same data.
  • More knowledgeable support team.

Return on Investment

  • Waste of time not having my issues resolved with support.
  • Ease of report running.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Alohaa

Other Software Used

GoCardless, Client Hub, Dropbox Sign

Toast is a piece of cake!

Pros

  • 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!!

Cons

  • 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

Other Software Used

Restaurant365, Basecamp, Canva

Great POS - Ease of Use is Top Notch

Pros

  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Service
  • Turn around time on support tickets

Cons

  • Updating non shared menu items when all locations menus are shared
  • More robust loyalty program

Return on Investment

  • Quick menu updates across all restaurants
  • Table side order entry is efficient

Alternatives Considered

NCR Aloha POS

Good for restaurants, not for retail

Pros

  • 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.

Cons

  • Customer service, at times, could use some help
  • Cost of service

Return on Investment

  • Offline mode has helped with ROI, as we are still able to process credit cards, whereas before we could not and would have to accept cash only.
  • A streamlined and integrated online ordering platform has cut down on the need of a third-party platform.
  • Customer loyalty program has really motivated customers to order more often with higher ticket averages.

Alternatives Considered

Point of Success, Revel Systems and Upserve POS (formerly Breadcrumb)

Other Software Used

Mobiniti, Facebook for Business

Thumbs up!

Pros

  • Online ordering.
  • Cloud-based menu allows for real-time menu updates without needing to refresh the POS system.
  • Intuitive menu setup.

Cons

  • 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.

Return on Investment

  • Allowing online ordering.
  • Online ordering menu syncs with our app.
  • Ease of use with updating menus.

Alternatives Considered

Aloha POS