Cloud- and tablet-based restaurant management solution Toast is designed to do away with your old POS while providing both control and business visibility. The platform offers restaurant owners a single solution that has  myriad functionalities that include POS, reporting, credit card processing, CRM, gift and loyalty, online ordering and labor and inventory. It won our Expert’s Choice Award for 2018.

With the software, users stand to make considerable savings while simplifying the needed technologies that restaurateurs require to smoothly run their businesses. It has APIs that allow for integration with popular third-party apps that are used in reporting, labor, gift card, inventory, loyalty and accounting processes.

For Toast POS’ more restaurant-friendly features, it provides menu management functionalities that include setting time-specific menu pricing such as happy hour menu, customizing menus separately for offline and online audiences, and setting up the entire menu including all groups and sub-groups. A restaurant ordering feature enables users to split menu items and bills among customers, sends automatic alerts to the server when the order is ready and provides the capability to take orders on the fly.

Payments are simplified both for restaurant owners and their clients, with a feature called ‘pay at the table,’ printing receipts or emailing them and and tipping servers directly from the tablets. Plus, customers can convert payments into loyalty points that they can redeem on subsequent visits. Toast POS also tracks real-time menu sales and offers in-depth reporting of product mix across all menus. Prominent customers of this software include Fresh City, Beach Hut Deli, Paris Creperie, and Lakewood Brewing Company.

Toast POS is a cloud- and tablet-based restaurant management platform that enables you to rid your business of your old POS and provides you absolute control and real time view of your business at all times. You will find that the best benefits that come with the software are those offered by its integrations, which provide the following features:

Gift and Loyalty Programs

Toast POS can come up with both digital and physical gift cards, allowing restaurants to sell gift cards online or instore. It likewise has a loyalty program integration, which you can link to a card, customer credit card or phone. The loyalty and CRM platform is automatically fed by the POS screens, resulting in more sign ups for such programs.

Inventory

Toast has a real time inventory app that can track food inventory, suppliers, units and prices, all from the comfort of your computer or mobile device. This capability allows you to reorder what you need, when you need it. You can also get to automatically download food cost, inventory and menu reports, which can be used to tweak your menu to make them more popular.

Online Ordering

The popularity of online ordering through mobile devices has prompted the vendor to offer online ordering services for only $50/month whereas other services of its kind charge up to 12% to 15% of the total value of the transaction. With this feature, orders can be routed from the client straight to the system, eliminating the need to reenter data into the POS.

Business Visibility

The app’s support for mobile devices allows users to monitor their businesses’ in real time. You can access sales, labor and menu reporting. In addition, summary emails are automatically sent on a daily basis, allowing you to monitor important alerts and metrics. Valuable reports are also generated helping you boost your operations and management processes.

Table Payment and Line Busting

This feature allows restaurants to serve tables faster while clients get to quickly pay and leave. This can benefit both full service and quick serve restaurants. You can take orders and payments in line, which can boost service and cut bottlenecks effectively. This likewise provides kitchens with more visibility and order lead times.

Customer-facing Screens

This functionality enables users to collect more data while helping clients conclude transactions, provide feedback and join loyalty programs. Customers are not required to join plastic card-based programs as they are already integrated into the digital checkout flow, which further boosts sign up rates.

Flexible Android App

Toast POS’ support for Android devices allows it to integrate with third-party apps, ensure quality and promptly release updates. It likewise provides the needed flexibility, reliability and affordability that restaurants require. This feature allows users to build robust customer databases using detailed analytics.

With Toast POS, servers are likely to get fair tips as the system presents customers with fair tip percentages. Servers can split the bill easily by dragging and dropping each item on the relevant check. If needed, a check can be transferred to another server, or customers can be combined into one. The POS solution, thus, offers an easy method to support multiple check preferences. This helps servers to effortlessly accommodate the requirements and desires of each guest.

• Toast POS Pros and Cons: Analysis of a Leading Restaurant Management Software

Real Time Updates

The lack of real time update, more often than not, poses problems for POS users. Toast’s customization features and regular updates help get rid of this complication resulting in an intuitive experience for users. Updates can be applied across a variety of platforms while restaurant owners are given the chance to view daily sales, labor and inventory from any device with an Internet connection.

Richer Guest Experience

With Toast, restaurateurs can learn more about their clients, enabling them to provide a richer experience. The system accomplishes this by linking sold items to customers, which allows for better understanding of these individuals. In addition, the use of tablets contributes to the guest experience by making dining more personal. Restaurant servers also get to have more time taking orders, allowing them to better connect with clients.

Quick Service

Toast makes the ordering process as fast and seamless as possible with the use of devices. This helps managers in providing quick service without losing focus on customer experience.

Toast POS is being offered in flexible and customized pricing models. You can contact the vendor directly to get a customized quote that’s right for you

Software

Starting at $79/ terminal

• Core POS Software
• Toast add-on features include online ordering, gift card, loyalty, inventory management, and kiosk

Hardware

• With 0%  financing
• Most popular hardware starts at $899, and includes one 10” terminal, flip stand, and magnetic card reader
• 0% interest, 36-month financing available

Processing

• Flat Fee
• Transparent and competitive rates
• Flat rates custom-built for your restaurant’s needs
• No hidden fees