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.).
The Toast system is extremely convenient at guest checkouts. This makes the most sense in quick service areas, where there is not a full service sit down experience. This allows for quick checkouts and opportunities for tips for great service. It also makes sense in businesses where guests are at least minimally tech savvy to understand the system when signing with a fingertip, selecting tip, and selecting receipt type. This would not make sense at a fine dining location or a retail outlet. It is definitely created for quick service food outlets that give higher service than a fast food joint.
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.
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.
There are many features I wish Toast had that it currently does not, but we are likely to renew this year because given Toast's recent increase in funding and expanding of their staff, we are hopeful some of these issues will finally be resolved in 2019. Plus, though I've never done it, I'd imagine that switching to another POS system would take a ton of time, money, and resources---things most businesses don't have a lot of. So we'll sit tight with Toast for now and see what they come up with this year in terms of fixing our biggest pain-points.
Toast POS is a great basic POS tool, having some features I didn't think would be possible at this price point, such as:
processing CC payments in "offline mode" in case there is an internet outage
kitchen display screens
collecting payment from customers using a handheld right at their table
pre-approving card payments to assure the customer has enough money to pay for their order, etc
That being said, I still feel that Toast misses the mark on some things that I truly would consider 'common-sense' features, such as:
providing hardware that connects the Register Screen (Elo) to the Cash drawer so it doesn't fall off the table when flipped over for customer signature
accepting physical and e-gift cards as payment on their own online ordering platform (ToastOO)
a Rewards Program that allows for online enrollment, rather than holding up quick-serve lines to sign up
a Promo code feature that allows you to add basic restrictions such as Limit 1 per customer, or date/time limitations
increasing in-store operations efficiency by creating more straight-forward ways to manage restaurant/ToastOO hours, and Delivery/Takeout quote estimates
Facing these issues after 3+ years has been a frustration. We hope Toast has some solutions in mind that they will be implementing in 2019.
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
It's improved customers service by staff being able to log into different devices under the same login.
If there is a credit card issue, I only have to deal with Toast rather than having to deal with a third party vendor. No more being on hold with two different companies to see which one can actually help me.
You can customize the main terminal with photos of specials which helps staff upsell during the checkout process.
