If you're operating a 24-hour restaurant, you may want to take these tips and suggestions into consideration to configure your restaurant setup in a way that is compatible with your operating schedule. The information contained in this article is just a suggestion, and is not mandatory for every 24-hour restaurant operation. |
Restaurant Setup for 24-Hour Operations
Business cut-off times are not adjustable for international locations (Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the U.K.). For a full list of regional cut-off times, please refer to this article. |
While setting up your restaurant in Toast Web, it's important to consider your business day cut-off time.
This needs to be set for some time between 12:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. in your timezone, and for a 24-hour restaurant operation, it's suggested to pick your slowest time of day. By default, this time is set to 4:00 a.m. in the same timezone as your restaurant.
At your selected cut-off time, Toast will automatically
Close out any unclosed checks that were in Paid status at close
Clock out any employees who are still clocked in (unless auto clock-out has been disabled)
Auto-capture all uncaptured credit card payments from the previous business day (in most cases, this will be all payments from the day)
Toast will not close Unpaid orders - those will remain open until they're resolved by either being paid, discounted, or voided.
To change your business day cut-off from 4:00 a.m. to another time, follow the directions below:
If you're not yet live on Toast (and therefore not yet accepting credit card payments with Toast), contact your Onboarding Consultant to adjust this for you.
For more information on how to contact support view How to Contact Customer Support or go to support.toasttab.com.
Employee Time Entries
By default, Toast is set up to auto-clock out employees at the business day cut-off each day. This will clock out everyone immediately and end their shifts.
It is suggested to turn this feature off for 24-hour restaurant operations, as there is never a time when all employees would need to be automatically clocked out.
To change the employee auto-clock-out feature to off, follow the directions below:
If you're not yet live on Toast (therefore not yet accepting credit card payments with Toast), contact your Onboarding Consultant to adjust this for you.
If you are live on Toast, contact our Customer Support team, or submit a ticket here.
Note: If you're disabling this feature, it's imperative that all of your employees clock out when they finish a shift. Failure to do so will result in inaccurate labor reporting, including discrepancies between your Labor Summary report and Toast Payroll timekeeping that will have to be reconciled manually. For more information on adjusting time clock entries in Toast Web, see this Toast Central article: Edit Employee Time Clock Entries.
Menu Availability
With Toast, you have the option to set menu-specific times for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and specials. This feature gives you the option to set times for menus to appear (or not appear) on your Toast Online Ordering site or Toast POS device.
Updating your menu availability can help streamline what menus are available at different times of the day for your employees and your customers.
To update your menu availability, follow the directions in the Toast Central articles below:
End-of-Day Procedures
Shift Review and Close Out
Shift Review is a tool that walks your employees through all the steps that need to be completed before clocking out and closing out their shift. This includes closing all open checks, declaring cash tips, paying out what is owed to the restaurant, and making sure employees get paid any credit card tips.
For managers, this means reviewing that all employees have completed their shift review and closing out the cash drawer.
There are a few elements to keep in mind when running a shift review at a 24-hour restaurant operation:
Shift review should not overlap with your end-of-day business cut-off.
Shift review can take up to 30 minutes, and therefore should be started at least 30 minutes before the end of business day cut-off.
Shift review and closing your cash drawer should be done before the business day cut-off time.
For more information, check out this Toast Central article: Shift Review Overview.
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Check Transfers
When a server, cashier, or other employee places an order for a guest, Toast associates the order (and its check or checks) with that server.
Because there is always someone on duty at a 24-hour restaurant, you might find the need to transfer an order or check over to a different server during a shift change.
Follow the directions in this Toast Central article, Transfer Items, Checks, and Payments. to learn more.
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Cash Handling
When operating a 24-hour restaurant, it's important to manually update the cash drawer amount at the start of each business day.
Prior to the business day cut-off, managers or team members should close each cash drawer. By default, this will automatically update the starting cash drawer balance to a predetermined amount decided upon the cash drawer setup (See Setting Up Cash Drawers for more information). The cash drawer balance should then be adjusted to reflect the amount in the cash drawer. This can be adjusted on the terminal, or on Toast Web.
Follow the directions in this Toast Central article, Adjust Your Starting Cash Drawer Balance, to learn more.
Need more help? Check out this Toast Central article, Get Help with Cash Drawer and Shift Review.
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Split Deposits
It's common for 24-hour restaurants to see split deposits from Toast in their bank accounts. This occurs when there are two batches, or payment captures, done within one business day.
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Reporting and Troubleshooting
For an overview of all reporting available in Toast Web, check out this Toast Central article, Get Started with Analytics and Reports. You may find the following reports particularly helpful if you're running a 24-hour restaurant operation:
Labor reports: See this Toast Central article, Labor Reporting Overview, for a high-level description of all labor reports, including time entries and auto clock-outs. This is where you can see if you have any employees who are not clocking out.
Cash drawer reports: See this Toast Central article, Cash Drawer Reports Overview, for information on the Cash Activity Audit, Cash Drawer Overview, and Drawer History reports. This is where you can view and edit the starting balance for your cash drawers.
Unpaid Orders report: Check out this video to learn how to track any checks that are still open.