Last updated: Mar 25, 2026, 1:50 PM
Occasionally, your guests may make a reservation through a third-party partner or book an event with your restaurant that requires a deposit made in advance. Once the guest arrives at your restaurant, use the following steps to create a payment option that can be used to subtract the deposit value from the check total.
This method could work for other kinds of deposits including rentals (e.g. kegs) in addition to events.
| Customers using Toast Credit Card Surcharging should not implement the method outlined below for accepting event deposits. Doing so may in a miscalculated surcharge on those transactions. |
Note: Toast Invoicing allows you to easily create and send invoices to your guests. This feature can be used for large catering orders or for private event payments. To learn more about this new feature, check out this Support Center article, Send an Invoice to Your Guests.
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After the guest has completed their event or is paying for a meal that requires an advanced registration deposit through a third-party reservation system, use the other payment option created to subtract the deposit value from the check total. Note: Depending on the settings selected for the payment option, the following instructions may need to be completed by an employee with manager-level permissions.
Note: When it comes time for the guest to enter a tip, the recommended tip selections will be based on the pre-deposit check total.
Sometimes you may want to collect or hold a deposit in-house (not through a third party), but want to make sure it doesn't track in your sales reports. This is where you may find deferring event deposits helpful.
On the event date, you'll want to have an "other payment option" (called "Event Deposit", for example) that can be added to a check for reporting purposes.