Get Started With Toast Catering & Events

• Toast Catering & Events Overview
• Import a Customer List
• Lead Management
• Create an Order Type (BEO)
  
  • Add Production Items to an Order Type (BEO)
• Create a Catering Order
• Send an Estimate
  • Confirm an Estimate
• Manage Invoices
  • Collect a Deposit
  • Send a Final Invoice
• Customize and Download Prep Tools
• Toast Catering & Events Reporting
• Additional Resources
   

Toast Catering & Events Overview

Boost your catering and events business: from planning to execution, you can manage every step of your order with greater efficiency while keeping your guests satisfied by removing the friction of event planning. With Toast Catering & Events, you have access to:

• Banquet Event Orders - Create BEOs that work for every occasion
• Kitchen Sheets - If your kitchen only needs access to certain information on the BEO, you can customize their sheets under your prep tools
• Estimates - Create estimates that your guests can approve and confirm
• Calendar View - Keep track of upcoming events and their status in a shared calendar
• Sync with Google - Allow access for Toast to add events to your calendar
• Menu Integration - Integrated with Toast menus, open items, and discounts

With Toast Catering & Events Pro, you gain access to everything listed above, along with the following features:

• EventView - Share all event order details, estimates, and payments with your guests through one unified, branded page. Guests can access it at any time to review their event after receiving their estimate or invoice.
• Discussions - Communicate directly with your Toast Catering & Events leads directly in Toast Web.
• Tasks - Create and assign tasks and reminders to employees with due dates to enable seamless internal communication about your guests’ events.
• Automations - Add automations to have tasks automatically created for you when your events are created or changed.
• Event Areas - Create and assign Event Areas to your events to automatically prevent double-bookings. For more information, see .

Requirements: Before configuring your Toast Catering & Events settings, please be sure you've created the following:

• Catering-relevant service charges like "delivery fees" or "labor fees" (learn more: ).
• Catering- or Catering Online Ordering-specific revenue center (learn more: ).
• Maximum days: You can set the max number of days an order can be placed in the future in the UI options page (learn more: ).
   

Selecting Catering & events from the left-hand navigation menu in Toast Web will bring you to your Toast Catering & Events homepage. Here, you'll see a list of today's orders, tomorrow's orders, new leads, past due invoices, and sales data from the past 30 days. You can also customize the homepage view to your liking by selecting the Edit icon and rearranging or removing any of the available options.

Import a Customer List to Toast Catering & Events

If you are transitioning from another catering or event solution, you can transfer customer data from your previous system over to Toast. Follow the steps below to import your customers. If you do not need to import a customer list, navigate to this article's section.

1. In , navigate to Catering & events > Customers. 
2. In the top right corner, select Import customers.
3. Next, select Download template to use the required template to upload your customer list.
4. Format your customer information in the spreadsheet, and export as a CSV file.
5. In Toast Web, select the + Upload file button or drag and drop the file.
6. Confirm that you uploaded the correct file and check Yes, I agree to upload this file.
7. Select Submit to complete.

You will now see your imported data on the Customers page in the Catering & events module in Toast Web.

Lead Management With Toast Catering & Events

Leads allow you to collect potential guest information for catering and event orders. These lead forms can then be easily converted to catering orders within Toast Web. To learn more, see .

Create an Order Type (BEO) for Toast Catering & Events

Before creating your first order in Toast, you'll need to configure order types, or banquet event orders (BEOs) that allow you to customize the information you’d like to store for specific event or order types. These will enable you to collect the information you need from your guests about a particular event.


 

In the future, if you no longer need to use one of the order types you created, you can select the archive button from the settings list to remove it from your order types list.

Add Production Items to an Order Type (BEO)

Production items will automatically populate on your BEO and prep sheets if they are properly connected to your menu items. To learn more about creating production items and connecting them to your menu items, see .

Create a Catering Order in Toast Catering & Events

Now that you've created your event order form, you can begin to create your catering order.


 

Note: You can edit the promised date, prep time, and delivery information for any open or paid orders. These updates will reflect on the POS (point of sale) and the invoice (if there is one). Select your desired order from the Catering orders list and make the necessary changes. You can see confirmation of saved changes at the top of the page. 
 

 

Manage Invoices With Toast Catering & Events

When you're ready to send an invoice to your guest, you can either send an invoice for the deposit on the order and submit the rest of the payment later in the process, or you can send the full invoice upfront. Invoices must be sent manually at this time and can not be scheduled, however you can set automated follow-up messages to your guest if the deposit due date has passed. For more info, review how to .

If you'll be taking payments via invoice, we recommend using the default nightly auto-capture, which happens at 4 a.m. ET, to ensure that you're capturing those invoice payments for future orders. If you need to re-enable nightly auto-capture, contact Customer Care. 
 

Collect a Deposit in Toast Catering & Events

Follow these steps to require & collect a deposit payment for a catering or event order:

1. In Toast Web, navigate to Catering & events > Orders and select a blue CONFIRMED order. 
2. Select the Actions drop-down at the top of the page, and then select Create invoice.  Create invoice at the top of the page. Your order has now been converted into an invoice with its own unique invoice number. These invoices will now be in the Invoices tab on your left-hand navigation menu. To continue with creating the required deposit, navigate to the Invoices page and select the specific invoice you wish to edit.
3. In the Payment schedule section of the invoice, select + Add deposit request.
4. Input the Amount due (dollar amount or percentage) as part of the deposit. Add the Due date.
5. Select Review deposit in the top right-hand corner to review the email your guest will receive. 
6. After you've confirmed all of the information on the deposit is correct, select Send deposit. 

Note: Until the deposit is paid, you can return to the invoice payment details section and edit the deposit amount (for example, to accommodate a change in headcount). You can send your guest an updated invoice email if a deposit change is made. 

Your guest can pay this deposit using a credit card right from the email they receive! To view the page your guests are seeing for payment, once you've sent the deposit, you can open up the invoice and select View payment page from the Payment schedule section. If your guest gives you a check or another payment type, you can manually add their payment by selecting Enter a payment.
 

Once the deposit has been paid, you'll see the invoice status change to PAID and the payment information included in the Payment schedule section of the invoice. 

Note: If you do not need to send an invoice, but would still like to have the order appear on your POS screen, you can select Open order instead of sending your invoice as seen in the image below.

Send a Final Invoice With Toast Catering & Events

It is time to send your final invoice! This could be after you've collected a deposit or right after confirming your catering order estimate.
 

1. Select a CONFIRMED order from your Orders list in Toast Web (Catering & events > Orders). 
2. Select View Invoice in the top right-hand corner.
3. Confirm the invoice details, and then select Send invoice in the top right-hand corner. You can also send the invoice via SMS from the drop-down selection.

Once the final amount for the order has been paid, the order will have a green PAID status on your Invoices page.

Any invoices that haven't been paid on time will have a red PAST DUE status that can be tracked on your Invoices page in Toast Web. For these past due invoices, you can remind the guest that they haven’t submitted payment yet by selecting the past due invoice and then selecting Send reminder in the top right corner.

Customize and Download Prep Tools for Catering Orders

Create customized prep tools to help your team stay on top of catering orders and events.

1. In Toast Web, navigate to Catering & events > Prep tools.
2. You can select from the Standard prep tools at the bottom of the page, or select Create prep tool to create your custom document.
3. To create your own prep tool, you'll select an option for your download: prep list, invoice, banquet event order (BEO), kitchen sheet, pickup summary, delivery summary, pack sheet, order summary, CSV export, and labels.
4. If desired, add filters to your prep tool. The available filters will depend on which option you selected in step 3 (prep stations, dining options, invoice status, catering order status, menu items). 
5. For certain prep tools, you'll be able to choose your desired display options (like default fields and form fields). 
6. Select Download PDF and choose the timeframe for the download. You can also Save this prep tool to use again in the future.
    

Toast Catering & Events Reporting

Orders created using Toast Invoicing appear in Toast reports differently depending on when the fulfillment date is and when the invoice was paid. Check out the  article for detailed information on how the invoice data appears in reporting, specifically in the Sales Summary report.

Additional Resources for Toast Catering & Events

TERMS OF USE: Your use of this feature (and all Toast Services) is subject to the . Capitalized terms used but not defined herein shall have the meaning set forth in the Merchant Agreement. Information you submit using this feature, including without limitation the terms of any contract you submit, shall be treated as Merchant Data.

Toast makes no guarantees, representations, or warranties whatsoever in connection with this feature, including without limitation that use of the Contracts feature and signature tool will result in a legally binding contract. Toast has no involvement in any agreement between you and any of your Customers, and is solely a service provider with respect to this feature. 

You are solely responsible for saving copies of your contracts and distributing fully executed copies to your Customers. You will indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Toast from any claims arising from or related to your use of this feature and/or the content submitted by you and/or your Customers, as applicable, in connection with this feature including any claims regarding the enforceability of the contracts generated using the feature. 

TOAST DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY RELATED TO ANY MERCHANT DATA. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE(S) RELATED TO MERCHANT DATA AND/OR YOUR USE OF THIS FEATURE.

IMPORTANT: Toast makes no guarantees, representations, or warranties whatsoever in connection with this feature, including without limitation that the contracts feature and signature tool will result in a legally binding contract. Toast has no involvement in any agreement between you and any of your customers, and is solely a service provider with respect to this feature. You are solely responsible for your use of this feature, including without limitation for (1) any content that you submit or generate using this feature, (2) verifying the identity of the signing party, (3) saving copies of your contracts, and (4) distributing copies of fully executed  contracts to your customers. Your use of this feature is subject to the .