Get Started With Toast Catering & Events

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Toast Classroom - Get Started With Toast Catering & Events

In this Article:

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 is not currently available in Australia. Check back soon for updates.

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 Toast Catering & Events: Event Areas.

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: Customize Service Charges and Mandatory Gratuity).
Catering- or Catering Online Ordering-specific revenue center (learn more: Create and Assign Revenue Centers).
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: Schedule Future Orders).

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 Create an Order Type, Banquet Event Order (BEO) section.

In Toast Web, navigate to Catering & events > Customers.
In the top right corner, select Import customers.
Next, select Download template to use the required template to upload your customer list.
Format your customer information in the spreadsheet, and export as a CSV file.
In Toast Web, select the + Upload file button or drag and drop the file.
Confirm that you uploaded the correct file and check Yes, I agree to upload this file.
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 and Manage Leads With Toast Catering & Events.

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.

Log in to Toast Web and navigate to Catering & events > Settings. All of your previously created order types (BEO forms) will be saved here. Depending on your restaurant's specific needs, you can create multiple other types of forms.
Select Add order type.
Select which order type you'd like to add: Catering (guest count, utensils, notes), Event (event space, guest count, occasion, notes), or Custom. You always have the ability to go back and edit individual settings on each order type.
Name this order type and select your desired General settings as needed. For restaurants using Toast Multilocation Management (MLM), you can select specific target locations for this order type if desired.
1. Note: The Default dining option you select here can impact the verbiage of your BEOs. If you want to show the delivery address field, for example, you'd want to ensure you've selected a dining option with the Delivery behavior applied. To learn more, check out this Support Center article: Set Up Custom Dining Options.
Then, in the Form fields section, you can add field names with the specific information you'd like to gather about this new order type. You can add an existing field from another order type you've already created or create a new field. Each field type will have the options listed below:
- Field name - This is what will appear on the BEO
- Type - The options are text input, yes/no, multi-line text input, employee, time, or select (this will require you to add options for selection)
- Required - Does this field need to be filled out?
- Priority - This will appear at the top of your BEO form in larger text
- Internal use - This will not appear on emails sent to your guests
If creating a lead form, you can select the Lead form tab in the Form fields section for additional controls. Here you can:
- Show all non-internal BEO fields on your lead form
- Require your customer to select a time
- Allow your customers to upload an image
Next, in the Contract section, add Default contract terms that will be included on all catering orders using this order type. You also have the option to add any attachments you would like included in the order email. Here you can include things like your restaurant's cancellation policy.
1. Note: These can be overwritten for any catering order if you would like to make changes for a specific order.
Configure your desired Notifications. This will notify specific employees at different stages of the process.
Select Save in the top right-hand corner to save your new order type (BEO form).

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.

Back to top

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 Production Items for Toast Catering & Events.

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.

In Toast Web, navigate to Catering & events > Orders. This page will show you all of your previously created catering orders and their order status.
Select Create order.
Select the catering order type. The available options are pulled from your previously created order types. To learn how to create a new order type/BEO form, follow the steps above.
Enter the name of the customer placing the order. If you have already created and saved your guest's information in Toast Web, you'll see the name start to populate as you search. To add information for a first-time guest, select + Create customer and fill out all of your guest's information. Don’t forget to hit Save!
Edit your Event details. Here you'll see all the event fields you selected when creating this specific order type.
Finalize your Order details. You have the option to add additional details to your event such as:
- Dining options (learn more: Set Up Custom Dining Options)
- Prep times
- Menu items (you can add menu items from any of your menus, regardless of their visibility)
- Discounts (learn more: Get Started With Discounts).
- Service charges (learn more: Customize Service Charges and Mandatory Gratuity)
To transition an order from the draft state to a confirmed state, you must complete either of the following actions: generate and send an estimate, or prepare and send an invoice.

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.

Send an Estimate With Toast Catering & Events

You can use the Toast Catering & Events module to send your guests an estimate for their event.

To send an estimate using Toast Catering & Events, review the Estimate & contract section of the guest's order.
If desired, you can choose to Add contract terms, Require signature, and Add attachments. If you choose to require a signature, it will add a line for your guest to type their name to confirm the estimate.
Select the Actions drop-down at the top of the order page and select Create estimate.
After you check the box to require an estimate, you can select Review estimate at the top of your order to see a preview of the email your guest will receive. This will include your restaurant’s branding, order details, and a list of menu items that will be included in the order. If your restaurant uses Toast Catering & Events Pro, you'll also see the EventView preview, where you can 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.
Once you've confirmed all of this information is correct, select Send estimate.

Once confirmed, this will bring you back to the Catering orders page, where you will see this order listed with a purple TENTATIVE status.

If you selected the signature option, your guest will be required to sign (type) their name at the bottom of the estimate.

Confirm an Estimate in Toast Catering & Events

Once the estimate has been sent, your guest will receive the invoice email within one minute! If you've received confirmation that your guest is ready to approve the estimate, you can manually change the status of this order.

Select the order status pictured above as TENTATIVE.
The next page that populates will have the order status listed at the top. Select the status to change this to Confirmed.

Note: Manually changing the status of an estimate to confirmed will mean that your guest no longer needs to confirm the estimate or sign it.

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 Adjust Your Invoice Settings.

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:

In Toast Web, navigate to Catering & events > Orders and select a blue CONFIRMED order.
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.
In the Payment schedule section of the invoice, select + Add deposit request.
Input the Amount due (dollar amount or percentage) as part of the deposit. Add the Due date.
Select Review deposit in the top right-hand corner to review the email your guest will receive.
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.

Select a CONFIRMED order from your Orders list in Toast Web (Catering & events > Orders).
Select View Invoice in the top right-hand corner.
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.

In Toast Web, navigate to Catering & events > Prep tools.
You can select from the Standard prep tools at the bottom of the page, or select Create prep tool to create your custom document.
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.
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).
For certain prep tools, you'll be able to choose your desired display options (like default fields and form fields).
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 Reporting for Toast Invoicing 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 Toast Merchant Agreement. 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 Terms of Use.