Get Started With House Accounts

In this Article:

• House Accounts Overview
• Enable House Accounts as a Payment Method
• Create a New House Account
• Use House Accounts on the POS
  • Pay for Orders With a House Account
  • Pay a House Account Balance
• Manage House Accounts in Toast Web
  • Update a House Account Balance
  • Create and Manage Invoices for House Accounts
  • Archive or Restore a House Account
• Additional Resources

House Accounts Overview

Toast POS offers a built-in house accounts feature that allows your guests to charge their orders to their account and pay later, instead of paying right away after each purchase. This allows you to close POS orders out during a business day as paid for sales reporting purposes, and send an invoice or collect a payment for the account balance in the future. 

A few notes about house accounts: 

• There are multiple ways to collect payment for house account balances:
  • You can take payment for an outstanding house account balance on the POS (not tied to an invoice)
  • You can create and send individual or bulk invoices, and enter payments for the invoice
  • You can make a house account balance adjustment
• House accounts are not currently supported for Toast Online Ordering.
• House accounts are not shared across multiple locations.
• House accounts cannot be set up as tax-exempt. If orders to the house account should be tax-exempt, they will need to be marked individually before being "paid" by the house account. Learn more: .
• At this time, credit cards or other payment methods cannot be saved to a house account.
• House accounts can be added while your Toast account is still in Test Mode, but please keep in mind that the house accounts can take 24-48 hours to show up once you come out of Test Mode.

To start using house accounts, follow the steps in the next section to enable them as a payment method on your POS.

Enable House Accounts as a Payment Method

To enable house accounts with Toast, follow these steps:

1. In Toast Web, navigate to Payments > Payment methods > House accounts.
2. On the left-hand navigation that appears on the House accounts page, select Settings.
3. Toggle the Take house account payments on a POS device to the On position. 
4. Select Save and Publish all changes to finalize your selection.

After a house account has been enabled as a payment method on the POS, cashiers can access this feature without manager approval. 

Create a New House Account

To create a new house account in Toast Web, follow these steps:

1. From the House accounts page (Payments > Payment methods > House accounts), select Create account.
2. Enter your Customer Info. Required fields include First Name, Last Name, Email, and Phone. 
   
   • Each house account must have a unique email address.
   • You can include a Customer # and Address if desired. 
3. Select Save when you’re finished creating the house account.

If you want to create multiple house accounts at the same time, select the down arrow next to the Create account button and select Multiple accounts. You’ll see a page with a template and instructions for how to import a file and create more than one house account at a time.

After a house account has been created, it may take up to 30 minutes for it to sync from Toast Web to the POS.

Use House Accounts on the POS

Pay for Orders With a House Account

With a house account created in Toast Web and the as a payment option in the POS, any order can be closed out to a house account with a few easy steps.

1. Place the order as normal on your POS and then select Pay to proceed to the payment selection screen.
2. Select House account as the payment method. 
   
   
   
   
3. Search for and select your desired house account.
   
   • For takeout or delivery orders, if the house account was already found using the Customer Lookup function, the POS will populate the house account attached to the order automatically.
   • Otherwise, an Enter account number pop-up will appear. Enter the house account number or select Lookup.
   • You can look up a guest by their first or last name, email address, customer number, or phone number to search for a house account. Partial information can be used to search.
4. Once you’ve selected the house account, you’ll see options for entering payment. Select Invoice to proceed with closing the order to the house account to be invoiced later.
   
   • Track but do not invoice - Use this option if your guest is using a different payment method for this order, but you want to calculate this amount into the total spend for their house account. 
   • Use a different account - Use this option to search for a different house account. 
5. After you select Invoice, the order will be added to the outstanding balance of the house account in Toast Web. 

You can add a tip to a house account transaction if you’ve got digital receipt settings configured (learn more: ).

Pay a House Account Balance on the POS

You take a payment for a house account balance on the POS by following the steps below (collecting payment via invoice is covered in of the article): 

1. Swipe to the right of your menus (category groups for Toast Retail) on your POS Quick Order screen and select the House Accounts button. 
2. Look up and select your desired house account. 
3. On the Pay House Account Balance screen, the Outstanding Balance will be displayed along with the customer information. Enter the Amount to be paid, and then select Done. Guests can partially pay, fully pay, or over pay their outstanding balance depending on what you select here.
4. “Pay Balance” will appear on the order screen with the selected amount. Select Pay to enter your guest’s payment. 

Note: House account tips are paid out to the server the day of the transaction, and will be listed under Non-Cash Tips in your reporting. When the house account transaction is settled at a later date, 100% of the amount is payable to the restaurant.

Manage House Accounts in Toast Web

At the top of the House accounts page in Toast Web (Payments > Payment methods > House accounts), you’ll see a Summary section that shows your total number of house accounts and the total outstanding balance. 

Below that will be your full list of house accounts. Toggle between Active and Archived accounts, or use search, date range, or filter options to narrow down your list to the house accounts you want to review. If you select a date range, the house accounts list will update to show the Total spend per house account for the selected time period. 

When you select a specific house account, you’ll open the account’s profile page. This shows the house account’s outstanding balance, lifetime spend, number of orders, account activity, invoices, and guest contact information. 

Update a House Account Balance

To adjust or clear the balance of a house account, follow these steps:

1. Select the name of the house account from the House accounts page in Toast Web.
2. On the house account’s profile, select Adjust balance.
3. When adjusting an outstanding balance, you can either choose to Set new outstanding balance (default) or Reduce outstanding balance.
   
   • Note: You can only reduce a house account’s outstanding balance with either of these options. 
4. Select Adjust balance to finalize your change.

When you refresh the page, balance adjustments will appear as an “Adjustment” on the Account Activity table.

Note: For house accounts you want to mark as paid without accepting a payment from a guest (for example, if you use house accounts to track employee spend that is deducted from their paycheck), you can use the process described above to update the balance to $0. You can share a detailed list of charges with the house account holder by selecting Downloads on the Account activity table on the house account profile page, and then choosing Detailed report. 

Create and Manage Invoices for House Accounts

You can invoice an individual house account to collect payment for an outstanding balance, or bulk invoice multiple house accounts at a time. 

First, you’ll want to configure your house account invoice settings.

1. Navigate to the House accounts page in Toast Web and select Settings from the left-hand navigation.
2. In the House account invoice settings section, you can select the default settings that apply to all house account invoices. These settings can be overwritten when you create an individual or bulk invoice. Settings include:
   
   • Default dining option (non-delivery)
   • House account charges - use this to configure additional fees or charges that are applied by default to all house account invoices (some people use this to capture monthly charges for memberships).
   • Default time range for new invoices
3. Select Save and Publish all changes when you’re done. 

You can invoice a single house account page by selecting Create invoice at the top of that house account’s profile page. You’ll see the current balance on the account, and you’ll be able to charge by transactions within a selected date range, or charge a custom amount. 

You can also use the bulk invoice feature to create invoices for all guests who have a house account transaction within your selected date range. To bulk invoice house accounts, follow these steps:

1. From the left-hand navigation on the House accounts page in Toast Web, select Bulk invoice.
2. Select Create bulk invoice.
3. Select your invoice details, Payments settings, and enter any additional House account charges you’d like to apply. The Payments section is where you’ll select a due date and where you can choose to allow your guests to pay their invoice with a credit card.
4. Select the Transaction range for the invoice recipients. Toast will gather all non-invoiced orders for the selected timeframe, and then you can use the checkboxes to select the invoices you’d like to generate in bulk.
5. Select Next: Generate Invoices.
6. When your invoices have been generated, the status on the Bulk invoice page will change to "Ready to send". Select the bulk invoice line to open the invoice preview. 

From this page, you can download one or all invoices, print invoices, or send them to the email address or phone number associated with the account.

Archive or Restore a House Account

For reporting purposes, we recommend you don’t archive house accounts. 

To archive a house account, search for and select the name of the account from the table on the House accounts page in Toast Web (Payments > Payment methods > House accounts). Select Archive at the top of the page. Once a house account is archived, it cannot be used to pay for an order on the POS.

If you want to restore an archived house account, you can find it by toggling the table on the House accounts page to show Archived accounts. The Restore button will be available on the account profile page.

Additional Resources for House Accounts