Get Started With Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

There's a new service model shaking up restaurants across the country. Read The New Steps of Service from On the Line to learn how to use it in your restaurant.

With Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, guests can easily scan a QR code to browse the menu, order, and pay, all from their mobile device. Plus, with Apple Pay, guests can pay in less than 10 seconds.

By putting your guests in control of their dine-in experience, Toast Mobile Order & Pay® can help you reduce your labor costs, improve table turn times, and increase sales. All while offering your guests a safer and more efficient way to dine in your restaurant. Navigate to Toast Shop to add Toast Mobile Order & Pay® now!

Check out Toast Mobile Order & Pay® FAQ for additional answers to common questions.

In this Article:

Set Up Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
- Configuration
Create Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Signs with QR Codes
Set Up Printers for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
- Set Up an Auto-Firing Device
- Revisit Non-Printing Prep Stations
Set Up Group Ordering for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
Configure Guest Ordering Experience
- Group Ordering on Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
Adjust Menu Visibility for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
Adjust Menu Availability for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
Create a Guest-Friendly Menu for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
Train Your Staff to Use Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
Modify Tip Settings for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®
Item-Level Discount

To set up Toast Mobile Order & Pay® for your restaurant, watch the following video, or read the steps listed below.

Set Up Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

In Toast Web, navigate to Front of house > Mobile dining solutions > Toast Mobile Order & Pay®.
Select the Get Started button to begin your setup.
Select your guest experience:
1. Tabs - Guests may order multiple rounds and pay at the end. Most commonly used for full service, bars, breweries, etc. On the Order & Pay Settings page, you can choose whether guests must preauthorize a credit card before opening a tab.
2. Pay-as-you-go - Guests must checkout and pay each time they order. Most commonly used in quick service, cafes, etc.
  
  Note: Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Pre-Authorization is not currently available in Canada, Ireland and the UK.
Next, select which menus will be visible to guests by moving the toggle to On. Note that these toggles only affect the top-level menu visibility. To adjust menu visibility for specific menu groups or items, see the Adjust Menu Visibility for Toast Mobile Order & Pay® section below.
Select the service areas for your QR codes. Each QR code is linked to a table. Therefore, you must create at least one service area and table to complete this step of Toast Mobile Order & Pay® setup.
1. If you only want to print QR codes for specific tables within a service area, exit this wizard and navigate to the Table Sign Design section on the Order & Pay Settings page.
Note:
1. Tables with duplicate names cannot be assigned a QR code.
2. Tables with names including a space immediately followed by a capital H cannot be assigned a valid QR code. The issue arises from URL encoding for the characters ‘<space>H’ (with a capital H), which are not permissible in a table name for the Toast Mobile Order & Pay® table.
3. If you change your Online Ordering page URL link via Takeout & delivery > Restaurant Info > Online Ordering in Toast Web, it will also affect all links associated with Toast Mobile Order & Pay®. This means that QR codes that were working before will not work anymore. Guests won’t be able to use any existing QR codes that are assigned to service areas and tables. In order to restore its functionality, you will need to configure and generate new QR codes again.
Next, get your QR codes by selecting your branding with a color and restaurant logo. You can order through the Toast preferred vendor, download the table designs, or download the QR code only. To create your own fully customised sign design see the "Create Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Table Signs with QR Codes " section below.

Note: Customers in Ireland and the UK cannot order through Toast preferred vendor at this time.
Before confirming your selections, select to see how your guests will interact with the QR code.
Lastly, utilize the provided resources to train your staff on Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, or you can follow the next steps in this article.

Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Configuration

Once the setup is completed, you can configure what features will be available to your guests. These settings can be toggled On or Off at any time.

Navigate to Front of house > Mobile Dining Solutions > Digital Menus & Order & Pay® > Configuration
Toggle on or off which features will be available to your guests.
Save and Publish any changes made.

Create Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Signs with QR Codes

You can use a customizable Toast Template (pictured below) for your table signs or make your own from scratch. If you use the Toast Template, we'll generate the files for unique signs for each table and provide a Toast-recommended printing solution, or you can use a preferred printer. If you want to create your own fully customized sign design in a graphics program, you can download the QR codes for each table and import them into your sign template.

Toast Template Example:

To create your Toast Mobile Order & Pay® signs using the Toast Template:

In Toast Web , navigate to Front of house > Toast Mobile Order and Pay®.
Select the Service Areas and Tables for which you want to create signs.
1. Note: Tables named “Welcome” do not allow orders to be placed from Order & Pay® table signs. Table signs only allow ordering when they are associated with a table number. Tables named “Welcome” will display the menu only and will not allow ordering.
Then, select Continue with Template.
1. Note: If you print the signs independently, select Download QR codes. This will give you unique QR codes for each table selected.
Review the logo pulled from your Restaurant Info page. If this is correct, select Confirm and Continue.
Choose a color to complement your logo. This will appear at the bottom of the template. Use the color picker or enter a Hex code before selecting Next.
Select Place Sign Order to print your signs through Toast's recommended printer, Conquest Graphics. You will then have the option to print professional table cards, table tents, or table towers. Or, select Download PDF file to download the signs on your computer and print your own.

Note: At this time, the recommended printer, Conquest Graphics is only available for customers located in Canada. For customers in Ireland and the UK, select Download PDF file to print locally or on your own.

Set Up Printers for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

Printing is a common source of challenges. Be sure to read this section carefully. You'll need to set up an auto-firing device and revisit your non-printing prep stations. Additionally, you must ensure you have at least one dining option set with the Dine In behavior in your restaurant.

Set Up an Auto-Firing Device for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

You'll need to configure an auto-firing device to fire Toast Mobile Order & Pay® orders directly to the kitchen. To enable auto-firing on a device:

In Toast Web, navigate to Takeout & delivery > Availability > Online Ordering.
In the Approval section, select Send orders directly to kitchen.
Next to Auto-fire Device, select Update and choose a device. We recommend choosing a device that is connected to ethernet.
Save and publish your changes.

Revisit Non-Printing Prep Stations

Toast Mobile Order & Pay® orders will print according to the print settings of your auto-firing device. In other words, if you choose a terminal as your auto-firing device that prints to the kitchen, your Toast Mobile Order & Pay® orders will route to the same kitchen printers. You will need to confirm that you do not want tickets to print to all prep stations listed as non-printing on this device.

To revisit your non-printing prep stations:

Log in to the device selected to auto-fire.
Select the Toast icon in the top left corner.
Navigate to the Setup section and select Device Setup.
Scroll down and select Non-Printing Prep Stations.
Confirm that you wouldn't like any of these prep stations to print. You may have to choose a new auto-firing device if you need to keep some of these stations as non-printing.

An additional setting will prevent Toast Mobile Order & Pay® orders from being printed in the Other Setup section of Toast Web. If the Orders Send Only After Check Is Paid setting is set to Yes, then your orders will not be sent to your kitchen when they are placed through Toast Mobile Order & Pay® and using tabs. To adjust this setting:

Select the Toast icon on the top left corner of your device.
Scroll to Setup and select Other Setup.
Navigate to UI Options and select it.
Scroll to Orders Send Only After Check Is Paid and ensure it's set to No.

Set Up Group Ordering for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

Group ordering allows multiple guests to join a single tab from their own device, and then submit orders to the kitchen all at once on the same ticket. Please note that we recommend enabling this feature in conjunction with the tabs or preauthorized tabs feature mentioned in the previous section. This will ensure guests have the optimal Toast Mobile Order & Pay® experience in your restaurant.

Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Pre-Authorized Tabs Waitlist is currently in limited release with select customers. This feature is not currently available in Canada, Ireland and the UK.

To enable this feature:

In Toast Web, navigate to Front of house > Toast Mobile Order and Pay® > Configurations.
Next to Group Ordering, switch the toggle to the On position.

Configure Guest Ordering Experience

Guests can order one of two ways based on your back-end settings.

In Toast Web, navigate to Front of house > Toast Mobile Order and Pay® > Ordering Experience.
Under Ordering Experience, select one of the following:
1. Tabs - Guests may order multiple rounds and pay at the end. Most commonly used for:
  1. Full service
  2. Bars and breweries
2. Pay-as-you-go - Guests must checkout and pay each time they order. Most commonly used for:
  1. Quick service
  2. Cafes
Once complete, Save and Publish all changes.

Group Ordering on Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

Group Ordering allows multiple guests to join a single tab from their device and then simultaneously submit orders to the kitchen on the same ticket.

Guests will first choose how to order, either Order on my own or Order as a group.
For guests who select Order on my own, they will order and pay for their own tab. They will not share a cart or payment with any other guests. This is ideal for guests who want to pay for themselves.
Guests who select Order as a group will order and pay as a group. This is ideal for guests who want to pay on one card (guests will still have the option to split the bill) or for guests who want their orders to be sent to the kitchen at the same time.
Once guests select Order as a group, they must choose to either Start group order or Join group order. The person who starts the group order usually pays for the group.
1. Note: The following steps are only relevant for guests who Order as a group.
To Start a group order, guests provide their contact information, and their group is created. Now, other guests at the same table can join their group.
Guests will then be able to join a group order. At their table, they will see a list of active groups. Once they select Join, they will order and pay with the other group members.
When Order as a group, guests will share the same cart so that their orders are sent to the kitchen together. Only one member of the group needs to put down a card and place the order for everyone’s items to fire to the kitchen. This member will be responsible for any unpaid balance.
Paying as a group: Select how you want to split the bill. Guests can either pay for their items or pay for the group. As referenced in step 3 of Guest Experience for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, the individual who places the initial group order is effectively putting down their card on behalf of the group. As such, this member is responsible for the bill and will only have the Pay tab balance option (see image below - right). To split the bill, all other group members must pay for their items before the tab owner pays the remaining tab balance.

Congratulations! You've successfully enabled group ordering for guests using Toast Mobile Order & Pay®. Now, it's up to your staff to welcome guests and get them accustomed to the ordering process.

Not sure how to message this feature to guests? Check out our Staff Training Guide: Toast Mobile Order & Pay®.

Adjust Menu Visibility for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

You can decide what menus you want to be available for guests ordering by phone by adjusting your menu visibility settings.

In Toast Web, navigate to the Menus > Advanced properties.
Use the Show/Hide filter in the top right corner of the page and select Visible To.
Next to the menu you want to appear, change the Visible To setting to In-store orders: POS and Kiosk and Order and Pay. Complete this step for all menu components you'd like your guests to have access to.
1. Note: If you select the item or group from Advanced Properties instead, you will need to scroll down to the Properties section and, next to Visible To, select In-store orders: POS, and In-store orders: Kiosk and Order & Pay.
Save your changes.
Select Publish Now to finalize your changes.
1. Note: Changes can also be made on the menu / group / item detail page by scrolling down to Properties section and choosing a Visible To setting. We recommend using Advanced properties above to save time and adjust this setting for multiple items at once.

Do you need different menus to be visible at different sections of your restaurant? Some countries have alcohol laws that require a seating area restricted to individuals of legal drinking age. To accommodate this with Toast Mobile Order and Pay®, you can create a separate service area for your bar, and then use menu availability by service area to control which menus are visible in each section:

Create a dedicated service area (see Create Service Areas and Table Setup for instructions).
Navigate to Front of house > Mobile dining solutions > Toast Mobile Order and Pay®.
Scroll down to the Menu availability by service area section.
Select the menus that should show for the dedicated service area that you created.
Save and publish your changes.

Remember, guests will be looking at your menu, not your staff! Therefore, we recommend looking at the names of your items and what modifiers are available to make sure they are guest-friendly. We recommend:

Reducing the number of modifiers available to guests.
Changing the names of menu items to be guest-friendly.
Turning the most popular cocktail into menu items and using modifiers to allow deeper customization of cocktails.
Adding descriptions to the groups so they are descriptive and provide your guests with an understanding of what they can find within each group (see example below)

Adjust Menu Availability for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

In some cases, you may choose not to offer Toast Mobile Order & Pay® at all times of the day. In order to disable the menus listed on Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, we recommend creating a copy of your current menu offerings, changing their visibility according to the steps listed above, and adjusting their availability to end when the restaurant closes. If you want to set menu availability by service area, see Menus by Service Area in Support Center.

To create a copy of an existing menu, navigate to Edit menus in the Menus section of Toast Web.
Select the three-dot icon next to the Menu's name and select Copy.
Save your changes.
Select the copied menu and edit the Name field to remove "copy." We recommend giving this menu a new title to help you differentiate it from other active menus on your POS.
Then, scroll down to the Availability section of the page and select No next to Available at all times of the day?
Enter your restaurant's opening and closing time in the time fields available.
Then, scroll down to the Properties section and ensure In-store orders: POS and In-store: Kiosk and Order & Pay are selected next to Visible To.
Select Save and Publish Now to finalize your changes.

Create a Guest-Friendly Menu for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

You'll want to modify your menu for Toast Mobile Order & Pay® to be clear and guest-friendly. The two biggest parts of a good guest-facing menu are:

A limited number of modifier groups and modifier options are available.
Menu item names that are clear.

Cutting down on the number of steps necessary for the ordering process streamlines the guest experience. To limit the number of modifier groups and options available:

Navigate to Advanced properties in the Menu section of Toast Web.
Select the modifier group or modifier option you'd like to change.
Scroll down to the Properties section.
Deselect the Visible To setting In-store orders: Kiosk.
When finished, select Save and Publish Now to finalize your changes.

To create clear guest-facing item names, we recommend listing the full name of the item in the Name field and entering an abbreviated name in the POS Name field for servers. For example, you may consider listing the "Californian Chicken Sandwich" in the Name field so guests recognize the item and listing "CHX SAND" in the POS Name field for servers entering orders on the POS.

To use different names for the guest and server:

Navigate to Advanced properties in the Menus section of Toast Web.
Select the item you'd like to edit.
Enter your desired guest-facing name in the Name field and your server-facing name in the POS Name field.
When finished, select Save and Publish to finalize your changes.

Train Your Staff to Use Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

When using Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, we recommend staff members providing table service follow these steps:

Greet the guest and seat them at a table.
Explain ordering by phone and help them load the menu using their table's unique QR code.
Let guests know they can proceed to place their order and payment through the website or place their order with you later on.
Remind guests that you're available to answer any questions.

Successful restaurants using Toast Mobile Order & Pay® position ordering by phone as the default way to order and see on average 60% of their guests or more choosing to order this way. The most important part of guests successfully using Toast Mobile Order & Pay® is the beginning of the experience. It is imperative that staff help guests load the menu and explain the option to order by phone.

This allows the staff members to become the "GM" of the section rather than a server. Then can focus on talking to tables, answering questions, and delivering hospitality rather than entering orders and taking payments.

Not sure how to communicate this to your staff? Check out our Staff Training Guide: Toast Mobile Order & Pay® that you can share.

Modify Tip Settings for Toast Mobile Order & Pay®

There are two options for allocating tips from Toast Mobile Order & Pay® to servers:

Using a "virtual server" assigned to the auto-firing device (if you use Online Ordering, this is the same virtual server that is already collecting Online Ordering tips). If you do not use Online Ordering, you will need to create a new virtual server by following the instructions below.
Server Assignment - assign a server to tables at the start of each shift from the POS terminal. Then during the shift, all Toast Mobile Order & Pay® tips will be allocated to the respective server. If you assign servers to tables at the start of the shift, these assignments will override the assigned virtual server from the auto-firing device. Tips from any tables that use Toast Mobile Order & Pay® and are NOT assigned to a server during the shift will still pool to the virtual server. Learn how to use Server assignments below.

If you would like to include an automatic service charge to a Toast Mobile Order & Pay® check, learn more about how to set it up here.

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Add a New Virtual Server for Tip Pooling

To pool tips among servers, add a new virtual employee and name it "Tip Pool Server." Note: if you use Online Ordering, Online Ordering tips will also go to this same server.
Once created, assign the new employee under the server selection section of the Online Ordering settings page to collect tips for orders placed through Toast Mobile Order & Pay®.
All the tips will accumulate to this virtual employee, and you can redistribute them when processing payroll. To make it easier to keep up with how many tips go to each server, we recommend taking a quick note at the end of the shift showing what quantity of tips should go to each server.

Alternatively, if you only have one server each shift who should receive tips for Toast Mobile Order & Pay® orders, you could choose the option Assign by auto-firing tablet under the server selection section of the Online Ordering settings page.

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Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Server Assignments

This feature allows you to assign servers to tables, allowing them to receive tips earned on their assigned tables. This is an alternative to Tip Pooling if you use Toast's Mobile Order & Pay®. If you want to change the suggested tip options for Toast Mobile Order and Pay®, check out Server Assignments to assign servers to tables.

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Server Assignment FAQ

What happens when a server clocks out while using Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Server Assignments?

When a server clocks out, servers will automatically be unassigned from their Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Server Assignments and will have to be reassigned upon clock-in.

Can servers transfer checks while using Toast Mobile Order & Pay®?

Yes, servers can transfer checks as usual while using Toast Mobile Order & Pay®.

What happens if a server goes on break while using Toast Mobile Order & Pay®?

While using Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, the system will recognize scheduled breaks. Servers will stay assigned to their table during breaks. If breaks are not scheduled in the system, servers will be unassigned when they clock out for a break.

Item-Level Discounts

With Toast Mobile Order and Pay®, a restaurant can now create a discount specifically for items through the guest's use of a promo code. Check out our comprehensive Discount Guide to learn how to configure discounts and promo codes in your Toast Web. If the guest is ready to use a promo code, they will have the option to add it to their check once at checkout.

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Last but not least...

Nice work! By taking the steps listed above, you are ready to start using Toast Mobile Order & Pay® in your restaurant. Before you show off your signs to the guests, check out our Toast Mobile Order & Pay® FAQ to learn how to serve alcohol through Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, how guests can split a check, and more.

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