Toast Payroll: Issue Manual Checks (Quick Calcs)

In this Article:

Key Points of Quick Calcs
When to Use a Quick Calc
Quick Calcs and Tip Pooling
Calculate a Manual Check (Quick Calc)
- Calculate Gross to Net
- Attach a Quick Calc to Payroll
Delete Earnings or Deductions From a Quick Calc
Delete Quick Calcs Already Attached to a Payroll
Quick Calcs on Payroll Reports

Key Points of Quick Calcs

A Quick Calc is a tool used to record manual payroll checks issued outside of a payroll cycle. Quick calcs must be attached to either a future payroll or an off-cycle payroll in order to document the record of payment for the employee(s).
Quick calcs do not generate any funds for the employee, nor does it send deduction funds to vendors. However, when it is attached to a payroll or an off-cycle, it will apply any wage, deduction, and tax information from the quick calc to the employee's tax records (Form W-2, 1099, etc.). If an employee or vendor should receive funds as a result of this, a manual check will need to be generated by the employer outside of Toast Payroll.
- For instance, a common situation where a quick calc is used could be when hours were missed on payroll, but they were paid manually outside of payroll (in the form of cash, a manual or company check, or a payment app, among other things). In order to account for this on the upcoming payroll, a quick calc allows earnings, deductions, and taxes to be processed without actually paying an employee or recording hours.
- This can also be useful for paying severance to an employee who has been terminated or let go. If their termination date took place before the current pay period, the only way to record any further earnings and deductions is via a quick calc.
The total taxes (including quick calcs) can be viewed on the Payroll Summary report and the Payroll Withdrawal Receipt. The Payroll Summary report generates immediately after running payroll; the Payroll Withdrawal Receipt generates once Toast Payroll has swept payroll for the day at 4:20 pm CST.
Taxes generated from quick calcs will be collected via the standard debit withdrawal process for the payroll the quick calc is attached to. You as the employer are responsible for the employer portion of taxes generated as a result of recording quick calcs. More information on how your account will be debited can be found here.
Users cannot generate a quick calc for themselves, no matter their security role.

Watch this short video to learn more about quick calcs and manual checks.

When to Use a Quick Calc

Quick calcs can by utilized to align taxes during payroll adjustments, such as reconciling tip amounts from credit card payments.
Quick calcs provide a practical solution for adding missing hours from previous pay periods for an employee, ensuring accurate taxation and record-keeping.
Quick calcs allow adjustments to be made for prior payroll periods by using earning codes like Tips Owed.
Without attaching the quick calc, a user can use this tool to test and estimate the outcome of a specific set of earnings and/or deductions attributed to an employee outside of Toast Payroll. Adding these and selecting Calculate Gross to Net will give a net pay after the employee's own tax settings (and deductions) have been applied.
Quick calcs allow for a preview an employee's check if variables such as deductions or taxes change. Quick calcs which are not attached to a payroll will not record the earnings or taxes for an employee's Form W-2.
Quick calcs and manually adding an employee to payroll are the only way to pay an employee that was previously terminated in Toast Payroll. Similarly, if you're about to terminate an employee in Toast Payroll and you'd like to pay them their final wages ahead of the next check date, you can use a quick calc to add in all recorded hours, tips, deductions, etc., apply it to a payroll, and then pay them the net amount via cash, a payment app, or company check.

Quick Calcs and Tip Pooling

There may be situations where you try to run a quick calc for an employee who is a part of a tip pool. In some cases, the tip pool may not be applied to payroll yet, so how can you get this amount onto a quick calc?

If you use your own method for tip pooling outside of Toast, it's likely that you can simply add the tip amounts from each day as a lump Tips Owed/Paid earning code to the quick calc.

If you use Toast Tips Manager to pool tips, use the Tip Management report to locate tip amounts before they've been sent to payroll:

In Toast Web, navigate to Reports > Labor > Tip management.
Begin by selecting one day in a Ready status to open the By Day view of this report. Here, you can see the Tips and gratuity after pooling amount per employee, so take note of that amount for this day.
1. Days with an In Progress status should not be taken into account as these calculations are not yet complete.
Repeat step 2 for any other applicable days and combine all amounts.
Add this to the quick calc as a Tips Paid/Owed earning code, depending on your restaurant's configuration.
Important note: Remember that these amounts are still set to be paid through Toast Payroll once the tip pools are approved and sent over, so make a reminder to manually remove this amount from the Employee Earnings step of your payroll to avoid paying it out twice.

Calculate a Manual Check

Note: If you intend for your quick calc information to appear on a payroll, follow these steps all the way through the end of the Attach a Quick Calc to Payroll section. They must be followed in order.

Note: To avoid double-payments, check that a timesheet has not been approved or hours/tips have not synced from Toast Web with duplicate amounts as your quick calc.

Navigate to an employee's profile and select Quick Calc from the left side of the page.
Select Start to continue.
Select the yellow Actions star from the right side of the screen.
1. You may already see earnings and/or deductions in this table. These will automatically appear if an individual has a recurring earning code and/or deduction code that applies to them every pay period (for instance, a salaried user will see their pay period's gross salary amount).
From the pop-up, select Add Earning or Add Deduction. Then press Submit.
Enter the following information:
1. Adding an Earning:
  1. Check Type: Leave as Manual Check
  2. Payroll Mode: Defaults to primary check frequency (weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly)
  3. Position/Company/Location/Job: Record earnings under the correct position and levels
  4. Earning Type: Select an earning code
  5. Hours: Enter the number of hours here for hourly earnings
  6. Amount: Enter a dollar amount here for salary or flat-rate earnings
    1. Note: Either enter Hours or Amount, but not both. This depends on the Earning Type you selected.
  7. Week: Enter which week you would like to apply the earning. You may change this when you calculate tips on separate weeks of a biweekly payroll cycle, for example.
2. Adding a Deduction:
  1. Deduction Type: Select a deduction code
  2. Amount: If the deduction is to be taken as a flat amount, add per payroll amount here
  3. Percentage: If the deduction is to be taken as a percentage of wages, add the percentage here
    1. Note: Either enter Amount or Percent, but not both. This depends on the Deduction Type you selected.
Select Add Earning or Add Deduction to finalize. Selecting Save and Add allows you to add multiple entries at once.
You may edit portions of the earning or deduction on the main quick calc page as well. If a green box has been edited (the Rate or Hours of an earning or the $/% of a deduction), then it will turn red. If a box is red, select the green Save button to apply your changes.
Once all necessary earnings and/or deductions have been added to this quick calc, select the yellow Actions star once more and choose Calculate Gross to Net and Submit. Continue with the steps below in order to successfully assign this manual check to a payroll.

Calculate Gross to Net

The Calculate Gross to Net feature calculates earnings, deductions, and taxes and provides a preview of the full quick calc. A pay stub will generate with this same information once the payroll or off-cycle is posted; you may also wish to note the net pay or take a screenshot of the information here so you can write a manual check afterwards. When using this feature, take note of the following:

Net Pay amount will appear in the top right-hand corner. You may wish to take note of this number if you decided to cut a manual check.
If manual changes to the federal or state income tax withholding are needed, adjustments can be made inside the green boxes. Select Save to apply changes (green boxes will turn red when changes are saved).
You can use this feature to test potential tax and deduction impacts in scenarios where an employee's earnings are changing or they are missing prior payroll entries.

At this point you have two options. If you were only using the quick calc to test a set of earnings or deductions alongside the employee's tax settings, this information will simply disappear once you leave this page. Otherwise, if the information should be applied to a payroll for the purposes of recording employee earnings (manual checks) and/or deductions taken place outside of Toast Payroll, select the Close button and continue with the steps in the next section to attach apply the quick calc to a payroll.

For informational purposes

Attach a Quick Calc to Payroll

Once gross to net has been calculated and saved, you can attach the calculation to a future or off-cycle payroll.

Scroll down and locate the Select Payroll field (the system will default to the next available payroll). Choose the payroll to apply this quick calc to.
Enter a check number. This is commonly done for accounting purposes since this check is being written outside of Toast Payroll.
Select Submit.

A quick calc has now been entered into the system and attached to the specified payroll. It will appear in the Employee Detail Report (pre and post-payroll reports) with a distinct black outline. For assurance, the earnings and deductions on this quick calc will not move any funds to an employee or deduction vendor.

Once you have calculated this employee's pay and attached the quick calc to a payroll, you may now write a check from you bank account. For the amount, you may decide to use the net pay that was present in the Calculating Gross to Net section. The quick calc and the recording of the manual check will show up on on the Paystubs page of an employee's profile and on the MyToast app once the payroll has posted.

Delete Earnings or Deductions From a Quick Calc

Note: If you need to delete a quick calc's earning or deduction, this can only be done before attaching it to a payroll.

Checkmark the box(es) in the Actions column next to any entry you would like to delete.
Select the yellow Actions star.
Choose Delete Selected Earnings/Deductions.
Press Submit to finalize.

Delete Quick Calcs Already Attached to a Payroll

Follow the steps below to permanently delete quick calcs. This can only be done before starting to run the payroll it's attached to.

Navigate to Payroll > Manual checks (in the Quick Actions menu on the right).
From the Select Payroll dropdown, choose the payroll with the quick calc attached to it.
You may individually delete quick calcs by selecting the trash can to the right side of it.
Delete multiple quick calcs at once by checking the boxes to the left for each one you'd like deleted, or delete all quick calcs for any given payroll by checking the small box to the left of the Name column.
Select Delete at the bottom of the screen.

Quick Calcs on Payroll Reports

Processed quick calcs will show up in two different reports after calculating and posting your payroll. To find these reports for a previous payroll, navigate to Payroll > Past Payrolls > View. Then select the appropriate report from the Reports tile on this page.

Payroll Summary Report

In the top-right corner of this report, find the Net Pay section and look for Manual Check to indicate a quick calc was processed within this payroll. The total amount of all quick calcs and the number of employees who received them is also displayed.

Employee Detail Report

Scroll through this report to locate individual manual checks and their details. They are easily recognized by the dotted border and the indication of (Manual Check).

You can also use this report to help you detect and resolve discrepancies in payroll entries prior to performing a quick calc or processing a manual check.

This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, HR, tax, or any other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for advice.