Menu Setup Best Practices

In this Article:

• Menu Setup Best Practices - Overview
• Assign Sales Categories
• Assign Tax Rates
• Assign Prep Stations
• Configure Settings for Open Items

Menu Setup Best Practices - Overview

After you've built a new menu in Toast, it's important to review a few settings for those menu items to ensure your setup is complete and your reporting is accurate. Use this article as a checklist to review a few of these key settings:
 

• Sales categories: Assign sales categories to your menu items to help break down your sales data in your Toast reporting.
• Taxes: Ensure that applicable taxes are configured and applied to all menu items.
• Prep stations: If you're using a Kitchen Display System (KDS), assigning prep stations will ensure that your menu items and menu groups will be printed and/or displayed at the appropriate place in your kitchen.
• Open items: If you have "open" items added to your menu, be sure to check your menu settings so that these items function as desired.

Still have questions about building or editing your menus? See  to learn more.


 

Assign Sales Categories

In Toast Web, navigate to Menus > Settings > Sales categories, and create the sales categories you'd like to track for your restaurant (e.g. Food, Alcohol, Retail, etc.). Then, use advanced properties (Menus > Bulk management > Advanced properties) to view all of your menu items at a glance and assign sales categories to at the menu, group, or item level. 

If there's a specific item within a group that requires a unique sales category, you can assign a sales category to the entire group first and then change the sales category assignment for that particular item.

For more detailed instructions, see this Support Center article: .


 

Assign Tax Rates

In order to apply tax rates to your menu items, your specific tax rates must be created first (Menus > Settings > Manage tax rates). Then, you can modify basic tax settings for all menu items on the advanced properties page. Use this article for instructions on how to create and assign tax rates: .

If you set your tax rate(s) to ‘default’, the tax rate will attach to all newly created menus and items. If you need to apply certain rates to specific menus or menu items, follow the steps below.

If your business is part of a Toast Multilocation Management (MLM) or Enterprise account with Toast, use  instead to assign and adjust your taxes. Be sure to review the Target and Owner of both your taxes and menu items (if shared) before making any changes to either configuration.

Assign Prep Stations

For restaurants using a KDS, prep stations must be created to route your menu groups and items to the right device/printer. First, create your prep stations by navigating to Kitchen > Kitchen stations > Prep stations. Then, use advanced properties to route your menu items to the correct station. Menu items that are not assigned to any prep station will by default route to all prep stations. For detailed instructions, see this Support Center article: .
 

Prep stations for customers with MLM are created at both the corporate and location levels. A master version of each prep station is usually set up for the group as a whole, while location-specific versions are created for each location. Printers must be configured specifically for each location, which can then be applied to the location-specific version. For MLM-specific instructions for prep stations, see .


 

Configure Settings for Open Items

If you have open items on your menus (e.g. Open Food, Open Bar, Open Misc.), then all of the settings mentioned above (sales categories, tax rates, prep stations) should be assigned to those items as well. Use the advanced properties page to expand your menus and view all of these settings at once, or open a specific item's details page to see all available settings at a glance. 
 

For more information on how to create or use open items on your POS, see this Support Center article: .