Toast Payroll: Learn Common Terms and Acronyms

ACA

The Affordable Care Act offers incentives, such as tax breaks and tax credits, to small businesses up to 25 full-time workers making less than $50,000 in average annual wages. This is meant to help small businesses provide health benefits to employees.

ACA dashboard

If you file for the ACA, use the ACA Dashboard to manage your filing checklist. 

This term only applies to legacy customers who are still using . All employees must have a benefit tier in order to obtain the coverage available to them. Without an assigned benefit tier, eligible employees can slip through the cracks and never get enrolled by the benefits team. Only available with Toast Payroll Pro. 

Check date

This is the day employees get paid on. It is also known as the pay date or payday.

This refers to how often your employees get paid and is also known as "pay frequency." Toast has four pay frequencies: weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly.

Chosen name

An employee's preferred name. This may be different than their legal name or the first name on their profile.

By default, updating this in Toast Payroll will update their first name in Toast Web.

Contract start date

This date marks the beginning of your software billing. For payroll services, this billing will start on either the CSD of the date you first run payroll with Toast, whichever comes first.

Spreadsheets containing various information that can be imported into Toast Payroll.

Custom payroll imports can include earnings, deductions, benefits, and/or timesheets. Custom employee imports can add or update information in bulk.

Security roles contain permissions for what a user can and cannot do in Toast Payroll. Custom security roles are only available within Toast Payroll Pro.

Consult with your Onboarding Coordinator to discuss in detail.

Library where documents can be stored by the manager or HR+ users. You determine what the employee can and cannot view. By default, an employee will not have access to most documents in their library. 

A job in Toast Payroll refers to the role an employee is assigned to and clocks in as (barista, server, host, etc.).

It is imperative to add all applicable jobs currently assigned to an employee's Toast Web profile into the Toast Payroll profile prior to integrating both systems.

Simply put, this is the communication between a Toast Web profile and a Toast Payroll profile.

Employee profiles which are unmapped will not be able to communicate timesheet and tip values from Toast Web to Toast Payroll.

Federal Employer Identification Number. This is a unique 9-digit number assigned by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to businesses operating in the United States. 

FUTA

Federal Unemployment Tax Act. In other words, employers are required by law to fund and provide unemployment benefits to those that have lost their job.

Unless you add certain account details, Toast Payroll does not know exactly how much to withhold, when to withhold, and where payments should be submitted. This can result in an overpayment or underpayment.

General ledger

Also known as GL, this lists accounting entries of debits and credits. 

Designated days in the system that give a separate pay rate for holiday that employees typically receive off (eg, Christmas Day). These days can be set up in Toast Payroll. 

Holiday worked

Pay for work in which an employee works on the actual holiday (eg, they clock in on Christmas Day). 

The highest level of security role granted to a Toast Payroll user.

This security role is typically reserved for owners, accountants, bookkeepers, and general managers, but your configuration may differ.

Outline of a company's structure. These are customizable to fit your organization

The process of hiring an employee into Toast Payroll to add them to your Toast ecosystem.

This tool is used to track the progress of employees hired into Toast Payroll. The green progress bar gives you a quick look at what step this new hire onboarding is on. Its important that your employees go in order of as some steps cannot be completed out of sequence.

In Toast Payroll, these are tips that have already been paid to the employee, but still need to be added to payroll for tax purposes.

Original tips

The tip amounts that employees earned from the orders they had ownership of. If the restaurant uses , a portion of all of the original tips may be used to calculate pooled tips.

For customer who join Toast Payroll mid-quarter, Toast will debit the customer's business bank account within 2 weeks after their first check date to recover any taxes that their previous provider may not have remitted.

It is the customer's responsibility to see if their previous provider has withheld or paid any current quarterly taxes on their behalf.

A type of payroll run used when a new customer starts using Toast Payroll in the middle of a quarter. It records any pay stubs the employee received earlier in the quarter from their previous payroll provider. These payrolls are flagged so they do not issue payments, since employees have already been paid, but the earnings still appear in year-to-date (YTD) reports for accurate reporting.

Groups in which employees are paid out. This may be tied to a location or to a specific group of employees (eg, Salaried Payroll vs. Hourly Payroll, or Chicago Payroll vs. Boston Payroll). 

The dates within the payroll (inclusive) that cover the timesheets that will be paid in payroll.

The workable days to be considered for your desired check date. Most common is Monday through Sunday and paid on Friday. Check with your Onboarding Consultant for a custom pay period and check date.

This setting allows you to determine how an employee is paid when they do not opt into direct deposit or the Toast Pay Card, if applicable.

Toast cannot mandate that all employees opt into direct deposit; you can make this a company policy, but Toast cannot enforce this setting. If you choose the , add the shipping address in addition to assigning the location.

Payroll / process date

The date on which a Toast customer processes payroll. This is most often two days before employees are paid and must be indicated in the Payroll calendar setup. 

Calendars contain start sates, end dates, and check dates for every payroll cycle. Every pay group + frequency can have its own payroll calendar.

Also known as a payroll schedule, this is what appears on the Paycycle Dashboard. The payroll calendar determines the dates you are processing payroll for and the check date on which employees are paid. 

Payroll cycle

The length of time of a payroll, and thus the length of time between one payroll and the next. For example, if you process payroll every week, each week is considered a new payroll cycle. 

Payroll deadline

The date and time by which a payroll must be processed. This is almost always 3 business days before the check date.

Any payrolls posted after this deadline are technically considered as "late." A late payroll cannot guarantee that direct deposit funds will appear in employee accounts on the check date.

Payroll Employee Payroll Audit Report. This report pulls all employee earnings, taxes, and deductions for a corresponding pay period. 

Pooled tips

A policy where a group of employees contribute some or all of their earned tips to a pool. Once collected, the pool is split up and distributed to employees based on the configuration set by the restaurant.

If your employee's do not keep all of their tips, they are considered pooled. Discuss the option of or a with your Onboarding Consultant.

A set of attributes for each individual in the Toast Payroll system (not a job). The attributes include , salary or hourly, and , to name a few. Employees can have more than one position, but this is uncommon.

Toast Payroll refers to the role an employee clocks into as a job, not a position. For instance, bartenders, cashiers, dishwashers, and managers are all jobs in Toast Payroll.

This page is used to make updates to the employee's profile. Here you can make position updates, salary increases, updates to the Work Tax Location, updates to Time Away from Work or Benefits tiers, etc. Each employee has their own position page in Toast Payroll. 

Updates made to a position in Toast Payroll on the position page

Deductions that are taken out after taxes are calculated. These are most often garnishments, 401K Roth, and other general MISC deductions.

Deductions are taken out before taxes are calculated. These are typically 401K deductions and medical deductions

Prenote

When direct deposit information is set up for a business (not an employee), a prenote or prenotification is sent to your bank. This is done to verify the account information that was transferred from your previous provider to Toast Payroll.

For restaurants who have already paid employees in the year they join Toast Payroll, this is the import of prior pay data from your previous payroll provider to ensure your quarterly and year-end numbers tie out.

Employees brought onto Toast Payroll with their priors will receive just one Form W-2 at year-end.

Quarterly Employee Payroll Audit Report. This is a report that pulls employee earnings, taxes, and deductions for each quarter and YTD. 

A Quick Calc or Manual Check is the term used for a payment that is recorded manually or after a regularly scheduled payroll posts. The output of a quick calc is a net pay amount.

Quick calcs do not apply to a payroll run unless you specifically apply them to one. In this sense, they can be used to calculate sample net pay amounts when you add theoretical earnings or deductions to an employee's existing tax settings (and possibly existing earnings or deductions too) in Toast Payroll.

Pay for time worked in a previous pay cycle. This must be applied to both regular and overtime hours. 

Funds that are returned back to Toast Payroll because the bank could not identify the account or routing number. Toast will contact you to determine where the funds should be sent back to. 

Rapid Implementation Dashboard. Brand new Toast Payroll restaurants will complete RID during the onboarding stage.

A set of permissions that determine what pages and functions a user has access to in Toast Payroll. The three standard security roles are Employee, Manager, and HR+.

The security role of Employee only allows users to see their own information (their profile, their paystubs, their Form W-2s, etc.).

State Income Tax. A payroll tax levied by a state tax agency on the annual earnings of individuals, collected on each paycheck. This is an employee-funded tax.

State Unemployment Tax Act. A flat rate payroll tax paid on employee wages. Used to fund state unemployment benefits. Employer-funded tax.

Unless you add these account details, Toast Payroll does not know exactly how much to withhold, when to withhold, and where payments should be submitted. This can result in an overpayment or underpayment.

Time Away From Work. Also known as Time Off, this is an absence tracking capability to keep for time off, sick time, and accrued time off. Employers can configure the policy as they wish.

Your Toast Payroll Onboarding Consultant will review any required state policies and add them to your dashboard. For Toast Payroll Pro customers, you have the ability to add custom policies outside of state requirements. Consult with your Sales rep and Onboarding Consultant to determine what package you have.

Tier in which employees must be assigned, which also determined what TAFW accrual amounts they will receive throughout the year. 

Tax discrepancy

The findings of our Tax team's audit when running parallels. Not applicable if employees were new-hired in Toast Payroll or if Form W-4 settings were not imported.

Taxable wage base

Max amount of wages that is subject to a particular tax.

Reasons in which the employee was terminated in Toast Payroll.

Step-by-step and customizable process that walks you through terminating an employee.

3PSP is a disability insurance benefit that provides employees with partial or full wage benefit payments while on long-term medical leave. The payments are made to employees through an insurance company, union plan, or a state temporary disability plan instead of through their employer. 

The amount needed to be added to the employee's direct wages and tips if they do not equal minimum wage.

A module add-on to Toast Web that can assist with tracking your tip pooling and tip-sharing policies.

This module has limitations on how complex a policy can be.

Collecting tips earned by particular jobs and redistributing those tips within the same group or among additional jobs/employees.

Occurs when a tipped employee shares a portion of percentage of their tips with another employee who assisted with the service.

Declared cash tips (non-credit card tips) will pull directly into Toast Payroll once they are reported in Toast POS. These amounts appear on employee timesheets. 

Depending on if you import, direct sync, or use Toast Tips Manager for tips, you may or may not see credit card tips on an employee's timesheet. These are paid out on payroll runs under the corresponding earning code.

To Do's

are used as reminders for earnings, deductions, benefits, or other items that need to be added to or adjusted on a specific payroll. are notifications you can send to your employees through Toast Payroll.

A payroll debit card offering same day pay (tips and wages). The restaurant needs to contract with Toast to offer the Toast Pay Card to employees. Employees can sign up via the MyToast app.

In eligible states, your employees can access a percentage of their wages and tips prior to payday. The timeline for Toast Pay Card setup is 30+ days and requires action by both employers and employees. To get started, select Toast Pay Card and PayOuts in your Payroll Onboarding Checklist,

The portion of your earnings that employees can choose to receive on their Toast Pay Card prior to payday.

This can be customized by employers.

The official name of our core product offering. It includes payroll processing, employee records, new hire onboarding, time away from work, and more.

Third-party administrator linking allows Toast to file quarterly taxes and amendments (if necessary) on your behalf.

TPA linking is not required for all jurisdictions.

The difference between actual income and expenses and budgeted amounts. These amounts are shown in the quarterly tax packages. Toast Payroll will either debit or credit you for these amounts. 

This is a term commonly used in correspondence with deductions. Most deductions have a vendor to whom funds are sent directly (eg, child support vendor receives payment and passes on to the other party). 

A payroll void may be used either as a verb, meaning the act of nullifying a payroll transaction, or it may also be used as a noun, referring to the nullified pay record itself. 

Work week start 

The designated work week start date sets the calculation of weekly overtime. If a work week starts on Monday, weekly overtime is then calculated based on hours worked between Monday - Sunday.

WOTC

Work Opportunity Tax Credit. This is a Federal tax credit available to employers for hiring individuals from certain target groups who have consistently faced significant barriers to employment. 

Work Tax Location. This identifies where an employee works and how they will be taxed.