Toast Sync

The below guide is an overview of Toast Menu Sync integration as it works through Chowly along with menu management tips on how to have the most seamless integration possible. From menu setup, what we sync, limitations, to additional features and ongoing support. 

Menus

The basis of the integration. Chowly will pull one or more of your menus in Toast POS to be sync directly to your third-parties or platforms. 

Your menu name(s) will appear online — we recommend “[Restaurant Name] Online” on each third-party. They may be currently be named "Food" or "Online" only this can be edited easily within Toast.

It is important to understand that you control your menu down to the punctuation. Including names, photos, descriptions, items, modifiers, minimum/maximum selections.
Any changes you make to your synced menus affect the third-parties.

When any information is saved and published within your POS, our software will recognize that change and trigger a "re-sync". You can expect a "sync" - importing of new data and push to the third party platforms to take anywhere from 5-15 minutes.

We also automatically sync your menu upon 86ing in your Toasttab backend and through quick-edit mode on your Toast terminals. More on that later.

Have something specific you are offering on your menu that you don't want synced but offer in store (merchandise, catering, fountain drinks, etc)? We'll cover how to remove these items using "visibility" later as well.

Check out this video for quick walkthrough on menus

Categories/Groups

Groups are the next level down from menus and can be structured however it best suits your restaurant(s); frequently, they are often divided into different courses (e.g., Appetizers, Entrees, Drinks, Desserts) or categories (e.g., Salads, Pasta, Pizza, Calzones).

Important Note: We don't recommend using Subgroups as these may create the appearance of empty categories on your online menus.

We cover categories in the menu video posted above if you skipped it.
 

Hours

Please read this article regarding Toast Hours. 


Visibility

Chowly can read "Visible To" settings (e.g., "In-store orders: POS," "Online orders: Toast," "Online orders: Ordering partners," etc.).

Depending on the visibility settings being used, you may also be able to uncheck “Ordering Partners” and the item/modifiers will no longer be synced. This is common for menus that are being used in store and also being synced to platforms. Items offered in store like merchandise or catering can be marked visible to "in store orders: POS" under properties for that item

To completely remove a group, item, or modifier from displaying on your online menus, please delete or archive it in Toast and publish.
 

Pricing Strategy, Default, & Nested Modifier Limitation

Pricing Strategies: Chowly can integrate Base Price, Size Price, and Menu Specific Price pricing strategies.

Time Specific Price and Open Price strategies are incompatible and will not integrate. This can lead to empty or $0 priced items or groups on your platforms.

Modifier groups as explained in the video in the "menu" section sync along with min/max settings, even default modifier settings can be read and synced to your platforms.

We cannot support location based pricing. Please view the screenshot below as an example of location based pricing. 

Open

"Nested" modifiers: or modifiers that modify other modifiers, do NOT sync and can cause issues where Toast expects a required modifier to open the ticket and the order will fail to integrate.

Third-parties do not allow modifiers on modifiers. This can be found in Toast by opening up "Advanced Properties" from the home page in Toasttab and expanding your mod groups, you should typically see them only go one level deep. Here is an example of nested modifiers.

Open

Default Modifiers: Chowly does not recommend the use of “default modifiers” on third party menus. We can get around this by deep copying your menus in Toast, removing the default mods, and making any mod choices required.

However, Chowly can support Default Modifiers in most instances for our clients using Toast POS sync if “Default mods” are needed for your kitchen. To see more information on default modifiers, check out our FAQ here chowly.help/s/article/Default-Mods-for-Toast-Sync.

Photos

As mentioned briefly at the beginning of the article and in the video under "Menus", Chowly also syncs your images and descriptions under the properties section for each item. Please read this article for more information regarding photo requirements. 

86ing/Out of Stock

Our integration can also understand and sync items and modifiers that have been marked in or out of stock on Toast. Here is a great article directly from our partner at Toast on this processhere 

There are two ways to complete this in Toast. Chowly runs this process for both methods every five minutes to check for new 86ing or stock updates. 

• In the Toasttab backend under each item or modifier visibility section. Make sure you save and publish to push the update

• Using "quick edit" mode on the Toast terminal in store. Make sure you press "done" to confirm the update

Check out this video for quick walkthrough on 86ing and Stock updates

Keywords:

• Chowly Toast POS Integration

• Chowly POS Integration for Toast