topic Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything! in Back Office & Team

I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

acurley17 — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 20:57:30 GMT

Hello Toast Community! My name is Alex Curley and I am the Chief Operating Officer at Palacios Murphy, a multi concept restaurant and hotel hospitality group based out of Houston Texas.

I have been in restaurants for around 30 years and have worked for groups big and small all over the globe. During this time I have used just about every payroll solution out there, from crazy copy and paste "what if" saturated excel sheets, to pen and paper, to the massive corporate monstrosities.

I have been with Toast Payroll for a little over a year now and find it to be the most fluid, operationally sound, guest and employee centric, cost effective and cost saving, flexible payroll solution out there. It restores our teams to sanity and gives us lost time and energy back so we are able to focus it on what is really important : the guests.

I would love to share any ways that Toast Payroll has been a game changer for us, answer any specific questions you may have, or just talk shop. I never sleep, and love to engage the restaurant community so please, ASK ME ANYTHING!

For the next 30 days or so I will be actively monitoring any responses so please reach out anytime!

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

Penguin_Meg1 — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 18:25:40 GMT

Hi Alex!

Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions! I love that I can add all types of documentation from doctors notes to evaluations into the "Taxes & Documents" section of an employee profile so that it is easily accessed and organized.

I also LOVE the Quicknotes section. We track everything here so there is a detailed and exact timeline of events for each employee. We track tardys, evaluations, pay raises, verbal warnings, sick days, etc. here! I recently needed to pull a quicknotes report for a particular employee and the reports process is a little unsophisticated for lack of a better word when it's comes to quicknotes. I have to run an excel sheet that pulls EVERY employees quicknotes that has ever worked for us into one document. Then cut the rows and columns down to see just that specific employee. When I talked to Toast about this they unfortunately said that Quicknotes has been grandfathered in and isn't going to be in use anymore by new Toast Payroll customers. This is sad for 2 reasons, #1 it's awesome, #2 there are no future improvements being made to it.

My question is what do you use to have organzied employee information all in one place? Do you use Toast Payroll for it and if so how?

We had another community member have a rough go of not being able to do a simple pay raise history report for a single employee. We use quicknotes as a work around for a report such as that, but do you have any reporting secrets on how to access that information?

Generally, REPORTS is a question that I am wondering if you use the custom reports section much and if you have found it to be user friendly?

Thanks!

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

KellyLynn01 — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 20:11:58 GMT

Hi, Alex, thanks so much for the introduction and for presenting this important Ask Me Anything about Toast Payroll!

I'm glad you're here all month, because I am looking for a more efficient way to redistribute employee tips on Toast Payroll. While working as teams or simply switching shifts, employees often tip each other out.

A scenario that occurs daily is the incoming night shift takes over tables from the outgoing day shift, then leaves them part or all of a tip from a shared table. The employees log this in a tip out sheet for me, and I adjust the tips in bi-weekly payroll.

My question is, is there a way for employees to enter tip outs to other employees directly in the system that would integrate with payroll?

This would be such a game changer/time saver for me and my staff!

Thank you so much for looking into this for me - I'm looking forward to hearing your expert opinion!

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

acurley17 — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 20:30:03 GMT

Hello Megan!

Nice hearing from you, thank you so much for reaching out!

I am also a huge fan of the "Taxes and Documents" section. It is so nice to be able to file TABC permits, food handler licenses, diciplinary documentation etc. in a secure, easily accessible space alongside all new hire related forms.

So don't hate me, lol, though we do not use the Quicknotes feature, though not because it isn't cool, though it appears that we tend to use the "To Do" feature to achieve a lot of the same goals. I believe one of the reasons we do this is because a lot of such forms (Evaluations, warnings, etc.) require employee signatures and we like the fact that the "To Do" feature includes an e sign option.

If you aren't familiar with it, it is the plus sign to the right of the notifications notice on the dashboard. We use "Add to do" and then are able to provide all the details of the documentation. This allows us to add an email notification if we like as well as specify if we require the e sign.

In the same respect, when we go back to check on someone's history regarding a chain of documentation like this, we use the "TO DO Report" on the dashboard and then filter it by either employee or item type. The document lives in the document library, so it is easy to go back in and download and/or print it if necessary.

I hope that helps!

Thanks,

Alex Curley

COO

Palacios Murphy

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

Penguin_Meg1 — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 20:41:46 GMT

Interesting!! I have not used this feature! I'll give it a go! Thank you!

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

acurley17 — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 20:48:04 GMT

Hello Kelly!

Thanks a lot for reaching out. I feel your pain, lol. I have been there with the excel tip sheet madness. Not only such a drawn out process reentering all the daily data once into the sheet and then again into a payroll system, though also prone to disaster. One formula off, one name off, a deleted cell, and then payroll is a mess and you are dealing with emails, texts, retro pay, and then starting it all over again!

I think one of the coolest things about Toast Payroll is the Tip Manager. To be able to take all of this out of managers hands and put it in a safe, secure, and foolproof place where the data is tried and true, and not prone to any human error is a game changer. Also removed the HR nightmares which can come along with managers paws constantly in the employees cookie jar per se!

So as you may or may not know (I am not sure if you are already using Toast Payroll), the tip manager replaces and and all tip sheets because it allows you to create rules that determine when and where tips go and how they are distributed. These rules are highly customizable. For instance you can create a rule where an Event Server 1 pools with a Catering Server 1, and then tips 1% of food sales to runner, 2% of beverage sales to a bartender, then pools remaing tips and the distributes it by points. I know that is a little dramatic, most people stick to basic rules, though just highlights how deep you can go.

We have quite a bit of rules in some of our restaurants where we have lots of jobs. We use multiple layers of event servers, we have catering services, we have taco trucks, cocktail servers, you name it. What happens to all of thier tips is determined to a rule we created that is associated with thier job type.

If you wanted to handle this outside of payroll, then I would say you would just transfer the table from the AM server over to the PM server and call it a day. If you want Toast Payroll to handle it, the approach that I would probobaly take would be to create an AM server job code and a PM server job code and then create a rule that specifically applies to those job codes which supports your distribution goal. In this case they can be clocked in normally during the shift, and if they decide to due this switacharoo per se, you can just edit thier job in the time entry management and the rule would be applied.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Alex Curley

COO Palacios Murphy

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

Penguin_Meg1 — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 21:01:16 GMT

I did a TODO experiment on myself and it looks like it went as a notification to my dashboard. What do you do if it is documentation that isn't necessarily for the employee to see? It is just management documentation of that particular staff member? In quicknotes. we document even small sit downs with staff like- "Julie came in with a negative attitude & I was worried it was being felt by the customers. We chatted, she's having some personal issues, and I gave her a pep talk. She was more pleasant throughout the rest of the shift".

This type of documentation helps us see a trend. So if all 3 of my front of house managers have to have quick talks with her on different shifts to help improve her attitude then this is an issue and not just a one off of someone having a bad day. This information is helpful for the managers but not necessary for the employee to know or have as a notification. Does that make sense?

I'm going to try and dive in to Toast Central to see how to utilize this feature more.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

ashokr — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 18:19:39 GMT

Hi Alex,

Thank you for taking the time to contribute back to the community. I'm not a Toast Payroll user since we have some special requirements that my accountant is able to fulfill, and they use QuickBooks instead.

Just like Indian cooking recipes, our needs are just as complex 🙂 LOL

My need is that sometimes we have folks who are paid at different times.

Paid weekly (But paydays are Sunday->Saturday for each week
Paid twice a month, on the 1st and 15th of each month
Some paid a fixed net pay amount. Say Paycheck (net) is $400 every other week.
Some clock in and out, but they are just paid a fixed amount every month. I'm worried it might add overtime when it isn't required. But I want them to clock in and out for security and certain other things I depend on to work correctly.

Any thoughts on this from Toast Payroll Users?

I'm not sure if Toast Payroll allows you to do different things.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

acurley17 — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:01:41 GMT

Hello Ashok,

Very nice to meet you and thank you very much for your question.

One of the things that I like about Toast Payroll is that when it comes to wage and hour compliance, which is a very tricky business, it handles most of the "complex" items that can sometimes trip up operators. Cross company overtime, wage garnishes, W2s, onboarding documents, salaried vs hourly vs W9, consistent tip policy etc. etc. are all items that if done incorrectly can bring a lot of liability issues to us operators when we have enough to worry about. Toast Payroll has solutions for all of these and I like that because I have more important things to worry about!

The reason I bring that up is because some of the scenarios that you bring up may not be 100% applicable though not because software couldn't do it, though rather because you may not want it to. Fixed rates aren't exempt from overtime for instance, and paying someone a weekly wage under the FLSA salary threshould also doesn't exempt you from overtime. As a result, these are things some operators would want to ensure their software prevents them from doing rather than doing 😉

Generally "fixed" weekly employees would all be salary employees. Anyone who is variable, you definitley want clocking in. Anyone not clocking in and not salaried would most likely be a W9 "employee" or contractor. Of course, Toast Payroll can account for all those scenarios.

Though we generally use the standard pay cycle, you can set your payroll calendar and check frequency however you like in Toast Payroll. You can also run off cycle payrolls which are customizable which would satisfy some of the arrangements which get beyond the standard.

In terms of accounting software, the GL reporting in Toast Payroll is very clean and I wouldn't expect any issues integrating with your current accounting software. We used to use QB as well so I am familiar with what that looks like on the back end.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Alex

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

Tradewinds — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:12:32 GMT

What General Accounting software works best with Toast? Like QuickBooks or something similar.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

ayprasad — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 21:25:20 GMT

My experience with Toast payroll is that it is extremely immature of a solution compared to others, but I have two specific problems

I was misled during onboarding and the dedicated training and then later the Toast experts admitted that I was misled
The Toast Payroll offering does not allow required and lawful PTO for my hardworking team. This is a big problem.

Therefore my strong recommendation having been a Toast customer for 8+ years is to steer clear of Toast Payroll until it matures. I have spent 9 months trying to get issues reconciled and there has been no reconciliation from Toast. The other solutions I have used are very easy, mature solutions and they ensure compliance with the law to avoid any liability. Toast Payroll has also dropped the ball in other areas, and I have not any these issues with other HR/Payroll vendors. I wish I could say something better about it.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

Rob — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 21:52:42 GMT

Thanks for reaching out. I'm truly sorry to hear about the frustrating experience you've had with payroll. Feeling misled is absolutely not what we want for our customers, and I understand why you're upset.

I see the case you recently created, and I'll make sure it gets to the right team so someone can reach out to you with a solution!

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

ayprasad — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 15:27:10 GMT

Thank you very much.

I know that I was intentionally misled because I ask my questions clearly and I asked them three times before I decided to adopt Toast Payroll. I absolutely would not have moved from my existing, working, compliant solution if I had been informed.
At this point it is costing Toast magnitudes than the three minutes it takes to get this resolved so that I can continue to get on with running my restaurant and not be breaking any laws due to Toast negligence, and the cost is still even more because I would not recommend the pain of Toast Payroll to a single fellow restauranteur. It starts with not misleading people during onboarding, and taking accountability when you do mislead people.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

Penguin_Meg1 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 14:44:21 GMT

Was it your rep that misled you during purchasing the product? I find that sometimes the reps that are selling the product unfortunately don't know all the ins and outs of the product. I've had some sales reps that are fantastic and confidently say "I don't know" and find out the correct answers and some that say yes out of ignorance and are just trying to make a sale. This is not an excuse just commiserating with you really, lol.

I have really liked almost all of toast payroll but the PTO section of it isn't quite usable for us the way we need it either so we have opted to manually add PTO onto each employees paycheck when it's requested in the "payroll to do" section. We have less than 75 employees so that system works for us but I can see how that couldn't be applicable for a bigger operation.

So sorry for your experience.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

acurley17 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 17:49:18 GMT

Hello Ayprasad,

So sorry to hear of your dissapointment. As a restaurant owner and operator with over 30 years of work in the field, I know how difficult it can be navigating the challenges of this industry and how much of a let down it can be when things don't go your way for you or your teams.

I have not had that experience with Toast or Toast Payroll though I do empathize with your frustration and hope you are able to get your issues resolved. I will say that one of the things that I like about Toast is that the people on thier teams aren't just employees, they are industry veterans like you and me, and they care. I feel confident that they will take note of your concerns and do all they can to make things right.

I am sorry I don't have more to say regarding your specific items, as I haven't run into any issues with HR and/or compliance to date with Toast Payroll. On the contrary, when it comes to things like child support, wage garnishment, PTO management and so forth, I have found the setup to be manageable and secure though that in now way marginalizs any challenges you are facing.

I am here to help, so if there is any specifics that you would like me to provide about how we have navigated some of the trickier HR and local/legal requirements, please reach out anytime, I am happy to chat.

Thank you.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

acurley17 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 17:54:04 GMT

Hi Tradewinds,

We find Restaurant 365 to be the best accoutning software to use in conjuction with Toast.

The integration is absolutley flawless with both Toast POS and Toast Payroll.

Whether it is onboarding, reporting, scheduling, labor managment, inventory, or so forth, they really work more as one than two integrated systems.

Highly recommend R365 when looking for a back end Toast integration.

Let me know if you would like me to dig deeper on any of the specifics about how we use that integration.

Thank you!

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

ayprasad — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 11:57:56 GMT

Both the Onboarding Consultant and the Classroom trainers were aligned and clear in how was to work and for nine+ months now I've been getting a runaround and being asked to pay for more than what I agreed.

There are other issues, specifically including that even the existing mandatory sick time TAFW is noncompliant with the law.

And still more issues.

It's good in concept, but I find it to be an immature, poorly managed solution. I would not have switched if I had not been misinformed, and I did not have this issue with the solution I came from (and the added benefit is that the other solution assured that it was compliant with the law).

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

tk2johnson — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:00:56 GMT

I have the exact same thoughts and experience. The sales people absolutely do NOT understand the product nor real life. We tried Toast Payroll 2 years ago for 4th quarter and immediately abandoned it going back to previous system January 1. I had a laundry list of all the things wrong with it and submitted to my rep but nothing was ever done.

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

Rob — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 16:35:46 GMT

Thanks for reaching out to the community to express your feedback! Sorry to hear about your experience with using payroll. If you share the issues you were facing, I can relay this feedback to our product team, and if there is anything else I can do to help, let me know!

Re: I Use Toast Payroll - Ask Me Anything!

KellyLynn01 — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:41:31 GMT

Thanks so much for this Rob, this is one thing I love love about Toast Payroll & Community - if there are any issues, we've always got a place to go be it here, chat, Toast Central, or even asking Toast IQ now!

Additionally, @tk2johnson, or anyone else searching for solutions, feel free to hit me with items from your "laundry list" and I will see if I can help answer!

Have a great day, everyone!