10-14-2025 08:11 PM
Hi there, Toast Community! My name is Kelly and I own St. Joe Community Taproom in St. Joseph, Michigan. I've used Toast Payroll for over 5 years...ask me anything!
I've been in the industry using payroll solutions for 20 years now. From local CPA offices to the huge national payroll cooperation (you know what I'm talking about!) - I've tried it all.
Now, I use Toast Payroll because I’ve seen its value firsthand. At my last job, we were early adopters, and I was responsible for implementing it across the team. The experience gave me a deep understanding of the efficiency and seamlessness of the program. So, when I opened my own place a few years back I didn’t think twice...I knew Toast Payroll was the right choice to help limit my time working behind the scenes and help get me back out there supporting my team and connecting with our guests!
I'm excited to be here in Community and happy to share how Toast Payroll does all these things and more. I feel like I've put in the time, made the mistakes, and learned from the process (so you don't have to!) and I'd love to talk about these experiences and help in any way I can when it comes to your payroll questions.
I'll be watching this post for the next two weeks or so, so please - ASK ME ANYTHING!
10-16-2025 01:34 PM
Hi Kelly!
Thanks for doing the Ask me Anything 🙂
I'm curious if you use the Time Away from work feature within Toast Payroll? We've had Toast Payroll for about a year and a half now and I love a lot of it!
However when we first started out I realized that the time away from work had some kinks that made it difficult to use, approve time off, and monitor in the way we needed. Is this a feature you use? If so tell me about the benefits you've had in using that feature.
Also curious if you use the Recruitment section of Toast Payroll? If yes to these, I have some follow up questions.
Thank you!
10-22-2025 06:19 AM
Hi, Megan, thank you so much for your question! It's awesome that you've used Toast Payroll for over a year now and that you like a lot of what it can do for Penguin Ed's.
The TAFW is a great feature that allows employees to request time off by logging into their Toast account and for managers to approve or deny it. The biggest benefits I've found is that all employee requests are in one place (as opposed to texts, emails, or written requests) and that there is the option to request only partial days off as well as categorize/explain the request.
A key element of TAFW to be aware of when setting up is to be sure to set up manual approval rather than automatic, otherwise issues can occur in cases where multiple employees request TAFW or other instances when the request would likely be denied. This is where it can become difficult monitoring, so I'd also like to see some more "rules" added to this feature where we can all tailor TAFW more specifically to our companies.
I haven't tried the Recruitment feature yet, but I'd still love to start a discussion here in Community and do a deeper dive to learn more if that's something you'd be interested in!
Thanks again, Megan, hope to talk soon!
Kelly