Avero & Toast POS
Toast is supported for Sales data and Right Now Sales data.
Avero processes and presents data from your Toast POS for your analysis and insight. This article details how to handle POS changes, make updates to this data, and handle discrepancies or problems you might encounter. For some things, such as adding meal periods or categories, you must complete the action on your side in order for it to be reflected in Avero (maybe with the help of Toast Support or IT) and for some changes, such as global category associations, you'll need to reach out to our support team.
In this article:
- About Toast POS
- Differences between Toast & Avero Reporting
- Installation & Reinstallation on Toast
- Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes for Toast
- Common Problems
- Frequently Asked Questions About Toast
About Toast POS
POS Type: Cloud
Avero is proud to offer Free Installation & Reinstallation for Toast, and most POS systems.
Avero ingests sales data from Toast using a cloud integration. This means there is no server in the restaurant and nothing Avero connects to on-site, we connect to Toast's cloud and pull the data for your business. This allows for very quick connection and data capture.
Differences between Toast & Avero Reporting
This guide is to help you understand the reporting approaches of Avero compared to Toast to help you fully understand and harness your data. These are not bugs or errors but rather the data is correct and is reported with different approaches on Avero and Toast.
Avero defaults to Gross Sales, Toast defaults to Net Sales
When you first view Avero reports, you may notice sales may not match with Toast. Avero defaults to Gross Sales whereas Toast defaults to Net Sales. Viewing from gross sales allows you to view the total amount before anything is deducted. If you would like to view by Net Sales on Avero, you can select ‘Net Sales’ under ‘Metrics’ in the report generator.
Avero keeps check-level discounts at the check-level, Toast distributes the discount
Avero can track both item-level and check-level discounts. For check-level discounts, Avero does not deduct discounts from individual items but maintains them at the check level. On Toast, check-level discounts instead are distributed across all items on the check. Because of this approach, Toast item sales may appear lower due to check-level discounts. You can see check level discounts at the bottom of an item sales report.
Checks vs Orders
When you go through Avero, you will notice that we track at the check level when you drill down for details and use ‘Check Search.’ Toast on the other hand tracks it at the order level with multiple checks. You can use the check numbers from Avero to correspond with the check numbers in Toast to ensure you're looking at the correct check.
Deferred revenue will appear under service charges
When you accept deferred revenue, such as taking a deposit for a future event, it will not be added to the sales of the day the deposit was accepted. This prevents inflated sales numbers for sales that have not yet taken place.
Avero shows Toast Sales Categories, not Menu Groups
We only have one level of category for Toast POS, major. Major is defined from Toast Sales Categories rather than menu groups or subgroups. This means that if you have very broad sales categories (such as "Food") you will have limited segregation and drill-down abilities in Avero. We recommend creating more specific Sales Categories (or 'Menus') such as 'Appetizers', 'Salads', and 'Mains' in Toast because Avero adds the Global category designation of Food/Beverage/Retail/Other for you. This allows you to analyze your menu in detail to make smart operational choices and changes to protect your profits and better your business.
Avero has even more options to help bring more specific analysis to your Toast sales data - we recommend using Custom Categories to link up items that may not be linked in your Toast system. You can create categories in Avero to track specific items or trends in sales. You won't be able to see the categories in Toast and it won't affect your regular sales reports, but gives you the option to report on categories that may not be linked for revenue purposes, but make sense to view together for operational decision-making.
Menus and groups relate to how your items are displayed for use when ordering in the POS and not to how revenue is captured and recorded.
Avero & Toast Labor
Toast is very easy to install and in use by many customers. If you are ready to go and take the necessary steps, you can get your data connected very quickly.
Please Note: If you change your business name or information after adding the Avero Integration, but before your installation is confirmed, it may prevent the Avero team from connecting to your data. If you change your business name of information, please remove and re-add the integration so installation may proceed.
Installing Toast Steps
Enable Avero as a Partner
Complete the Toast Integration Instructions to add Avero as a partner in your Toast Portal. You do not need to have live data to do this.
Request Installation
Request installation or reinstallation from our support team. If you are a new customer, your sales rep does this step for you. If you are an existing customer, Open a Reinstall Ticket and our support team will assist.
Check your Data
Once Avero is receiving the data transfers, we will confirm with you that the installation is complete. Log in to Avero and review your categories and data to make sure it is complete and accurate.
Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes for Toast
When changes or updates are needed who is responsible? If something appears incorrect or out-of-date, how should it be updated?
Change or Add a Meal Period in Toast
Whenever meal periods in Toast are changed or updated they should be reflected in the next nightly load we pull from Toast. Note that changes reflect data going forward.
Important to note - Meal Period changes/additions will not automatically update your logbook or saved reports.
Categories & Items in Toast
Avero provides the following Global categories: Beverage, Food, Misc., Other, and Retail. The major and minor categories come from your POS. When pulling the data from Toast, there is only one category level—this is unique to Toast.
To make changes to items you'll need to update Toast - changing an item name, price, or moving it between categories.
To make changes to categories you'll need to update Toast - changing category names, updating which items are in a category, making categories more specific. Note that Toast has 'Sales Categories' and 'Menus' - Menus and groups relate to how your items are displayed for use when ordering in the POS and not to how revenue is captured and recorded. Avero's Category Sales Report does not take Menus into account, only Sales Categories.
To make changes to global categories, you'll need to open a ticket and request Avero makes the change. For example, if Appetizers are appearing under Beverage and need to be moved to Food.
When creating new Categories, they may default to Other and require a ticket to update this mapping.
To read more see: Categories
Common Problems
Cover Count Change Requests
If there is an error in the number of guests reported on a check, this can be fixed.
First, correct the check in Toast. Then, open a ticket with Avero Support and request the reload data for the date of the check you have adjusted. Avero support will load the new data and the check will be reloaded with the changed cover count.
Toast Missing Data
Missing data happens. We invest ourselves continuously into making this process faster and more reliable, but it is not, and will never be, error-proof. For Toast systems, we automatically attempt to recover data when it is missing. If you notice data is missing, open a ticket with Avero Support and we will recover it as quickly as we can.
If you are missing data from an emailed report, it may be related to the email settings, see our troubleshooting guide: Troubleshooting Email Reports with Missing or Incomplete Data
Data Discrepancies - Avero's sales data is not matching Toast
If you notice your sales data is not matching up with your Toast reports, there are three actions you need to complete:
- Make sure the data discrepancy exists in Avero by logging in and running a sales report. If you notice incorrect data in an emailed report, it may be related to email settings and not the data itself. See our troubleshooting guide: Troubleshooting Email Reports with Missing or Incomplete Data
- Review the Differences between Toast & Avero Reporting to make sure this isn't the discrepancy you are noticing.
- Run a Daily Sales Report from Toast for the date in question, Open a Data Ticket, attach the report and explain the discrepancy. Make sure to include the report, the date, and location if you have access to several, as well as any examples you can provide.
Our team investigates all data discrepancies - due to the nature of our daily data extraction a single date and single-day sales report must be provided. We cannot investigate date ranges, but it is helpful to know if the issue is recurring and you can provide multiple dates.
Frequently Asked Questions About Toast
Why don't Avero's sales look the same as my Toast reports?
See our above explanation on Differences between Toast & Avero Reporting.
Is there any information Toast doesn't send to Avero?
There are some data limitations you may notice based on what we receive from Toast. Toast has only one sales category level, and we do not read menu groups. That means that in Avero you may see options for Minor Category, Major Category, Global Category but Minor & Major Category will be repeated information because Toast only provides one level of category for items. Global Category is an Avero-supplied additional feature for high-level sales analysis and is not managed by your POS.
Toast does not send us some labor data points and is not considered a supported system for Labor - notably overtime pay rates, and adjusted punches are not captured.
Addtionally, Toast has only 'Check-level' promotions and no 'Item-Level' promotions. Toast reporting will distribute the discount to the items and categories discounted on the check, but Avero does not.
Can I use Toast Menu Groups in Avero Reporting?
Menu Groups are additional classification available in Toast's Advanced Menu options. If you are using Menu Groups within Toast, it is possible to see this information in Avero. We cannot display information related to Subgroups.
In Toast, every item should be part of a Sales Category and you can assign entire menus or groups to specific sales categories. This sales category routing decides where the revenue is applied (is it Food revenue or Beverage revenue, etc). In Toast, Sales Categories are optional, but without sales categories you won't know where to credit your sales!
Menus and groups relate to how your items are displayed for use when ordering in the POS and not to how revenue is captured and recorded. As such a single item can belong to multiple 'Groups' but only one Sales Category. My Caesar Salad can belong to both the Salads and Appetizers groups but is in the Food sales category, so the revenue recorded for the sale of a Caesar salad is always going to be Food Sales.
It is possible, but not recommended, for Avero to show Toast Menu Groups as minor categories (The major category will always be the Sales Category in Toast).
Sales Category Mapping if not using Menu Groups:
- Global Category: Mapped by Avero, highest level (Food, Beverage, or Other)
- Major Category: Toast Sales Category
- Minor Category: Toast Sales Category
- Modifiers: MODIFIER
- If a sales category is missing, you'll see the Major Category listed as NO SALES CATEGORY (to fix this, you'll need to apply a Sales Category to the item in Toast programming)
Sales Category Mapping if using Menu Groups:
- Global Category: Mapped by Avero, highest level (Food, Beverage, or Other)
- Major Category: Toast Sales Category
- Minor Category: Toast Menu Group
- Modifiers: MODIFIER
- If a Sales Category is missing, you'll see the Major Category listed as NO SALES CATEGORY (to fix this, you'll need to apply a Sales Category to the item in Toast programming)
- If a Menu Group is missing, you'll see the Minor Category listed as NO MENU GROUP (to fix this, you'll need to apply a Menu Group to the item in Toast programming)
Menu Groups may not be possible to view for every restaurant. If you think you might want to see Toast Menu Groups enabled, Open a Data Ticket with Avero Support to review if this is possible and practical for your location.
Note that Modifiers may not appear as you expect as they are always distinct line items, read more about this here: Modifiers
Why are Modifiers showing as $0 and the upcharge combined with the price of the modified item? Can I change this?
Toast allows for the "Price Override" setting to be applied at the Item-Level (setting an add-on price for each individual modifier) and at the Modifier Group-Level (enabling an entire Modifier Group to price override).
If you want to see Modifiers with $ charges reflected as individual line items showing the price of the modifier, in the MODIFIER category in Sales reports, make sure Modifier Groups are set to "Additional charge - price set on individual modifiers" AND make sure the Individual Modifiers have Price Override set to OFF.
If you want to see Modifiers with $ charges in the MODIFIER category in Sales reports as $0 and all of the revenue associated with applied modifiers reflected in the sales of the Item Modified (and the revenue in the SALES CATEGORY of the item sold) - set your Modifier Groups to "Additional charge - price set by Modifier Group"
See complete instructions with pictures in Toast's Knowledge Base: Creating Modifier Groups and Modifiers
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