Toast is a restaurant point of sale, not accounting software — it has no general ledger of its own. Its accounting story runs through xtraCHEF by Toast (acquired in 2021): the vendor’s Sync integration posts daily, category-level sales journal entries into QuickBooks Online, mapping sales to income accounts, tips and gift cards to liabilities, and processing fees to expense.

That leaves plenty for a bookkeeper to own: Toast deposits arrive net of fees and withholdings, third-party delivery money arrives on its own schedule, and none of it reconciles itself. Maxim Liberty has kept restaurant books since 2005 — dedicated bookkeepers at $15/hour on plans from $75/month.

Why Your Toast Deposits Never Match Your Sales

Toast’s own documentation tells operators to reconcile against the Settled Deposits Daily Breakdown report — not the Sales Summary — because deposits are reduced by processing fees, taxes remitted on your behalf where applicable, refunds, held transactions, and settlements grouped across dates. Withholdings can also include Toast Capital repayments, Easy Pay, instant-deposit fees and Toast Delivery Services charges.

Books built by coding bank deposits as “sales” therefore understate both revenue and fees — and misstate sales tax. The correct pattern is gross sales from the POS, with fees and withholdings recorded separately, then deposits matched to the payout reports.

Where Toast Books Go Wrong

The QuickBooks sync is powerful but conditional: it is powered by xtraCHEF, requires a premium xtraCHEF subscription, works with QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus or Advanced (not Simple Start), and depends entirely on a one-time mapping of sales categories to GL codes. New categories, tender types or service charges added after setup post wherever the old mapping sends them.

Xero users have no automatic sync at all — Toast documents Xero only as a manual CSV export. And third-party delivery has a documented quirk: delivery tips do not always appear in the Sales Summary because platforms pay them out monthly.

Core Toast Bookkeeping Functions We Manage

1. Sales Journal Entry Mapping and Review

We audit the xtraCHEF Sync category-to-GL mapping, then verify the daily entries: income by category, discounts and comps, tax liabilities, tips and auto-gratuities to liability accounts, gift cards to deferred revenue, and processing fees to expense.

2. Payout and Deposit Reconciliation

Every payout gets tied from the Reconciliation Report and Settled Deposits Daily Breakdown to the bank — card payments less refunds, fees, and withholdings including Toast Capital and instant-deposit charges — so nothing silently disappears into “miscellaneous”.

3. Tips, Service Charges and Payroll Liabilities

Tips and auto-gratuities are liabilities until paid out. We keep tip liability accounts reconciled to payroll so what servers earned, what was paid, and what remains owed always tie.

4. Gift Card Liability Tracking

Gift card sales are deferred revenue, not income. We track balances from Toast’s gift card reports and, for multi-location groups, the purchase-location versus redemption-location shifts Toast recommends monitoring.

5. Third-Party Delivery Reconciliation

DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub orders flow into Toast, but their payouts arrive separately, net of commissions, on their own schedules. We reconcile platform statements to POS sales and record commissions as the expense they are.

The Toast Rescue: Fixing Books Built From Deposits

The classic broken Toast file records each bank deposit as a day’s sales. Revenue is understated by every fee and withholding, sales tax filings drift from POS actuals, and gift card liability does not exist anywhere. We rebuild from Toast’s own reports — gross sales re-established by category, fees and withholdings recorded, liabilities set up and reconciled — then bring the bank current month by month until the books are tax-ready, quality-checked by your supervisor.

Why Outsource Your Toast Accounting to Maxim Liberty?

Toast automates data movement; it does not review mappings, chase unmatched payouts, or close your month. Every Maxim Liberty plan includes a dedicated bookkeeper plus a supervisor as your single point of contact who quality-checks the work.

• Daily payout-to-bank reconciliation using Toast’s settlement reports
• xtraCHEF Sync mapping audits whenever your menu or tenders change
• US-headquartered since 2005; plans from $75/month, $15/hour for businesses
• 100% money-back guarantee on your first deposit

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