On Saturday May 21 2022, Toast experienced a service disruption from 1:30 to 4:30PM EDT that impacted your ability to process payments in your restaurant and online. We know that a disruption like this causes serious challenges for you and disrupts the experience for your guests. As your technology partner, we are committed to minimizing service disruptions and providing a better experience for you and your team if they do occur.

We know you have many questions and in some cases were not able to contact customer care due to higher than anticipated call volume, so we will address many here with the FAQs below.

Frequently Asked Questions

5/21 Service Disruption FAQ

What happens to payments that were not successfully processed?

Most customers were operating with Background Processing during this service disruption. Due to that, most payments that were taken were successfully processed. All payments that were successfully processed with background processing can be viewed on the Payments Report accessed via the Toast back end. We will review payments that were not successfully processed and/or failed during this service disruption and include them in our resolution plan.

How can I better prepare for service disruptions in the future?

Outages can unfortunately happen. It is a best practice to ensure that you and your team are prepared for any type of outage. You can prepare your team to successfully operate in Offline Mode or with Background Processing by using training on Toast Central. Visit Toast Central and review Offline Mode and Background Processing training. Make sure to establish a plan with your team so if you happen to go offline, you and your team can continue to operate as normal.

What do I do with a failed CC payment?

During the outage you may have seen failed payments. With Toast background processing on, most of these payments have been recovered. We are continuing to address payments throughout the week. Please reach out to Toast Customer Support for additional questions. 

What do I tell my bookkeeper about how to account for what happened during the time of the outage? 

Direct your bookkeeper to the Payments Report where they will be able to see all payments successfully processed with background processing. Please advise that we are continuing to address some payments throughout the week. Please reach out to Toast Customer Support for additional questions. 

Was this related to Toast continuing to make updates / drive releases on the weekends?

No, this was not related to any releases coming from Toast this weekend. We had an issue with one of our critical financial services partners which impacted payments.

Why was there not more self service support? 

We know that we need to do better to enable our customers to handle any type of service disruption. We are working on R&D investments to improve customer experience so that you and your staff have confidence in how to remain operational during service disruptions. 

We recommend that you and your entire team subscribe to our Status page which will alert you (via email or text) any time there is a system issue and provide you status updates through resolution. 

We also encourage all customers to train yourself and your team on Offline Mode and Background Processing. Both Offline Mode and Background Processing are designed to enable you to continue to operate as normal even while the system is down.

Why were care hold times so long and why did it take so long for questions to be answered?

At the beginning of the outage there was significantly higher than normal call volume which made hold times longer than usual. Whenever there is a system disruption we remain focused on solving the problem and keeping our customers informed. We know that during this outage we could have done better with more proactive and in-the-moment communication. We are currently reviewing our processes and communication plans to ensure that we are able to effectively communicate updates in a more timely manner.

What is the best practice for when there is an issue with Payment Processing?

When there is an issue with Payments Processing, and your system is still online, you will be prompted to process each payment “in the background.” Background processing is designed to allow you to continue business as usual until the payment processing issue has been resolved. Visit Toast Central for more information on Background Processing.

Why didn’t offline mode work the way it usually does?

Offline mode is for when the Toast systems are down. Background Processing is for when payment processing is down. During Saturday's disruption, the Toast system remained online. However, a critical financial services partner experienced an issue, and as a result Background Processing was enabled at the point of transaction until the service was fixed.

Why did the CC payments fail and then process?

A critical financial services partner experienced an outage that affected our ability to process credit cards, which is why background processing was enabled until the service was fixed. Because of the nature of the outage, payment attempts were connecting downstream; however, when they reached the partner they were not processing and timing out, leading to prompts to process the payment in background mode. 

What do I do with denied, error or voided checks?

Most of these payments captured during the service disruption have been recovered. Any payments that have not been recovered are reflected in your service disruption credit. 

Why doesn’t Toast save and/or allow us to retrieve CC numbers?

Backgrounding payments allows Toast to temporarily queue the transactions until the outage is over, at which point we process them. Saving CC numbers from card reader processed transactions  for a long duration is not a best practice and is a payments compliance risk. 

Why were previously successful payments made earlier in the day being kicked back as failed after the outage?

If you saw payments that were successful earlier in the day come back as failed, please reach out to customer care who will be able to look into this specific use case.

Can we do cash outs with background processed cards?

You should be able to cash out your tips as usual, as those tips will be captured when processing resumes.

How can I tell if I am configured correctly?

Please see the following knowledge base article to understand how to configure a restaurant to allow backgrounded payments. If the restaurant was not configured to allow “Background Processing of Transactions” at the time of the service disruption, then no payments would have been possible at that time. Changing the configuration will only take affect moving forward.

5/21 Service Disruption Credit FAQ

How much of a credit will I receive and how were the credits calculated?

Impacted customers with unresolved payments will receive a cash credit. You will receive an email detailing your credit. Your custom credit covers failed payments, checks and, if applicable, lost digital orders (this reflects crediting the entire sales amount of missed online orders.*)

* Based on prior week’s same period online sales history

How and when will credits be issued? 

You will see a credit processed directly to your bank account in the next 5-7 business days. No action is required of you.