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Bookkeep For Toast: Daily Summary By Location

Bookkeep’s Toast automation creates one daily sales summary journal entry per location, giving restaurant operators and accountants a clear, structured view of financial activity while keeping accounting records accurate and reconciliation-ready.

Unlike posting accounting entries per order, the daily summary approach is significantly more efficient. A typical restaurant location can process 100+ orders per day, and posting each order individually can clutter the general ledger, slow down the accounting system, and provide little additional financial insight. By summarizing activity into a single daily entry, Bookkeep preserves the detail from Toast while ensuring the accounting system operates optimally.

How the Daily Sales Summary Works

For each location and business date, Bookkeep generates a single summarized journal entry that includes:

  • Gross sales down to net sales

  • Discounts and promotions

  • Payments by method (cash, cards, online payments, etc.)

  • Merchant cash advance (MCA) repayments

  • Processing fees

  • Sales tax and sales tax withheld

  • Gift cards redeemed

  • Gift cards issued

This daily summary allows finance teams to:

  • Maintain detailed reporting without cluttering the general ledger

  • Reconcile payouts and balances more easily

  • Align accounting records with operational reporting from Toast

Handling Voided Orders After the Business Date​

In Toast, it is possible for an order to be voided after its original business date. When this occurs, Toast updates the original transaction rather than creating a new adjustment on the date the void occurred.

To stay aligned with Toast’s reporting, Bookkeep automatically reruns the original business date and excludes the order that was voided. This ensures that:

  • The affected day’s sales totals match Toast

  • Revenue is not overstated

  • Accounting records remain accurate without requiring manual corrections

Accounts Receivable Handling in Toast

Bookkeep automatically manages accounts receivable (A/R) scenarios when orders are not paid at the time of the sale.

How It Works​

  • The order’s business date determines when the sale is recognized.

  • Revenue is recorded on that business date.

  • An Accounts Receivable balance is created for the unpaid order.

When the payment is completed later, Bookkeep:

  • Reverses the balance through the A/R Charges line

  • Records the payment appropriately

This ensures revenue is recognized at the correct time while keeping receivables accurate.

Deferred Revenue Handling

In some cases, an order may be paid before it is completed, such as when a payment is made early and a tip is added before final completion.

Bookkeep handles this using deferred revenue logic.

Step 1: Prepayment Occurs​

When payment is received before the order is completed:

  • The full payment amount is recorded

  • The amount can be posted to a deferred revenue account

Step 2: Order Completion​

Once the order reaches completion status:

Deferred revenue is reversed, and the following are recognized:

  • Revenue

  • Tips

  • Taxes

  • All other related components of the sale

This ensures revenue is recognized only when the order is operationally complete.

Gift Card Handling

Bookkeep captures all gift card activity, including:

  • Gift cards issued

  • Gift cards redeemed

  • Fully discounted gift cards

Important Note About Reporting Differences​

When a gift card is issued with a 100% discount, Bookkeep records:

  • The gift card issuance

  • The discount applied (posted to the discount line)

However, this can sometimes cause a difference compared to the Toast Sales Summary, because:

  • The Toast report may exclude the gift card discount from total discounts for that date.

This difference is expected and reflects a more complete accounting treatment of the transaction in Bookkeep.

Toast Balance and Payout Visibility

Toast does not expose deposit or payout data through its API, which means Bookkeep cannot automatically post deposits or payouts from Toast into the accounting system.

However, Bookkeep is designed to calculate and track your running Toast balance as closely as possible. Each day’s automation:

  • Reflects sales activity from Toast

  • Reduces the balance for processing fees

  • Reduces the balance for merchant cash advance (MCA) repayments

This approach helps ensure the resulting entries closely align with the balance you would expect from Toast, even though the actual deposit data is not available through the API.

Why the Daily Summary Model Matters

Bookkeep’s daily summary structure provides:

  • Accurate financial reporting aligned with restaurant operations

  • Clean general ledger entries that avoid overwhelming accounting systems

  • Proper handling of complex payment scenarios

  • Built-in support for receivables and deferred revenue

  • Improved reconciliation between POS activity and accounting

By summarizing activity per location per day, Bookkeep ensures that restaurants using Toast have accounting records that are detailed, scalable, and optimized for accounting performance.