Toast IQ Team connects AI scheduling with payroll

Restaurant technology provider Toast introduced IQ Team October 6, bundling a beta AI Scheduling Agent with workforce tools.

The package combines Payroll, Scheduling, Tips Manager and Team Performance. IQ Team serves owners and managers; MyToast serves employees. Its FAQ describes AI features alongside existing platform tools.

Toast says its forecast uses point-of-sale sales history; the beta agent weighs availability, expected sales and overtime risk, proposing rosters for managers to review and adjust.

The scheduling product page makes the next step explicit: the operator reviews and publishes the schedule. Managers can also use Toast IQ to edit shifts and adjust coverage from the restaurant floor.

Toast says earlier Scheduling Pro users averaged 41% fewer overtime hours per employee than Toast restaurants without it. Its footnote cites internal and customer-provided data for July 2025–2026, before IQ Team bundling. The comparison excludes other bundle offerings and does not establish the beta agent’s results.

Keeping the schedule current#

In MyToast, employees can offer or swap shifts and request time off. The scheduling product also provides shift reminders.

The Toast IQ FAQ describes how the assistant supports managers’ decisions. An operator can ask about sales, labor and where the two are out of line. Taking action depends on the products, data and permissions available to that user. Editing a shift is among the supported actions Toast lists as requiring confirmation.

Toast Web permissions govern what each user can see and do, and configuration changes require explicit confirmation. These are the assistant’s general controls, tying the information a manager can inspect and the changes that person can confirm to their existing access.

Recorded hours connect the roster to payroll#

Toast’s scheduling FAQ connects its POS and payroll products. Sales history supports planning; clock-ins and clock-outs record actual work. Those hours flow into payroll, allowing managers to compare scheduled hours with hours worked before the pay run. A shift on the roster is a plan; the time record shows how long the employee worked.

The IQ Team FAQ says the clock-in and clock-out data also informs answers to labor questions in Toast IQ. Managers can ask where labor costs are running high or where they were overstaffed as they prepare schedules or payroll. The same work records thus support both the pay process and later staffing decisions.

Toast’s payroll product description says it pulls hours and tips from the POS, handles employees working at multiple rates, and calculates overtime across locations and job types. Tip distributions follow configured rules. For an employee working in several roles at different rates, the calculation accounts for those assignments as well as total hours.

Toast’s Auto Payroll FAQ says the feature, once enabled, runs after the operator reviews hours, tips and payroll costs. Toast Payroll flags automatic clock-outs and unapproved tips for attention. Auto Payroll also flags outstanding actions before the due date and cancels the automatic run if items remain unresolved. Recorded hours reach payroll automatically, while exceptions need resolution before the automatic pay run can proceed.