What Are the Most Important Restaurant POS Integrations?

Most operators are weighing up the same integrations: payroll and rostering, ordering and delivery, inventory, accounting, loyalty, guest data and payments.

Our advice is to start with the connection that removes the most manual work. It may also cause the most disruption when it fails, so rollout order matters.

What Australian operators are prioritising

Toast's Voice of the Australian Restaurant Industry research, based on responses from more than 200 Australian restaurant decision-makers, found that 67% expect their technology spend to rise over the following twelve months. 

POS integrations and all-in-one systems were important to operators comparing platforms, along with price and ease of installation. The number of suppliers involved also deserves a closer look. Managing restaurant technology was a major pain point for 39% of respondents. Integrations can lighten that load, but every connection needs oversight.

The categories below are ordered roughly by how much time each tends to give back, though the right sequence for your venue will depend on where your manual work currently sits.

Payroll and rostering

Payroll is a sensible starting point for many venues. Labour is often the largest controllable cost, and getting pay right is a serious responsibility. 

In Toast’s Australian Pollfish research, 41.5% of operators named last-minute changes as their biggest scheduling challenge. Understaffing followed at 22.5%. Rushed roster changes increase the risk of applying the wrong rate.

A rostering tool that sends approved hours straight to payroll removes the need to transfer them manually. Toast’s restaurant employee scheduling software supports that flow.

Online ordering and delivery

Delivery integrations are a priority for many Australian venues, especially those with significant off-premise volume. Our Voice of the Australian Restaurant Industry research found that 44% of surveyed restaurants use third-party online ordering or delivery software. Depending on the setup, those orders either flow into the POS or staff enter them by hand during service.

The channel also looks different than it did eighteen months ago. Menulog took its final Australian orders on 26 November 2025 after close to two decades of trading, with Uber Eats striking a deal to migrate its customers and restaurant partners across. That leaves the marketplace channel concentrated on a few main platforms, with commissions widely reported in the 15% to 30% range. Fewer competitors tends to mean less room to negotiate, which strengthens the case for a channel you set the terms on.

Inventory

Inventory has one of the clearest gaps between how operators work today and what the technology can handle. That leaves plenty of room to save time and improve control.

Toast’s Australian research on back-of-house preferences found that 20% of operators track inventory through a POS integration. Another 42% use inventory management software, while 29% rely on spreadsheets and 8% use paper logs.

That leaves many venues relying on manual comparisons between stock and sales. In the same survey, 43% named the time involved as their biggest inventory challenge, followed by discrepancies at 23.5% and shrinkage at 15.5%.

Accounting and reporting

Accounting integration rarely tops an operator’s wish list, but it can surface problems sooner. When daily sales, payment totals and tax figures sync overnight, issues can be spotted before the next reconciliation. If a marketplace deducts commission before paying you, the deposit will not match the gross sales recorded in the POS. Settlement schedules may also vary by platform.

A venue running two delivery apps alongside direct ordering has three revenue streams that need reconciling before anyone can say what a dish actually earned. That work grows with every integration you add, which is why accounting tends to be the connection that makes the others readable. 

Loyalty, marketing and guest data

Australian operators are already invested here. The Voice of the Australian Restaurant Industry research found loyalty program management software to be the most commonly used guest management solution at 51%, with 49% using marketing software. The same research also identified managing loyalty and email marketing as the leading technology challenge operators reported.

Those two findings sit together for a reason. Loyalty is widely adopted and widely fiddly, and much of the difficulty appears to trace back to disconnection. A guest who orders online, joins your rewards program and books a table ideally reads as one record rather than three.

Diners are fairly clear about the format they prefer. Toast's Australian consumer research found 78% favour loyalty rewards delivered through a mobile app, compared with 12.5% for QR codes on receipts and 8% for paper punch cards.

An app-based program that cannot see what a guest bought will tend to function as a discount mechanism more than a relationship tool. That is a reasonable case for keeping loyalty and guest data close to the till, and for connecting your reservations and waitlist to the same record.

How to sequence the decision

Start with the manual workflow taking up the most staff time and connect that first. Check whether data moves both ways or only exports, as a one-way link may still leave someone reconciling figures.

Ask what happens if the connection drops during service and expect a clear answer. Price the full stack too, including integration fees from the POS provider and third party. Those costs add up and may not be obvious on a pricing page.

Each integration trades manual work for another dependency. Keep the stack manageable by starting with the workflows costing your team the most time, then checking failure handling and total fees before adding more.