release date: October 24, 2023
supported products: New 2.0 Dashboard
supported POS: Toast
What
Introduce a new feature in the 2.0 Dashboard that enables restaurant admins running Toast to flag certain items the Lunchbox ordering platforms as a "Donation" so that revenue from those items are flagged correctly as deferred revenue within Toast reporting.
Why
Some Lunchbox restaurant partners offer charitable donations or gift cards/certificates as a menu item. For some restaurant partners, it is important to recognize revenue from these items as deferred revenue for accounting and reporting purposes.
example:
Restaurant Parter features an item and add-on option on their menu, Quarters 4 Kids, that allows guests to make a $0.25 donation on their order. Funds collected from the sale of this item/add-on should be recognized as deferred revenue for tax purposes and franchise royalty payments.
What is Deferred Revenue?
Deferred revenue is an amount that is excluded from the net sale of an order.
How-To
set an item as deferred revenue in the Lunchbox 2.0 Dashboard
Go the Lunchbox 2.0 Dashboard (aka Old Admin version)
Click on Menus in the navigations on the left side of the page
Expand the appropriate menu in the listing
Expand the category on the menu in which the item that should be deferred revenue lives
Click on the name of the appropriate menu item
Locate the Item Type field on the Item Edit tab
Select Donation from the Item Type field
Click Save at the bottom of the page to save this update
While not required, Lunchbox recommends that restaurant also configure the items for deferred revenue on Toast to ensure consistency in reporting.
For detailed instructions, please visit this Toast support page.
How It Works
When an item is set as a Donation in the 2.0 Dashboard it will set the deferred flag to true for that item in the POST - Get Order Prices and POST - Post an order API requests made by Lunchbox to Toast.
Additional Notes
The menus Lunchbox retrieves via Toast’s API do not include metadata denoting that revenue for a menu item is deferred despite the setting being available from the Toast Dashboard.