Academy

POS Integrations

Connect your POS so daily sales arrive automatically, then map them once and approve each day.

Oct 21, 20266 min read

Put your sales on autopilot

Connecting your POSPOSPoint of sale. The system you ring up checks on, like Toast or Square. means every day’s sales show up in DishBooks automatically: food, beverage, taxes, tips, card payments, third-party delivery, even guest counts and average check. No more copying numbers off a sales report at close.

You’ll set it up once, map your sales categories one time, and then just review and approve each day.

Works today: Toast. Coming soon: Square and SpotOn. Each POS has its own quick setup guide for the connection itself. This article covers everything else, which works the same no matter which POS you use.

How it works

  1. Connect your POS. A few minutes of copy and paste, using your POS’s setup guide.
  2. Match restaurants to locations. Tell DishBooks which location each POS restaurant belongs to.
  3. Map your sales once. Pick a GL accountGL accountGeneral ledger account. One of the named buckets on your books, like Food Sales or Sales Tax Payable, that every dollar is sorted into. for each sales category and cash line. DishBooks remembers.
  4. Review and approve each day. Sales land on the Daily Sales Report as a ready-made journal entryJournal entryA record of money moving between GL accounts. Each one lists debits and credits that must be equal.. You check it and approve.

Before you start

  • Your locations are set up in DishBooks. Each POS restaurant gets matched to one. See Set up your locations.
  • Your GL accounts are ready. DishBooks loads a restaurant chart of accounts for you. Make sure the sales, tax and tips accounts you use are there. See Review your chart of accounts.
  • You have admin access to your POS account, or someone who does is nearby. You’ll need to grab a few codes from it.
  • Pick your start date. This is the first day DishBooks pulls sales from. Most restaurants choose the first day of the month they’re going live.

Step 1 Connect your POS

In DishBooks, go to Settings → Integrations and click Connect on your POS’s card. You’ll paste in a few codes from your POS account and choose a Sync From date (your start date). Your POS’s setup guide walks you through exactly where to find each one:

The first sync usually takes a couple of minutes. If you picked a start date far in the past, give it a little longer.

Step 2 Match your restaurants to locations

Once you’re connected, DishBooks shows each restaurant it found in your POS account and asks which DishBooks location it belongs to. Pick the matching location for each one and save. Here’s what it looks like for Toast:

This tells DishBooks where each day’s sales should land. Restaurants you leave on Ignore aren’t synced. If a location is missing from the list, choose + Create new location or add it first in Settings → Locations.

Running more than one spot? Every restaurant in your POS needs its own DishBooks location, so the Downtown and Midtown numbers never get mixed together.

Step 3 Tell DishBooks where each sale goes (one time)

Your sales are coming in. Now DishBooks needs to know which GL account each type of sale belongs in. You only do this once. After that, DishBooks remembers your choices every day.

Go to Sales → Daily Sales Report, pick a location at the top, and click any day with sales.

Categories tab. Every sales category from your POS shows with that day’s amount. Choose a GL account for each one. Your GL names usually match your POS categories (Food → Sales – Food), so this goes quickly.

Cash management tab. This covers the cash side of the day: cash collected, tips, tips withheld and the change in cash. Choose a GL account for each line at the bottom (Change in cash, Tips withheld, Tips payable), and add a deposit if you made one.

Journal entry tab. This is the end result, the entry that hits your books. Check that debits equal creditsDebits and creditsThe two sides of every journal entry. They must add up to the same amount, which is how your books stay in balance. and that every line has a GL account. A line showing “Select a GL account” under GL Account is still unmapped, so go back and map it.

Testing before you go live

Lots of restaurants connect a few days early to see how things look before the real start date. Smart move. When you’re done testing, clear those days out so they don’t end up on your books.

  1. On the Daily Sales Report, choose the location you tested with, or leave it on all locations.

  2. Click Actions → Exclude before….

  3. Pick a date under Exclude days on or before. DishBooks shows how many days it will exclude. Click Exclude.

Every unapproved day on or before that date is excluded, and its journal entry is deleted. Approved days aren’t touched, and neither are days in a closed period or tied to bank reconciliation. To exclude a single day, open it and click Actions → Exclude. Actions → Include brings it back.

Tips and common questions

The numbers changed in my POS after the day came in. How do I update DishBooks?
Open that day and click Actions → Repoll. DishBooks pulls the latest data from your POS, which is handy after late comps, closing open checks or other fixes.
The numbers are a little off and I know why. Can I adjust them?
Yes. Click Actions → Turn on manual mode. The Categories and Cash management tabs step aside and you can edit the journal entry directly: change amounts, pick GL accounts, add lines. Click Save when you’re done. Changed your mind? Turn manual mode off and the day goes back to what came from your POS.
Something from my POS is missing entirely (like a fee type).
Let our support team know so we can add it. In the meantime, use manual mode to add the line yourself.
Do I have to map categories every day?
No. Map them once and DishBooks remembers. You’ll only map again when a new category shows up in your POS. Changing a mapping later updates every unapproved day; approved days keep what they posted.
Daily sales settings
for that location: Sales basis (net salesNet salesSales after discounts, comps and voids, before sales tax and tips., or gross sales with discounts on their own line) and which credit card brands combine into one Credit Card Payments line. Saving rebuilds the location’s unapproved days.
How do I know the connection is working?
If your POS rejects your credentials, the Toast card in Settings → Integrations shows Reconnect needed and the Daily Sales Report shows a “needs reconnecting” banner. Click Reconnect to fix it.
My POS isn’t on the list yet.
Toast works today, and Square and SpotOn are on the way. The Daily Sales Report is built from a connected POS, so until yours is connected, record each day’s sales as a journal entry under Transactions.
Who can see or change the connection?
Anyone whose role can manage Integrations. See Set up roles to adjust this.

What’s next

You’re connected and mapped. From here, your daily routine is quick: open the Daily Sales Report, give the day a once-over, and approve it.

Next upDaily Sales ReportReview each day's POS sales, fix anything that's off, and approve the day's journal entry.