How Headcount works
Toast takes the booking. Headcount finds the big tables, texts the booker a link, and emails the pub each table's food. Here's where the bookings come from, and what still needs a person.
Bookings in, from Toast
Toast's daily booking email
Every morning Toast emails a summary of the next 14 days: name, date, time, party size, table. Tables of 8 or more become draft pre-orders.
Toast's Bookings report
Has the phone numbers. A manager filters it to 8+ and emails it to the tool's address, which fills in the numbers.
Staff quick-add
Name, phone, party size, date and time from a phone, about 30 seconds. For groups of 13 or more who ring (Toast online stops at 12).
Both Toast emails go here, not to anyone's inbox. The tool reads them, matches each booking to its phone number, and ignores tables under 8.
Headcount
Headcount at The Mill
- Holds The Mill's menu, prices and Toast's options (chunky chips, "no gherkin")
- Texts the booker a private link, from "TheMill"
- Saves each guest's choices as they go
- An allergy note per guest, flagged on the print sheet and a call back
- One reminder the day before orders close, asking them to confirm too
- Sunday bookings get the Sunday menu: roasts, Sunday sides, the gluten-free note
- Shows staff who has opened their link and who has confirmed
- Orders close 48 hours before the booking
- Staff screen: this week's big tables, and the ones to ring today
- Orders taken by phone go in on the booker's own screens
The booker, on their phone
Picks food for each guest, adds notes, sets anyone undecided to "on the day", and presses Send. One tap confirms they're still coming. No app, no sign-in.
Out, to the pub
An email to the pub
The moment the booker sends, and again if they change it before the cut-off. The team passes it to the kitchen.
A print sheet for the kitchen
Dish totals by course, then each guest with their notes and allergies, ready to print and hand over.
Option: straight into Toast
Pre-orders could go into the Toast till as orders, so the kitchen gets them on its screens. Toast charges for this kind of link-up; the price is quoted by the pub's Toast rep.
On the night
The table is still rung through the Toast till as usual and paid on the night. The team checks allergies with each guest.
Your questions
Yes, it's how the bookings get in. Toast sends its daily booking email to the tool's address automatically, and the Bookings report can be emailed there too. Nobody has to forward anything, and the bookings don't clutter a staff inbox.
Toast has them, but its automatic daily email leaves them out. They're in the Bookings report, which a manager emails to the tool in a few taps; the tool then matches each number to its booking.
In Toast Web, once a day: Reports › Reservation & Waitlist › Bookings; under Report filters, set the coming days and party size 8 or more; then Email Export, type the pre-orders address and Submit. Toast sends the file as a download link, so we'll test that the tool can open it; if not, the manager presses Download and drops the file into the tool instead.
The booker confirms on their page, and the reminder asks them to. Staff see who has opened the link and who has confirmed; any big table in the next two days that hasn't confirmed goes on a list to ring. The kitchen sheet says "Not confirmed" until someone has spoken to them. If a table still doesn't arrive, staff mark it, and the next time that number books 8 or more it's flagged so the team can call to confirm before holding the table.
Yes. Each link belongs to one booking, so the tool knows when it was first opened. It counts the page itself, not WhatsApp or iMessage loading a preview.
Yes, instead of on paper. Staff open the booking and take the order on the same screens the booker uses, guest by guest; it can finish an order the booker started. Done emails the pub, marks the table confirmed, stops the reminders, and texts the booker once: "we've got your pre-order, use the link to check it or make changes".
The booking list is automatic. The phone numbers need that one short step from a manager, about once a day, unless Toast can schedule the report (to ask the pub's Toast rep). Groups who ring are added by hand, but staff take the number on the call anyway.
The gaps
- Toast has no booking feed
Toast says it plainly: "Toast does not have a reservation API". No other software can be told about a booking the moment it's made.
So: the daily email, the report and quick-add above.
- No phone numbers in the daily email
Without a number, a booking waits for one before its text can go.
So: the emailed Bookings report, or staff add the number.
- Cancellations show up a day late
A booking cancelled in Toast drops off the next morning's email, not straight away.
So: the tool flags it to staff and stops its texts.
- The menu is kept in our tool
Price changes and dishes off for the night are updated there, not picked up from Toast.
Later: a live menu from Toast if its API price is sensible.
- Orders don't go into the Toast till
The pub gets an email and a print sheet for the kitchen; the table is rung in as usual.
Option: orders straight into Toast, at a cost Toast quotes.
- Allergies are noted, then confirmed by a person
Each guest can note allergies. They're flagged on the email and print sheet, but a note on a phone isn't enough on its own.
So: the team calls the booker before the night, and checks again at the table.
Safeguards
- Never the same text twice
Each booking gets one link text, ever. Sending the Bookings report again, or the same booking arriving from the daily email and the report, only fills in what's missing.
- One reminder, at most
Only if nothing is in the day before orders close, and never after.
- Sensible hours
Texts only go out between 10am and 8pm; anything due overnight waits until the morning.
- Unsure matches wait for a person
If a phone number could belong to two bookings, the staff screen asks before anyone is texted.
- A phone order texts once
The "we've got your order" text carries the booker's link, so it counts as their one link text. Taking more of the order later doesn't text again.
- Unconfirmed tables get a call
Big tables in the next two days that haven't confirmed are listed to ring, and flagged on the kitchen sheet.
- No-shows are remembered
A table marked as didn't turn up is kept against the booker's number, so a repeat booking is flagged for a call.
- STOP means stop
A booker who replies STOP gets no more texts; the booking is flagged to staff.
- Old data cleared
Phone numbers and orders are deleted a set time after the meal.
Emails to the pub
- Possible cancellation
A booking that drops off Toast's morning email: "Jess's table of 10, Sat 24 Oct is no longer in Toast". Its texts stop. Toast can't tell us the moment it happens, so it's the next morning.
- Booking changed
A new time, date or party size in Toast. More guests get places on the order.
- Order changed
After it was sent, with what changed marked, and a fresh print sheet.
- Taken by phone
The table's order, with who took it and when. It replaces any earlier email.
- Didn't turn up
So the pub has a record, kept against the number.
- Text not delivered
A wrong or switched-off number, so someone can ring the booker.
- Closing day
The tables whose orders close that day, still to finish or not confirmed, so the team can call them.
From Toast's own documentation and the pub's Toast Tables setup, read 19 October 2026. To confirm with the pub: a sample of the daily booking email, and whether the Bookings report can be sent on a schedule.