PYMNTS
To set its offerings apart from the many competitors on the market, Toast is working towards becoming restaurants’ go-to — not just for consumer payments, but also for business-to-business (B2B) transactions. In its first earnings report after going public in September, the point of sale (POS) and restaurant management platform announced Tuesday (Nov. 9) that it is prioritizing restaurants’ back-of-house needs.
“We’re investing pretty heavily in backing innovation in and around what I would call accounts payable automation, as well as food-cost optimization,” Chris Comparato, CEO of Toast, told analysts on a call. “We think there’s a unique opportunity to automate even more of the back office, if you think about monetizing things like bill pay and other activities on the backend of restaurants that are critical to their success.”
Toast is far from the only company in the accounts payable (AP) automation space (and Comparato did not coin the term). For instance, AP automation company Plate IQ announced a $160 million Series B fundraise on Thursday (Nov. 4).
“What we’re trying to do, if you like to think of it that way, is provide the same level of ease of use, transparency and security that you might see in a consumer transaction over in a B2B payments transaction,” Plate IQ CEO Barrett Boston told PYMNTS in a recent interview.
