Connect your point-of-sale system and your AI phone assistant answers questions from your live catalog, places confirmed orders straight into your POS during the call, and can text customers a secure payment link.
A POS (point of sale) is the system your business already uses to ring up orders — it holds your catalog of items, prices, and options. For a restaurant that's your menu; for other businesses it's your product list. When you connect it, your assistant can:
- Answer catalog questions from what's actually in your POS — items, prices, and options stay up to date automatically.
- Take orders over the phone and send them into your POS while the caller is still on the line, so your staff sees the order right away.
- Look up order status when a customer calls back and asks if their order is ready.
- Offer pay-by-text — a secure payment link sent to the customer's phone so they can pay before pickup.
Connecting a POS replaces manual menu upload as your assistant's source of truth — it's one or the other. Today the integration is available for the Restaurant Assistant, with more business types planned. It may also be off for some accounts while we roll it out.
Clover is supported today. Toast and Square appear in the connect window marked Coming soon. You connect from two places: the POS catalog card on your dashboard, or the Catalog step during onboarding.
Sandbox vs. Live — pick the right one
- Sandbox is practice mode. It connects to a test store from your POS provider, and orders and payments are simulated — nothing reaches your real store. Great for trying the assistant safely.
- Live store connects your real store. Orders and payments are real from that moment on.
If you're connected to sandbox, your dashboard shows a reminder banner with a Connect live store button so you can switch when you're ready.
Disconnecting and reconnecting
You can disconnect anytime with the Disconnect POS button in the connect window — your assistant stops using the POS catalog, and you can reconnect or upload a menu file later. Only one POS connection is active at a time: connecting again (or switching between sandbox and live) replaces the previous connection. If your authorization ever expires, you'll see a prompt to reconnect.
After you connect, we pull your items, categories, and options (like sizes and toppings) from your POS. The catalog refreshes automatically about every 6 hours, and you can trigger a refresh anytime with the sync button on the POS catalog card.
Keep editing prices and items in your POS, exactly like you do today — changes flow into your assistant on the next sync. There's nothing to maintain in two places.
What the statuses mean
- Syncing your menu catalog… — the first sync (or a refresh) is running. If it takes longer than expected, it keeps going in the background; you don't need to wait on the page.
- Last synced {date} — everything is up to date as of that time.
- Sync failed — open the connect window: for a temporary problem you'll get a Retry sync button; if your POS authorization expired you'll get a Reconnect button instead.
With a POS connected, your assistant takes orders during the call and sends them straight into your POS — here's what a call looks like:
Special requests: options vs. notes
If a request matches a real choice in your POS (a size, a topping, a side), it's added as a priced option. Free-form requests that aren't in your catalog — "cut it in half", "dressing on the side" — are attached to the item as a note for your staff, and any extra charge is handled at pickup.
Two rules keep tickets clean: an order only goes through if every item matches your POS catalog (no partial or guessed tickets), and a single call can place at most 3 separate orders.
Order status and where you see orders
Customers can call back and ask about their order — the assistant looks it up by the order ID from the receipt and tells them whether it's in the system, being prepared, ready for pickup, or completed. On your side, the call activity feed on the dashboard shows a POS order badge on each call that placed one, with the order ID(s) in the call details — the same IDs also appear in your team notifications.
After an order is placed, the assistant offers two ways to pay: pay by text or pay at pickup. If the customer chooses pay by text, they get an SMS at the number they called from with a secure hosted checkout link — they open it in their browser and pay by card. Nobody reads card numbers over the phone, and your staff never handles the payment.
- The link expires after about 15 minutes. If it lapses, the customer simply pays at pickup.
- Unpriced requests block the link. If the order includes a custom request without a set price (a special the assistant couldn't match to a priced option), pay-by-text isn't offered and the assistant asks the customer to pay at pickup or at the venue. Ordinary prep notes like "cut in half" don't block it.
- Sandbox payments are simulated. In practice mode no real money moves.
Catalog sync failed — what do I do?
Open the POS catalog card on your dashboard. If the sync failed for a temporary reason, use the Retry sync button. If your POS authorization expired or permissions changed, you'll see a Reconnect button instead — go through the connect flow again and syncing resumes automatically. If it keeps failing, contact support.
Why can't I upload a menu file anymore?
While a POS is connected, your POS catalog is the single source of truth for your assistant, so manual file uploads are turned off to avoid conflicting information. Disconnect the POS if you want to switch back to an uploaded menu.
Why didn't my customer get a payment link?
Pay-by-text is only offered when every item in the order has a definite price in your POS. If an order includes a custom request without a set price, the assistant asks the customer to pay at pickup or at the venue instead. Also note the link is sent to the phone number the customer called from, and it expires after about 15 minutes.
Can I connect Toast or Square?
Not yet. Clover is supported today; Toast and Square appear in the connect window marked as coming soon. You can use manual menu upload until your POS system is supported.
Is the POS integration only for restaurants?
Today the POS integration is available for the Restaurant assistant. The integration itself is built around your catalog and orders, so more business types (such as retail) can be supported in the future.
Ready to set up? Head to Onboarding Setup for the full wizard walkthrough, or the Dashboard guide to find the POS catalog card.