If you run a restaurant or small business on Toast, a lawsuit filed this week deserves five minutes of your attention. On October 29, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of state and local governments sued Toast, Inc., one of the largest restaurant point-of-sale (POS) providers in the country. The government alleges hidden fees, charges merchants never agreed to, and a cancellation process built to keep restaurants locked in. I read the complaint. My take: the

The holiday season is when your payment setup gets its hardest test. Here's the checklist I walk merchants through every fall, from equipment and staffing to fraud, chargebacks and funding, so nothing breaks when the line is out the door.

After years of reviewing merchant statements, I kept seeing the same hidden fees, confusing pricing and one-sided contracts. So I wrote a plain-English guide to help business owners see what they're really paying and fix it.