What You Might See
In Toast, several orders placed by different people all show the same customer name. Sometimes older orders also change to show the name from a newer order.
When you open one of these orders, the Tab name on the check still shows the correct customer, for example "PARTNER - #12345 - Tony D". Only the top-level Guest name is wrong.
Why This Happens
Toast keeps its own guest profiles, which it uses for its customer and loyalty features. When a new order comes in, Toast checks its contact details (email and phone). If they match a guest Toast already knows, Toast attaches the order to that existing guest.
Toast then treats all those orders as coming from one customer. Whenever a new order comes in with the same details, Toast updates that customer's name to the latest one, and the new name shows on every order linked to that guest, including past orders.
This usually happens when an ordering platform sends the same contact details on every order. The most common case is one shared email address, like an orders@ inbox, instead of each customer's own email.
This Is Not a Stream Error
Stream sends each order to Toast with its own customer name, exactly as the ordering platform gave it to us. The merging happens inside Toast afterwards. It's how Toast's guest matching is designed to work.
What You Can Do
To find the right customer for an order, open the order in Toast and check the Tab name on the check. It always shows the name that came with that order.
To stop it happening, ask your ordering platform to send each customer's own email and phone number, not a shared email or phone. Once each order has unique contact details, Toast will keep the customers separate.
For questions about Toast guest profiles or loyalty, such as whether guests that were already merged can be separated, contact Toast Customer Care.