Managing Item Availability — Sold Out and Not Available

Menuboard Manager gives you control over which items appear as available on your menu boards. When an item runs out or is temporarily off the menu, you can mark it as Not Available — either manually in the Menuboard Manager UI or automatically via a Toast POS stock availability webhook. The change is reflected on-screen in real time.

This feature is sometimes called 86'ing an item, using the restaurant industry shorthand for marking something unavailable.

Overview

Every dynamic field in a presentation has an N/A switch — a toggle that marks that field's item as not available. When the switch is on:

A "SOLD OUT" overlay appears over the item on the display (default behavior)
Alternatively, the item can be hidden entirely from the display
The overlay text and appearance are fully customizable

Changes take effect immediately when the presentation is published — or in real time when triggered via the Toast webhook, without requiring a manual publish.

How Availability Sync Works (Toast POS)

If your location uses Toast POS, item availability can be managed directly from the POS system. When a team member marks an item as out of stock in Toast, Menuboard Manager receives a stock availability webhook and automatically updates the N/A status of the corresponding field.

How it works:

A team member marks a menu item as out of stock in Toast (via the Toast POS terminal or Toast Web).
Toast sends a real-time stock availability event to Menuboard Manager.
Menuboard Manager matches the Toast item GUID to the linked field's POS ID.
The field's N/A switch is toggled on automatically.
The display updates to show the item as not available — no manual action required in Menuboard Manager.

When the item is restocked in Toast, the same process runs in reverse: the webhook fires, the N/A switch is toggled off, and the item reappears as available on the display.

Requirements for automatic availability sync:

The field must have a valid POS ID linked to the Toast item (set during field import or manually in the Fields tab)
The Menuboard Manager Toast integration must be active for the location (see Toast POS Integration Guide)
Toast Restaurant Management Suite must be enabled on the Toast account

Note: Automatic availability sync via webhook is specific to Toast POS. For Micros or other integrations, item availability must be managed manually in Menuboard Manager.

How Items Appear When Not Available

By default, when a field is marked N/A, a "SOLD OUT" text overlay appears on top of the item on the display. You have two options for what happens to a not-available item:

Option 1: Show the "SOLD OUT" overlay (default)

The item remains visible on the menu board with a customizable overlay label. This approach lets customers know the item is temporarily unavailable rather than removing it entirely.

To customize the overlay text:

Open the presentation in the Presentation Editor.
Go to the Properties tab.
Find the Not Available Text field.
Enter your preferred text (e.g., SOLD OUT, 86'd, UNAVAILABLE, COMING SOON). Short text works best.
Save and publish.

To style the overlay:

Use the .n-a CSS class in the CSS tab to control the overlay's appearance:

.n-a {
  font-size: 44px;
  color: #ffffff;
  background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7);
}

See Customizing Presentations with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript for more on using the CSS tab.

Option 2: Hide the item entirely

If you prefer that not-available items disappear from the display entirely (no overlay, no placeholder), enable the Hide Field When Marked N/A setting.

Open the presentation in the Presentation Editor.
Go to the Properties tab.
Enable Hide Field When Marked N/A.
Save and publish.

When this is on, any field with the N/A switch enabled will be completely removed from view on the display. The remaining fields do not reflow to fill the space — the position stays empty. Plan your layout accordingly if you use this option.

Manually Marking Items Not Available

You can toggle the N/A switch for any field directly in Menuboard Manager at any time, regardless of whether your location uses POS integration.

Open the presentation in the Presentation Editor.
Go to the Fields tab.
Locate the field for the item you want to mark unavailable.
Enable the Not Available slider on the left side of the field entry.
Save and Publish the presentation.

To restore the item to available, disable the slider, save, and publish again.

Note: If your location uses Toast POS integration with stock availability webhooks, a manual toggle may be overwritten the next time Toast sends a webhook update for that item. For full automation, manage availability from Toast and let the webhook handle the sync.

The NotAvailable Field in CSVs

When you export fields from a presentation as a CSV (via the Fields tab), the export includes a NotAvailable column. This column records the current N/A state of each field:

TRUE — the field is currently marked not available
FALSE (or blank) — the field is available

When you import a CSV into a presentation, the NotAvailable column is respected. You can use this to bulk-set availability for multiple items before importing — for example, marking seasonal items unavailable in the CSV before importing a full menu update.

This also makes it easy to audit the current availability state of all fields at once: export, review the NotAvailable column, and import the corrected CSV if needed.

Tips

Quick visual check: The preview canvas in the Fields tab reflects N/A state in real time. Enable a field's N/A switch and watch the preview update immediately to confirm the overlay is appearing as expected before publishing.
Combining with "Hide Field": If you use field sections, items marked N/A inside a section will show the overlay within their card. The Hide Field When Marked N/A setting applies to section cards as well.
Custom overlay text is per-presentation: The Not Available Text setting is configured at the presentation level, not per-field. All N/A fields in a presentation use the same overlay text.
Short text works best: The overlay is constrained to the field's on-screen area. Long text may overflow. Use concise labels like SOLD OUT, UNAVAILABLE, or 86.

Toast POS Integration Guide — Connect Toast POS and import fields with POS IDs for automatic availability sync.
Working with Presentations — Full reference for the Fields tab, N/A switch, and Presentation Properties.
Customizing Presentations with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript — Style the .n-a overlay class using the CSS tab.
Sections in Presentations — How N/A fields behave inside section cards.
Manually Run POS Integration — Trigger a manual POS sync if automatic availability is not updating as expected.
Menuboard Manager — Terminology & Nomenclature — Definitions for N/A Switch, 86'ing, Not Available Overlay, and the .n-a class.