Tip Jars

Add your teams’ tips and distribute them among your staff based on the number of hours worked using a tip jar

Ryan Johnston avatar
Written by Ryan Johnston
Updated over a week ago

Example

A cafe has 2 baristas and 1 barista in training who are eligible for tips, plus a general manager and chef who don’t receive tips. On Monday the cafe receives $90 in tips total.

  • Barista 1 worked 8 hours

  • Barista 2 worked 4 hours

  • Barista-in-training worked 6 hours

This is a total of 18 worked hours. For each hour worked, the baristas get $5 in tips ($90 / 18 hours).

  • Barista 1 gets $40 in tips ($5 x 8)

  • Barista 2 gets $20 in tips ($5 x 4)

  • Barista-in-training gets $30 in tips ($5 x 6)

Enabling the feature

To view and enable Tip Jars, go to Settings > Feature Management > Tip Jars:

Tip Jars is available to admin and payroll users. Enabling the feature adds an extra option item to your Compliance which is where you set up individual Tip Jars and add pooled amounts. Go to Compliance > Customise Your Setup > Tip Jars > Manage:

Creating a Tip Jar

When creating a new Tip Jar enter in the name, the location it’s attached to, then select the eligible teams. The tips will be distributed to any timesheet tagged with one of these teams. Tips will be distributed based on the number of hours worked.

Adding tips

Enter in the total tip amount at the end of each day:

Hover over the grey box to see a breakdown of teams and a total tip amount for the week.

Distributing tips

Once the tip jar is created, an allowance will be automatically created in the account  that should be manually applied. You can configure the conditions of the allowance through Compliance > Allowances > Manage: 

Distributed tips are displayed on the daily timesheets and on a person’s weekly or fortnightly timesheets. 

They appear as allowances on an individual timesheet:

As well as a total amount at the top of the page:

When you change a timesheet that is eligible for tips, the tips will automatically start to recalculate in the background. If you want to see them straight away, you can press 'recalculate tips'.

Map allowance to payroll

The first time you add a tip amount, an allowance for that Tip Jar will be created in Compliance > Allowances. If you need to map this allowance to your payroll system, e.g. for tax purposes to ensure the tips aren’t being taxed, check that the Export Name matches in your payroll. 

Exporting timesheets to payroll

Multiple shifts on the same day can belong to the same Tip Jar. Accordingly, if the length of one shift changes, the distribution of the Tip Jar changes and consequently, all timesheets need to be re-exported to reflect the Tip Jar allowances.

Ensure you export all these linked timesheets at once so that the tip amounts are correctly distributed. For example if you have 5 bartenders who receive tips from the 'bar staff' Tip Jar, timesheets for all 5 bartenders must be exported at once. 

If your export fails or if there is an error, you can re-export again as long as the tip amounts or timesheets themselves have not changed.

Tips not adding up? Made a change mid-export?

If your distributed tips don't add up to the total amount or the total amount is different to what you expected there are a few easy steps you can follow.

If you have made a change to any tip amount, Tip Jar teams, or timesheet that receives tips while other linked timesheets have been exported, you will need to re-export all timesheets. This is because the tip distribution will have changed, so follow the below steps.

  1. Unlock all timesheets with tips
    Once a timesheet is locked, the tip amount cannot change. Make sure all timesheets that pull tips from the Tip Jar are unlocked. 

  2. Hit your 'refresh' button to recalculate the timesheets
    Once you have unlocked all timesheets that are linked to a Tip Jar, hit the 'refresh' button of your browser.

  3. (For some payroll systems) Delete timesheets from payroll
    Depending on your payroll system, you may need to delete any exported timesheets from your payroll.  

  4. Re-export timesheets
    Run the export again and check the total and summary amounts for tips.

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