5 Best Restaurant Tip Pooling Solutions Compared

With a Covid-induced labor crisis in the background, many restaurants explored methods like ‘no tipping’ and ‘auto-gratuity’ in an attempt to battle the crisis and create a better working environment for restaurant staff.

Our own review of the state of tipping revealed that tip pooling and sharing reduces tension at restaurants by increasing transparency and promoting teamwork. When your staff are confident that the agreed policies are being followed, they are able to focus on better servicing your customers. A good system will also help staff manage their personal cash flow.

For restaurant owners, digital tip pooling saves valuable time. Instead of handling dozens of envelopes every day, once your shifts are set up, tipping out becomes as simple as a click-of-a-button. And no-less important, a good system will also make sure you are in compliance with local regulations.

As cashless living becomes the norm, having good software to handle tips is a must. Review these top 5 tip pooling platforms to find the best one for your restaurant and POS system.

1. Toast — Tipping within Your POS

Toast is one of the major players on the restaurant POS scene. Their functionality suite is broad and they offer custom handheld devices for ordering and payment processing. And they easily integrate with 3rd party delivery platforms, QuickBooks and other systems. Toast aims to be a one-stop-shop for all the digital needs of a restaurant, from the Point of Sale to the cash drawer. It therefore provides a payroll and tipping functionality too as an add-on to the mid-level POS monthly membership.

Pros:

• Integrated with your POS system and full restaurant software.
• Checks your payroll against local wage and hour laws and taxes to make operators’ life easier
• Strong company with ample customer support

Cons:

• Only available as an add-on to Essentials Toast package ($165/mo) or higher

Price: Starts at $165/mo

Other POS systems offer tip management apps and add-ons through their marketplaces. Check out Clover , Upserve and Ehopper.

2. 7Shifts — Shift Management Powerhouse

7Shifts focuses on everything related to restaurant shift management. Founded in 2014, 7Shifts grew to include digital help with the hiring process, notifications and shift trading, task management, health tracking, shift budgeting and more.

The free version can be tried for groups of up to 10 employees and their Entrée level package has a manual tip tracking feature in which employees can report their tips, highlighting top performing staff.

The Tip Pooling add-on makes creating and calculating tip pools easy, but automatically tipping-out will depend on your POS system.

Pros

• Multiple highly customizable tip pool rules
• Integrates with and exports to most payroll and POS softwares
• Ensures compliance with local tip pooling and laws
• Saves even more time with 7Shifts shift management and punch in/out features

Cons

• Tip pooling add-on currently being tested as BETA version for $25/mo.

Price: 7Shifts’ Appetizer + Tip pooling bundle will cost your restaurant ~$45/mo.

3. TipHaus — Transparency First

TipHaus is a lean tipping app designed specifically for tip pooling and sharing. It is downloadable as an add-on through the Toast, Clover, Square and Union marketplaces or through integration with a payroll software.

TipHaus promotes fairness and transparency and created a dashboard through which restaurant owners can understand how each tip pool or share rule influences every employee.

There is also an employee-facing app which lets staff see their tips in real time, transfer money between them independently and even get same day payouts to their debit card.

Pros

• Handles cash and credit cards
• Employees can send each other money through the system and see their tip accumulation in real time
• Same day debit card payouts to employees
• Performance tracking with reports and metrics on each employee
• No signup or commitment fees, and a 14-day free trial

Cons

• Integrates with only the 4 top POS systems. Older versions might still enjoy integration through payroll systems.

Price: $49–99/mo depending on volume and integration requirements.

4. GraTrack — Tried and Tested

GraTrack has been in restaurants since 2008 and is one of the most seasoned tip pooling softwares on the market. The simple big button design and clear reporting make receiving gratuity and tipping-out easy and fast.

The system encourages fully digitized tipping, ensuring money is tracked and shared as agreed. GraTrack says clients see ROI within 10 weeks by saving time on tedious error-prone daily bookkeeping.

Pros:

• Supports a fully digital tips and integrates with payroll
• Multiple customizable pooling and sharing options including with back-of-house
• Integrates with top POS systems: Aloha, Micros RES3700, Dinerware, Squirrel, Toast, MobileBytes and Heartland Restaurant
• Built in remote support
• Offered for free to qualifying businesses that perform community service

Cons

• Restaurant owners are ultimately responsible for compliance with state tip laws; see our New Wage Structure for Restaurants article to know what this means in California. .

Price: $29/mo for up to 20 employees (billed annually)

5. Tippy — Dedicated Tip Pooling Station

Tippy is everything the above solutions are not. Designed as a stand-alone tip station for check out counters and front desks, Tippy claims to increase overall tip income. It is a great solution for quick digital tipping in fast food businesses, food-trucks and take-away service only.

The station requires no POS system (although they do integrate if you have one) and can generate QR codes for an individual tip — e.g. your delivery person out in the field.

Pros:

• ZERO processing fees on tips!
• Great for quick or walk-out service
• No POS required
• QR codes for scan-to-tip
• Lets patrons know their tip is going directly to the intended person
• Tips are received in real-time by employee
• Dashboards and reporting
• 30-day free trial period

Cons:

• Another piece of hardware to charge and deal with

Price: $25/mo (billed annually) including physical station

Agreeing on the right tipping policy is a complex issue. It needs to take into account back of house staff, upselling on specific item categories, digital orders and more.

The more feedback you get from your staff, and the more transparency you give, the closer you will get to creating a calm, productive and mission oriented environment in your restaurant.

California is one of only seven states that requires employers to pay minimum wage ($14 for a staff of 26 and above, $13 for less) upon which all tips are added to total income.. Whether you opt for an independent software, a POS add-on or stand-alone tip station — make sure your choice complies with local tip and tax law. And don’t forget — tips are taxed too.

This article was originally posted on the Cheetah Blog by Gustavo Guida https://www.gocheetah.com/blog/5-best-restaurant-tip-pooling-compared/