I work at a restaurant that offers us cash tips from the customers but not credit/debit tips. We get comments a lot from customers that want to leave tips but have no cash asking why we don’t have a system in place to accept them. Also, being able to accept credit card tips would mean more money for us employees that work real hard. However, the owners say we wouldn’t want that system in place as we’d have to begin claiming both cash and credit tips. My thought is that claiming them and paying tax on all our tips isn’t that bad because in the end we’d still be netting more at the end of the day? Is there anyone that works with these types of systems or restaurant managers/owners that have experience with this? I’m trying to open dialogue with our management about it. Thanks!
You could get an employee owned card machine from somewhere like square or sumup that could be placed by the exit or the till for tips. It would need to be clearly labelled as such. They are typically set to take a fixed small amount with an option to upgrade to a higher amount. This can then be managed by employees and split according to shifts etc.
It was a while ago so it might have changed but when my parents owned a restaurant In the uk, anything that went through the till was counted as income and had to have the tax deducted so having the tips separate helped a lot for the staff. They had a tip jar by the till which was great because the customers would often place all their change in the jar. I think the card customer could pay extra on top of what the till wanted and then the change would go into the tip jar as cash.
If the owner wants to help the staff they will.