Tip out team members with Square for Restaurants

Before you begin

Tipping out methods rely on information from team members’ shift reports; the ability to run and view shift reports requires a Square for Restaurants Plus or Premium subscription.

Not every restaurant follows the same closing procedures, especially when it comes to tipping out team members. If your restaurant accepts optional tipping, below are a few of the common ways restaurants tip out at the end of a shift.

If you decide to tip team members directly or use tip pooling, make sure you’ve marked your team members’ profiles as tip eligible in your Square Dashboard. Learn more about set up tip pooling.

Note: Before implementing the tipping feature, be sure to check your state and local laws regarding tip pooling to ensure you are fully compliant with all applicable laws, including all notice and record keeping requirements.

Tip out from a cash drawer

1. Have your team members run their shift reports to view payment card tips (ie. Non-Cash Tips) in the Square Restaurants POS.

2. In the Square Restaurants POS, tap Account > Cash Management > Pay In/Out.

3. Label the payout (Team Member Name) Tips. Payouts will create a record of cash deducted from a drawer, separate from cash sales.

Tip team members directly

1. From your Square Dashboard, go to Staff > Shifts > Settings > Tips.

2. For the distribution method, select Tip directly.

3. Choose whether you want to apply tip settings to Only this location or All locations.

4. Click Save.

Tip pooling

With tip pooling, you can equally divide each credit card tip across all tip-eligible team members clocked in at the time of the transaction.

1. In your Square Dashboard, go to Staff > Shifts > Settings > Tips.

2. For distribution method, Pool tips per transaction, Pool tips by hours worked or Pool tips by percentages.

3. Choose whether you want to apply tip pooling to Only this location or All locations, as well as an effective date. The effective date can be up to two weeks in the past.

4. Click Save.

Related articles

Learn more about Advanced Access and Square for Restaurants from one of these Support Centre articles:

• Customise team member permissions with Square for Restaurants

• Get started with Square Staff

• Get started with tip pooling with Square Shifts