How does Square Payroll handle tip pooling?

[TheParlour-Yoni]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Live Q&A Ask us Anything about Square Payroll

Ok, I know this is an old thread but I was digging around on how Square Payroll does tip pooling and it seems like it works the same way I currently do it in a spreadsheet: by the day, proportional to hours worked. As @TorpedoCoffee points out, this isn't ideal. If people work a busier shift when more tips per person per hour come in, this system doesn't account for that and just weighs every hour of the day equally. Of course, the ideal way to do it would be: for each individual tip that comes in, split it equally among all eligible employees who were clocked in at that moment. In theory the calculation involves a lot more steps than just splitting the whole pool based on hours worked, but in principle it's still a trivial amount of processing power on modern computers!

[Helen]

Hello @TheParlour-Yoni!

At this time with Square Payroll you can pool and split tips by pay period or by workday — more info below for anyone else reading this post! 

You're right, we don't currently offer the ability to split tip by shift. We know this important and we'll be putting that processing power to use in future as we continue to add improvements to Square Payroll! 

Pay Period: Square Payroll will include all tips collected for the entire pay period and split them based on hours worked per employee.

Workday: Square Payroll will include all tips collected for a workday and split them based on the employees who have hours for the day.

[TheParlour-Yoni]

It doesn't even need to be By Shift, though. A place may not divide every day into exactly 2 or 3 shifts. On our busiest days, we have a lot of staggered start times. But again, if you're going to be pooling more precisely than by the whole day, you shouldn't just jump down to the level of the shift. The fact is, there's no reason you can't just split tips at the level of the individual transaction for credit/gift payments.

[wgater]

Hi @TheParlour-Yoni, Feel free to check out tipmetric.com. They have some of the granular Tip Pooling functionality you are looking for and are integrated w/ Square.

[PeaceLoveCoffee]

How can we just disable the tipping calculations in square?

It is grossly inaccurate for a counter service cafe tip pool with multiple hourly employees eligible for tips on the clock but mot logged in at the register ringing orders.

I manage the tip pool in a spread sheet by day and the labor report / tips amount that Square shows my employees when they are logged into the app is grossly misleading. some over some under.

The employees are all set to an hourly rate, tips ineligible in Team settings yet they still show tips due.

[TXMike]

YES THIS QUESTION EXACTLY..

SQUARE SUPPORT:  Where is the response here.  I have the EXACT same issue.  There is a BUG in the code somewhere as best as I can tell.