Card terminal tip prompts have turned café tipping from loose change into a meaningful monthly sum. Once card tips run through the business bank account, they are your responsibility to allocate lawfully — and a tronc is the cleanest way to do it without paying National Insurance on the way through.
Card tip prompts create employer-received tips: Tips paid by card arrive with the business, which means the Tips Act applies in full: 100% pass-through, a written policy, and records.
Multi-site consistency: Coffee groups need the same rules everywhere while allocating site by site, so a strong store doesn't subsidise a quiet one.
High part-time headcount: Student and part-time rotas change weekly. Hours-based allocation handles this automatically once we're taking your rota export.
Typical allocation model: Hours worked per site per period, with a small weighting for shift leaders.
A five-site coffee group distributing £120,000 a year across stores typically saves around £16,000 in employer NIC.
Do card tips have to be shared equally? No — they must be allocated fairly and transparently under a written policy. Fair does not mean identical, but differences must be explainable.
Can we keep tips at the store where they were earned? Yes. Per-site pools are common and generally seen as fairer than a group-wide pool.
Is the admin worth it for a small café? For a single small site the compliance requirement still applies. The NIC saving becomes compelling once the annual distribution passes roughly £40,000.