Restaurants carry the hardest version of the tip problem: card service charge, cash tips, front and back of house tension, and high staff turnover. A properly constituted tronc scheme settles who gets what, removes employer and employee National Insurance from qualifying payments, and gives you a written policy that satisfies the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2024.
Front of house vs kitchen: Chefs and kitchen porters can legally share in the tronc, but only if the rules are set by the troncmaster and not imposed by the employer. Getting this wrong is the single most common reason a restaurant tronc loses its NIC treatment.
Card service charge and delivery platform tips: Discretionary service charge, app tips and cash need different handling. We map every income stream, decide what enters the tronc, and document the treatment so a HMRC review has a clear paper trail.
High turnover and part-time rotas: Points-based allocation has to cope with leavers, starters, trial shifts and split roles every single period. We run the calculation each cycle from your rota or till export so nobody is missed.
Typical allocation model: Points per hour worked, weighted by role and section, with a service-quality element where the site wants one.
A restaurant distributing £150,000 a year in service charge typically saves in the region of £20,000 in employer National Insurance once the tronc is properly independent.
Can kitchen staff be included in a restaurant tronc? Yes. There is no legal bar on back-of-house staff sharing in the tronc, and the Tips Act's fairness requirement makes a total exclusion hard to justify. The allocation must be decided by the independent troncmaster, not by the employer.
Do we have to pass on the whole service charge? Since 1 October 2024 employers must pass on 100% of qualifying tips and service charge to workers, without deductions other than statutory ones such as PAYE.
How long does it take to set up a restaurant tronc? Most single-site restaurants are live within two to four weeks: a discovery call, the rules and policy drafted, staff communication, then the first allocation run.