Originally Posted by techgirl
In all of the restaurants where I worked, we typically had some type of "tip out" arrangement whereby we paid "others" either a set $$ amount at the end of the night or a fixed percentage of our total sales for our tables.
We, as waitstaff, "checked out" each night and were responsible for tallying all of our charge slips, cash receipts, etc. At one restaurant, our POS (point-of-sale) system told us how much we owed in one place (and we kept the tips in cash even off the charge slips - or if we didn't have enough cash receipts, the restaurant would give us cash back.
This was EXACTLY the system used at the restaurant where I worked. The POS system required the register operator to enter the amount of the tip, and then the total bill was computed and distributed to the appropriate bank card center for processing. At the end of the night, each server would "check out" and an itemized "receipt" would be generated showing any open checks (there shouldn't have been any) and the total sales for the night, along with the total tips owed to the server.