Configure tip pools and service charges vs. tips

Turtini distributes a guest's gratuity to your staff as wages, on their paychecks. There are two legal kinds of gratuity, and they are handled differently — getting this right is a compliance requirement, not a preference.

A voluntary TIP (the guest chose to leave it):

• It is the guest's discretionary gift to staff.
• It can be attributed directly to the one person who served the guest, or shared through a voluntary tip pool.
• Under the FLSA, a mandatory tip pool may not include the employer or anyone with managerial authority — owners, admins, and managers cannot share in a voluntary tip pool.
• On payroll it appears as a "Tips" line (reported tip income).

A mandatory SERVICE CHARGE (an auto-gratuity you add automatically):

• It is your revenue, which you redistribute to staff as wages.
• Because it is not a "tip" for FLSA purposes, you may pay it to anyone — including managers and back-of-house.
• On payroll it appears as a "Service charge" line (regular wages, not reported as tips).

Setting up a distribution policy:

1. Create a tip distribution policy for the venue or department. Choose its pool type — "tip" (voluntary) or "service_charge" (mandatory).
2. Add the role rules — the percentage of the pool each role receives. The rules must add up to 100.
3. Optionally list the eligible roles. For a voluntary tip pool, managers and owners are excluded automatically.
4. Choose when the pool closes — end of shift, end of day, or end of voyage.

Settling a pool:

At period close, settle the pool with the roster of who worked and their hours. Turtini splits the pool by role and by hours worked within each role, writes an auditable distribution record, and feeds each person's share onto their next paycheck as wages. A pool set to auto-close with a standing roster settles itself each day. Everything is recorded — you can always see exactly who was paid what, and from which pool.