Tipping in USA: do you have to fill in the tip amount or just the post-tip total?

7/6/2015 2:38:22 AM

Speaking as someone who used to serve, I’d prefer if you filled out the tip line yourself. Since I had to add up the tip lines at the end of the night to calculate tips, if the tip line wasn’t filled out then I’d have to do all the math myself and then fill it in.

It’s not a huge deal, but it doesn’t actually make anything easier.

Also, we didn’t have to do the math on cash tips. The reconciliation at the end of the night just tells you how much you owe back to the restaurant, or the other way around if you have more tips than cash you’re carrying. Cash orders just get rung out to exact change in the computer and you hold onto the difference until the end of the night, or they get change and leave a tip out of that and you don’t need to calculate that either.

Maybe that reads confusing. Cash handling for servers is sort of inherently confusing. To answer your question, filling out the tip lines makes it easier on your server.

But I can’t emphasize this enough: make sure you get the math right! If you can’t get the math right just leave a final total, because any kind of question about the tip means that your server gets the smallest possible tip.

Say you have a $40 order and you write $6 on the tip line, then write $47 on the total line. The managers are going to insist that you only get the $6 because the customer who’s paying gets the benefit of the doubt, even if you actually meant to leave a $7 tip. If we catch that before you leave we can ask you to fix the math and initial it, but if you’re already gone there’s nobody to ask and the server loses that dollar.

5/19/2015 7:13:38 PM

If the tip is not included in the bill, I will do what you indicated…

  1. make a rough guess
  2. add the rough guess to the bill
  3. top up the new total to the next highest integer
  4. put that figure in the total and sign the receipt (or credit card)

This same technique works for me in the USA, the UK, France, Italy, Germany… basically all of the EEA, and Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia. Northern Africa, Central and South America… I think it’s a generic approach that can safely be used in the Western Hemisphere.

If I’m required to pay cash, I’ll do pretty much the same thing, but tell the waiter something like “…you can bring me back a fiver out of that…” They bring you back a fiver and account for the difference as a tip.

That’s if the tip was not included. If it is included, then I’ll go ahead and pay the exact amount.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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