teamagogoTip Pooling Calculator
Enter the night's tips and who worked. Split by hours, equally, or by role points. Every share rounds to the cent, and the shares always add up to the exact total.
1. The pool
Each person gets a share in proportion to their hours.
2. Who's in the pool
Examples The three rows below are made-up examples. Replace them with your team.
3. Each person's share
| Person | Hours | Percent | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total |
How rounding works: each share is cut down to the cent. Any cents left over go one at a time to the people whose cut-off fraction was largest. Ties go to whoever is higher in the list. Same inputs, same result, every time.
The federal rules, in short
- Under the FLSA, an employer may not keep any part of employees' tips, directly or through a tip pool. Managers, supervisors and owners count as the employer here, so they can't take a share of the pool.
- A manager may keep tips they get directly from a customer they served themselves.
- If you take a tip credit (pay tipped staff a cash wage under the full minimum wage), the pool can only include staff who customarily and regularly get tips, like servers, bussers and service bartenders.
- Cooks, dishwashers and other back-of-house staff can share in the pool only when you don't take a tip credit and pay everyone at least the full federal minimum wage.
- Your state may be stricter. When state and federal law differ, the rule that protects employees more applies.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #15: Tipped Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). For your state's rules, see the DOL's state labor office list.
This is general information, not legal advice.
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