Aloha POS - Paying tips in paycheck 1

[soleman]

We are in the process of converting to pay credit card tips in our server paychecks rather than in cash at the end of the shift.

We currently import weekly pay data (hours, rates, tip claim, etc.) from Aloha into our payroll system. We will now, in addition to the tip claim amount, need to import the amount of tips owed to the employee.

When servers clock out of Aloha, they are prompted to declare their tips. Is there a way to record the tips owed to each server also?

To complicate things, our servers typically work in teams, usually of two employees. One server may have $150 in credit card tips, the other may have $50, but they each need to be credited with $100, for example. In addition, they tip out to bar and bus departments, so just using the credit card tips isn't accurate.

I would also like to have the tips accumulate throughout the week and show on the Clock Out report when the server clocks out.

I've considered using the Pool Tips settings, but I think that will not work well in the team service environment. I've also considered using the Paid In button on the Financial page of Manager Screens, but maybe someone has an idea that I haven't though of.

Do you think I can accomplish this through the FOH, or will this more likely become a BOH process?

Thanks!

 

[Colin518]

Although i dont have first hand knowledge of aloha, (all of our systems are micros) i do have a fair amount of experience in employees receiving tips on checks rather than being cashed out (we made that transition 2 years ago for 5 sites) ADP and Paychex exports for a third party payroll import and tip pooling with support distribution.

We have cut the tips portion out of the export, except for the tips declared, So long the employees CC tips make up the federal minimum wage they can declare what ever they want and that amount is specific to that employee so it works well for the import. In my opinion your problem lies primarily in the pooling aspect of this change. Both that the employees need to pool with each other as well as kick a portion of that based on i assume either % of sales or % of tips. I would be shocked if Aloha had a system in place to allow for that complex of money management.

We turned this process into a separate excel sheet that management is responsible for filling out on a nightly basis that does all the pooling and tips allocation we need. That spread sheet produces a report that lines up with the CSV export for hours worked so we can just copy and paste the weekly tip totals and import that all at once. Excel macros are a glorious thing.

 

[soleman]

Colin518,
Thank you for your suggestions. This strategy may prove useful. I'm not sure we have the skills to make it work, but I will definitely look into it.

I was hopeful there might be something within Aloha that could facilitate the payroll export/import piece for the two pieces of data (tips claimed and tips owed).

 

[Colin518]

No problem. Im happy to help if you want to see the excel sheets or want help writing something for your own use.

 

[soleman]

That's a very generous offer that I can't refuse. If you're willing to share your excel sheets, I would be grateful, as it may save me a lot of trial and (likely) error.

 

[Colin518]

Sure thing, Shoot me an email Colin.m.ashe@gmail.com

 

[AlohaRoss]

You can get a simple program called gratrack that will do all the work for you. I works within Aloha as well. Costs less than $1 a day

gratrack.com

AlohaRoss

http://www.needaholahelp.com

An Aloha POS 3rd Party support Solution company.
We answer when they don't
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[soleman]

Thanks AlohaRoss, I will look into it. It sounds promising.

 

[USofAScott]

I know this is a somewhat old thread, but I was faced with the same problems.
I created a Excel Macro-Enabled Spreadsheet that reads the dbf file for each day of the payperiod and then organizes the info into a spreadsheet. Then I have a seperate spreadsheet that does all of the calculatiosn for tipshares and tipouts. Then a macro to combine all of it into one big TXT file for import into PayChex. End up with just a few keystrokes to create a payroll upload file.

 

[Colin518]

@USofAScott Any chance you can share that sheet? I don't have any any of my stores but god knows i love a well written excel sheet. perhaps i could learn a new trick or 2