Possible Theft Issue with Hotel Micros 9700

[zenner8]

I have a client, the controller of a high end hotel, who has detected what he thinks may be theft but we haven't been able to connect the dots and I thought all of you may be of assistance.

They have the Micros 9700 and tips that are charged to the hotel go directly to the employees paycheck. The hotel controller noted that about 4 employees are constantly rounding DOWN the tips that are charged to the room so that they are an even number. Rounding down tips seems VERY odd and definitely suspicious.

Checks that are charged to the hotel. They are rounding the tip amount down to an even number.Say the check is $10 and they leave a $2.75 tip they are rounding the tip down to $2.00 for a total of $12.00. They then get their tips in their paycheck. Again there are 4 employees doing this.

We have nailed 2 or 3 bartenders in the the last few months at this location taking payments in cash and pocketing the money so the staff does have integrity challenges.

Thoughts? ideas? solutions?

 

[DTSMAN]

I would like to know what you find if you find the answer outside this forum. So please post back a solution if found.

1 possible solution is to corner them one at a time, back to back before the can work out an excuse together and ask them. See if they all give you the same answers. Pull good cop bad cop routine on the weak ones.

Follow them on an order from start to finish through whatever data Micros has to use. There may be a hole in the POS or in the PMS that they are taking advantage of.

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

http://www.redgreen.com

 

[TobeThor]

What do the employees gain by rounding down the tip amounts they receive in their pay checks? Is it theft? I must be missing something...sorry. Please elaborate a little more.

 

[dmagnerdds]

it doesnt make sense, arent they losing money by rounding down?

 

[zenner8]

Yes it doesn't make sense so why are 4 employees doing it?

 

[FieldCO]

Maybe they are pocketing the the rest and avoiding taxes? lol...

 

[TobeThor]

They can't pocket the rest. They (servers) post room charges to the guests folio thru the POS, it's electronic. The guests pays for their hotel bill when they check out. It is curious why 4 are doing this thou. They are very clever or very lazy or just plain stupid. Trying to avoid taxes is possible but the establishment (hotel) is entitled to change any servers tip reporting if their tips declared do not meet expected minimums. Request they index the exact tip in the future, if they don't, git rid of them.

 

[zenner8]

I contacted the IT Manager at another 5 diamond resort here in Phoenix and here is a synapse from my Director of Operations to our client:

Greetings xxxxx
As Michael mentioned, he and I had a conversation with the IT Director from xxxx xxxxxxxx Resort this morning. I dont know if his insights will shed any light on this situation, but this is what we discussed.

Firstly, he is very familiar with the Micros 9700 system and can see no outright gain to the employee who is rounding down or eliminating tip entries.
He suggested that perhaps the employees may be asking the guests to tip in cash to avoid the taxes associated with reporting tips through the standard system.

I see this as being highly unlikely as I suspect you would have heard about this from a guest by now.

He also suggested that under-reporting tips may have something to do with the "make-up" wages policy. Perhaps if the servers are making you pay make-up wages, they are again subject to less taxes and benefit that way. This may end up with them getting paid more on their checks than if they claimed all of their tips properly. If this is the motivation, I see it as being for little gain also. Its hard for me to understand how docking yourself tips could actually get you paid more at the end of the pay period.

The IT Director is going to explore some payroll tax implications with their Payroll Manager and get back to us. Hopefully their conversation will shed some light on this.

I think the answer may be found in the results of a payroll audit. We discussed this in our meeting, and I feel that if there is any measurable difference found there, the servers have found a loophole of some kind between the Micros system and payroll calculations.

I suspect they are unwisely risking their employment for a very minimal monetary gain. Of course if you add frequency and duration to a minimal gain, the they could paying dearly.

I hope this was helpful xxxxx, and thanks for letting us in on it. The more we learn about things like this, the more we can help our clients. We are here to help. Please let me know if you solve this one and Ill continue to pass on any new information we get on our end.

Thanks again
Keith​

 

[zenner8]

This is another answer I got out there. Think it holds water?

Michael,

The only thing I came up with is that if a charged tip is removed and the charged tip is less than 8%, the server does not declare because he/she would have to pay at least 8% taxes on it. By not declaring, they are then entitled to make-up wages, if their reportings do not add up to minimum wage based on a formula, then they get makeup wages.

The formula is something like this..

Total tips / hours worked = rate

If rate < Minimum wage, then rate + makeup = minimum wage

The only issue is that they are being taxed on wages anyway…so why do it ??

 

[FieldCO]

So I was right about taxes when I said it earlier...