At the end of the night the tips are in the jar and everyone wants to go home. Enter the amount and your team, choose whether to split equally, by hours or by points, and the calculator tells you to the cent who gets how much, rounded to coins if you like.
Three ways to split tips
Split equally, everyone gets the same amount. That is simple and fits when everyone worked the same hours. Split by hours, whoever was there longer gets correspondingly more. This is the most common and usually the fairest solution for teams with part-timers and casual staff.
Split by points, the hours are weighted as well. For example, service could get one point per hour, the kitchen 0.8 and casual staff 0.5. Which weighting is fair is best decided together with the team and written down, so there are no arguments later.
Rounding to coins
If you pay out tips in cash, you do not want to fiddle with one-cent coins. The calculator rounds each share down to 10 cents, 50 cents or whole euros. Whatever is left over from rounding is shown as the remainder. Put the remainder in the pool for the next day, so nothing gets lost.
With the list to copy, you document every payout with date and amount, for example in a notes app or the team chat. That builds trust and helps if someone asks later.
Card tips
More and more guests tip by card. This money first lands in the business account and has to be passed on to the team. Add up cash and card tips before you split, and pay out the card share in cash every week, for example, or with the payroll.
Tips belong to the team. The business may not keep any of it, not even for card fees, unless this has been expressly agreed.
Tax and social insurance
Voluntary tips from guests to employees are tax-free in Austria and Germany under certain conditions (in Austria § 3 Abs. 1 Z 16a EStG, in Germany § 3 Nr. 51 EStG, the respective income tax acts). In Austria, social insurance contributions are also due on tips via flat rates, whose rules were changed recently. Tips that owners receive themselves, on the other hand, count as business income.
Whether your split model stays free of tax and contributions depends on how it is set up, for example on who manages the pool. Have it checked once by your payroll office or tax advisor. The calculator helps you split fairly, it does not replace legal advice.