In this article, you'll learn how to collect tips from your clients. Plenty of customers are happy to tip a crew that did good work. They just need to be asked at the moment they pay.
Tips come in two ways:
- Online, when a customer pays an invoice from the link you sent them
- In person, when you take a card on your phone with Tap to Pay or by typing it in
Both use the same setting, and in both the customer picks the tip.
Turning tips on
To open your tip settings:
- In the menu, click the Settings gear.
- Under General, click Tips.
The Ask for a tip switch decides whether customers get asked at all. It's on when you start. Turn it off and paying goes straight from the invoice to the signature, and the percentages under it grey out. The switch saves as soon as you click it.
Under the switch you pick the three percentages customers see. To change them, see Customizing the suggested tips your clients see.
Collecting tips online
There's nothing extra for you to do here. When a customer opens an invoice you sent and goes to pay, the first step asks Add a tip?
What the customer sees:
- The amount due, then a row of buttons: No Thanks, your three percentages, and Custom.
- If they pick Custom, a box opens where they type a dollar amount.
- Once they've picked a tip, a line under the buttons shows the tip and the new total.
- They click Continue, sign under Add your signature, then pay under Make a payment. The amount there notes how much of it is the tip.
Collecting tips in person on the phone app
In the phone app, the tip comes up when you take a card with Tap to Pay or Type card manually. You hand the phone to the customer and they choose.
To take a payment with a tip:
- Open the job and tap Finance.
- Under Payments, tap Add payment. The Collect payment screen opens.
- Tap Tap to Pay on iPhone (on Android it says Tap to Pay), or tap Type card manually.
- The next screen shows the amount under Review your payment summary. Hand the phone to the customer and have them tap Approve Amount.
- They'll see Would you like to add a tip? with a tile for each of your percentages. Each tile shows the dollar amount too.
- They tap a tile, or tap Custom tip amount, type their own and tap Save, or tap No tip.
- The summary updates with the tip and the new total. They tap Add tip (it says Continue if they didn't add one).
- Under Add your signature, they tap the Tap to sign box and sign.
- For Tap to Pay, they tap Pay (the button shows the total) and hold their card or phone to the top of your iPhone, or the back of an Android phone. The screen says Approved when it goes through. For a typed card, they tap Continue to card and you type the card in.
Charging a saved card with Charge card ending … doesn't ask for a tip. You also need permission to charge credit cards to see the card buttons at all.
If you open a job in a phone browser instead of the app, Tap to Pay shows the same tip and signature screens. The tap itself then happens in the Stripe app, which the screen walks you through.
Seeing the tip on the job
Once the payment goes through, the tip is added to the job's total. In the job's totals, a Tip line shows up just above Total. On a phone and in the app, you'll find it on the Finance tab. It only appears once a customer has left a tip.
To see all your tips in one place, see Tracking tips collected from clients.