Tips and receipts
By the end of this article you’ll know how to add a tip when you charge a card, what the customer is really being asked for, and what — if anything — lands in their inbox afterwards.
Add a tip to a card charge
On the payment screen, under Add a tip:
- No tip is selected to begin with. Leave it if the customer isn’t tipping — it’s a deliberate choice, not a blank.
- Tap one of the percentages, or type a dollar figure into Custom amount. Typing anything clears the percentage; clearing the field goes back to No tip.
- The Total to Charge at the top updates, and a line under it reads Includes a … tip.
- Tap Collect with the amount. The confirmation — Charge … to the card on file? — names the full figure, tip included, so the customer agrees to the number they’ll see on their statement.
What the percentage is a share of
A percentage tip is worked out on the Job Total, not on the Balance Due. A job can carry a deposit, so what’s left to charge at the car is often a fraction of what the work was worth — and tipping on the leftover would ask the customer to tip on the leftover.
On a $200 job with a $129.28 deposit, the balance is $70.72. 20 % is $40, not $14.14. That can make the tip larger than the balance it’s added to; that’s correct, and both figures are on screen so nobody agrees to a number they haven’t seen.
Cash tips
The Cash or check panel has no tip field. A cash tip is simply handed to you — don’t add it to Amount received. Anything you record above the invoice’s balance becomes credit on the customer’s account, which isn’t what either of you meant.
Where the tip goes
The tip rides on the card payment, separate from the invoice: it never lowers the balance, never counts as a sale, and never shows in the invoice’s totals. The office sees it as money the business owes you. How and when it’s paid out is your business’s arrangement, not something the app decides.
What the customer receives
Receipts go by email, and only to a customer with an email address on file. What arrives depends on where the invoice stands:
- The charge clears an invoice the office has already sent. The customer gets the paid-invoice email. If there was a tip, a receipt for the payment goes too, naming the tip — the invoice can’t, since the tip isn’t on it.
- The charge is a part payment. A receipt for the amount, naming the balance still owed.
- The invoice hasn’t been sent yet. The money is held for it. The customer gets a receipt for the amount as credit on their account now, and the paid-invoice email once the office sends the invoice.
- Cash or a check. No receipt for the payment itself. When the record reaches the office and clears an invoice that’s been sent, the paid-invoice email goes out.
The phone shows no receipt to hand over and prints nothing. For a customer with no email on file, the confirmation on your screen is the only record at the car; the office can print or send the invoice from there.
Good to know
- A tip can’t be added after the charge. If a customer decides to tip once the card has gone through, it’s cash — or the office can handle it.
- Refunds are the office’s. A refund never un-pays an invoice, and refunding the full charge returns the tip with it.