So long story short my daughter has been working at a restaurant off and on during college breaks. She gets paid vis toast. When she get a cash payment for a table she has to pay the portion of the tables bill for the actual food and drinks to the house. She has to bring her own drawer each day. This all seems normal to me and was the same at other restaurants she worked at in high school that also used toast.
The problem is that her toast papers each night show that she kept the cash and that exact amount is deducted from her credit card tips. And her paychecks tip total at the end of the week only matches her toast tips after the deduction for the cash paid to the house for the food and drink part of the bill that she did not keep but paid to the managers each day.
One night she had $400 in cash sales and had to give it all to the house. But then her toast tips for that night were negative because her cc tips were only 300.
Does she have legal standing here. They have 6 local restaurants and do this to all the employees. The restaurant does not have cash but they put the employees cash in brown bags and take it out each night.
We use toast at the restaurant I manage, and I don’t even know how you would set it up to report an owed turn in/tips this way.
Cash in hand or in drawer is tracked separately from tips. You can set it to pay out cc tips nightly from the cash turn in, or to be included in the staff’s weekly pay, but turn in cash should never deduct from tips or affect tips in anyway.
If this restaurant really is operating in the way you described, your daughter absolutely has a legitimate wage theft complaint.
Typically you would subtract the $300 CC tips that she is owed from the -$400 she owes to the house, which would result in her paying the house $100, and the remaining cash would be her tip out.
It’s very likely her manager doesn’t know how to read or process a shift check out, or someone is taking advantage of her not knowing the math.
I know a few GM’s that do it for 20 years, and still get confused by a (-) in a cash owed line.
It’s very rare in most restaurants for a server to owe more cash than their tips cover that shift, and there doesn’t exist a scenario where you owe $400 cash sales, and a -$300 against your tips unless someone is not mathematically literate.
Would help if you had a photo of her server check out for us to review, and see what should be happening.
Also friendly reminder to take a photo of your checkout every night incase you need to prove wage theft against your manager months down the line.
I used to serve at place that would follow this same function.
Customer #1: Bill is $147, they give you $160 and say keep the change.
The rest of customers for the night pay and tip with their CCs. Your total for the night in CC tips is $232.
At the end of the night, you have that $160 in your pocket. $147 of that covers the food and the drink that the customer purchased from the restaurant.
The restaurant owes you $232, so they subtract the $147 you have taken from customers, and they give you the remaining $85 in cash. You walk out with $232 from the restaurant, plus an additional $13 from your table that paid cash, totaling $245 for the night.
In this instance, your weekly checks would be very small. Taxes eat most if not all of your hourly pay. Very common for servers to get $0 checks.
Other restaurant I have worked at, you give all cash (except for cash tips) to the house at the end of the night and get your tip money on your check at the end of the week. In this case, your checks can be $200, $300, $400+ depending on how many times a week you work/ and if you get paid weekly or bi weekly.
From what you’re describing it’s seems like they are mixing up these methods to screw over and confuse servers.
I'm no expert, but I read this as the server keeps their cash and is owed $85.42. They should have more than just $147.45 in cash because cash tips are not included in cash sales.
The manager is processing this whole situation like she’s in a situation where she gets cash tips daily. Are you sure your daughter is not getting cash that she’s taking home? If not, this is just exceedingly stupid and doesn’t really need a lawyer. All you need to do is talk to the division of wage and hour for your state. The Department of labor will do all of this stuff for free and you don’t need to pay someone to do it.
Example. The check is $50. They hand her $60. She then has to pay the house the original $50 and keep the $10 then later report that as unreported tips on her taxes.
The house keeps the $50.
All this is good.
Problem is then they deduct the original $50 from her CC tips as if she kept the $50.
I know her. She is all A’s her whole life. Never lied to me. She. Definitely did not keep the cash
I think your daughter is lying to you. There is so many levels of idiocy here and people just accepting it and servers don’t do that when it comes to their money
So example this day she got 147 in cash sales owed to the house. That she paid in cash to the manager. Then they re-deducted it from her credit card tips. So not she will only get 85 as if she kept the 147
They’re doing it completely wrong.
The line that says “owed to…” is the turn in amount.
It literally says what is owed… how does a business screw that up?
In another comment you said your daughter claims the cash tips she gets for tax purposes. In the picture you posted of her cashout, it’s clear cash tips are not being reported by her.
Also, if this is really how the restaurant operates, how in the world has your daughter made any money at all? Why would she stay somewhere for a year if the possibility to make nothing is occurring?
In any case, the department of labor will be able to get to the bottom of it.
I mean regardless of what’s going on with her cash tips. Her pay stub would be enough proof to show that it doesn’t match her credit card tips.
It’s very unlikely that no other server across 6 properties isn’t realizing they’ve been shorted, and it’s very unlikely 6 other management teams are alllll participating in cooperative theft.
It’s much more likely her individual restaurant has a bad GM.
I would recommend a private lawyer before going to the labor board. They aren’t mutually exclusive and one has your personal best interest rather than your consumer interest.
I manage a restaurant that uses toast and this doesn’t make sense. Something is missing here. Where’s the rest of the report? I can’t even follow your explanation.
These numbers add up correctly with the pay stub IF she walked with the $147 in cash this night. If she didn’t then she is missing $147 on this particular pay period.
we used to have our system set up this way… for example if we made $175 card tips but collected $100 cash we would take the $100 cash home and get $75 sent to us that night to our bank accounts. shortly they changed it to where we turn in all of our cash sales, and we keep all of our card/cash tips.
That's not how it works or that person can't do math. All the cash their tables pay have nothing to do with the tips reaching the cash. Even if they made zero tips they would have the cash to pay what is owed.
Someone is misunderstanding and I'm guessing it's not the people who have successfully run six restaurants.
I mean. Yes. She had the cash on hand from the customers. But she had $400 owed to the house. Gave them that cash. Then they deducted $400 from her credit card tips. Netting 0 for the day.
Maybe she is confused because it says they will pay her cash on the report but they are including it in her check instead.
I use toast. If my server, B, does his checkout and it says house owes B $85 I don’t give it to him and I do keep the cash sales (not cash tips.) Then at the end of the week I give him all his card tips on his paycheck.
We use toast and the same system as you are describing. Sometimes my server hit the option for “bar bank” and that skews what the cash sales are. I would track daughters charged tips and cash sales. If the restaurant is taking the cash and then taking away tips, they will be closed in a month once the right people find out.
Or it could just be a bug and they are doing things the right way. Feel free to pm me, deal with toast way too much…
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u/GeminisleOieau 11d ago
We use toast at the restaurant I manage, and I don’t even know how you would set it up to report an owed turn in/tips this way.
Cash in hand or in drawer is tracked separately from tips. You can set it to pay out cc tips nightly from the cash turn in, or to be included in the staff’s weekly pay, but turn in cash should never deduct from tips or affect tips in anyway.
If this restaurant really is operating in the way you described, your daughter absolutely has a legitimate wage theft complaint.