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Settle payments and manage tips

Who is this article for?
  • Account owners or team members with the account and settings permission to configure checkout settings can enable and customise tipping.
  • Account owners or team members with the transactions permission to settle all transactions awaiting tip can settle payments with tips.
  • Set permissions in Square Dashboard.
  • About payments and tips 

    Square makes it easy to accept digital tips. You can customise how you collect tips and the options for your customers to give tips.

    Before you begin 

    • After 36 hours, all unsettled payments will be automatically settled with a $0 tip. 

    • You cannot adjust tips after payments are settled.

    • If you’re using Square to manage your team, team members can only settle payments they’ve processed by default, and tips will be attributed to the team member that processed the payment.

    • Settled payments will appear in your next transfer based on your transfer schedule, and they’ll also appear as completed in your sales history and transactions. Learn more about how to set up and edit transfer options.

    Step 1: Enable tipping

    You can set up and customise tipping preferences on your point of sale app. 

    1. From the navigation bar at the bottom of your screen, tap More.

    2. Tap Settings > Checkout > Tipping.

    3. Toggle on Collect Tips and select between showing your tip options on the signature screen or on a separate screen.

    4. Choose Smart Tip Amounts or Set Percentage Amounts. See Step 2 for detailed information.

    5. Choose to Allow Custom Amounts. If Allow Custom Amounts is enabled and the preset amounts are all set to 0%, your point of sale app will hide these amounts and display only the Custom Tip Amount and No Tip options.

    6. Choose to display a Separate Tipping Screen.

      • If you choose to display a Separate Tipping Screen, your customers can select a tip after the payment has processed.

      • If you opt not to display a Separate Tipping Screen, tipping options will be shown on the signature screen.

    Step 2: Customise tip settings 

    Set Smart Tip Amounts

    When Smart Tip Amounts is enabled, tipping works as follows:

    • If a transaction is less than $10, the available tipping options are: No Tip, $1, $2 or $3.
    • For a transaction $10 or more, the available tipping options are: No Tip, 15%, 20% or 25%.

    Set Percentage Amounts

    Enabling custom tip amounts allows you to set three custom amounts, which you can adjust at any time. To create custom tipping amounts:

    1. Tap Set Percentage Amounts within your tipping settings.
    2. Tap each amount field to enter your custom percentage.
    3. To allow your customers to enter a tip amount of their choosing, toggle on Allow Custom Amounts.

    Note: Setting your fixed percentage amounts to 0% will only give your customers the ability to enter a custom tip amount.

    Set tip calculation

    You will need to select if you would like your tips to be added before or after your taxes have been applied to the sale.

    Step 3: Settle payments with tips

    All signed receipts must be settled within 36 hours. You can settle payments individually or in bulk from your point of sale app. There are two options for settling your payments:

    • Add tips and settle transactions individually

    • Bulk settle multiple transactions

    Individually

    Point of sale app

    From the point of sale app with full service, quick service, or bar mode enabled or from the Square Restaurant POS app:

    1. From the Square Restaurant POS app, tap Transactions > then tap the card icon.
    2. Select the payments in question and enter the tip amount.
    3. Tap Add > Settle $ Total.

    From the point of sale app with standard mode enabled:

    1. From the main navigation bar, tap Transactions.
    2. Payments awaiting settlement will have a clock icon.
    3. Tap a payment and enter the tip amount. Note: If you’re using Quick Tip, select from the tip options you’ve enabled. If you’re using Traditional Tip, manually enter the tip amount for each payment.
    4. Tap Add > Settle $ Total.

    In bulk

    Point of sale app

    From the point of sale app with full service, quick service, or bar mode enabled or from the Square Restaurant POS app:

    1. From your point of sale app, tap Transactions > then tap the card icon.
    2. Select the payments in question and enter the tip amount. If you’re using Quick Tip, select from the tip options you’ve enabled. If you’re using Traditional Tip, manually enter the tip amount for each payment.
    3. Tap Add > Settle $ Total.

    You can also settle open bills by running your Close of Day report.

    From the point of sale app with standard mode enabled:

    1. From the main navigation bar, tap Transactions.
    2. Tap the card icon in the top-left corner.
    3. Tap Tip next to each payment, and enter or select the tip amount.
    4. Tap Settle > Confirm Settle.

    Step 4: View unsettled payments

    You can view payments awaiting tips from reports in your Square Dashboard, but these payments can only be settled from the point of sale app. You can view payments awaiting settlement from your Transactions report or your Sales summary report.

    Transactions report

    1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Reporting > Transactions.
    2. From the banner at the top of the page, you’ll see the total number of unsettled payments.
    3. Click View Transactions to see a full list. Once you’ve added tips and settled payments, these payments will appear in your Transactions CSV.

    Sales summary report

    1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Reports > Sales Summary.
    2. In the filter bar, select whether you want to view Open Bills, Closed Bills, or All Bills.
    3. If you select Open Bills or All Bills, you can view the sales figures for all unsettled payments.

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