Guests satisfied with your service may want to leave a tip when they pay for their order, as a reward for your service. Integrating tips into the billing process with Mews helps transactions become more efficient and straightforward for both staff and guests. To accept tips in Mews Operations, you first need to enable tipping as an additional service. You can then add a tip to the guest’s bill and charge them as you normally would.  

In this article you can learn how to:

• Manage tips in Mews Operations
  • Step 1: Create a tip as an additional service
  • Step 2: Add a tip when closing a bill 
  • Step 3: Paying out tips

 

Manage tips in Mews Operations  

You can provision for tips as an additional service in Mews. You also need to then create all the accounting categories related to this additional service. This ensures that you can differentiate between tips and revenue in your accounting report.

 

Step 1: Create a tip as an additional service  

To create a tip as an additional service:

1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu  > Settings > Services.
2. Click + and select Additional service.
3. Enter the name of the additional service, for example, Tips.
4. Enter details in the following fields:

• Ordering: Enter a number corresponding to the position you want the tips to occupy in a list of your property's additional services. Note: Lower numbers appear higher on the list, for example “-10” appears higher than “10”.
• Currency: Click to select your property’s currency.
• Amount: Enter ‘0’. You can edit the amount in Step 2 when adding it to the bill.   
• Options: Select the following:
  • Has configurable business segment: To allow employees to assign a segment when creating a new reservation in Mews Operations.
  • Has expanded bill items: To list items individually on bills, instead of grouping them so guests can clearly see the tip on their bill.   
  • Has overridable price: To allow employees with billing permissions to override the ‘price’ of the tip.
  • New orders automatically processed: To automatically process new orders without requiring manual confirmation from an employee.
  • Offer to employee: To list the tip on the customer dashboard so employees can add it to bills. 

5. Click Create.  

 

Step 2: Add a tip when closing a bill  

Once you create a tip as an additional service, you can add it to a bill when you close it:

1. In Mews Operations, click on any customer profile or enter the customer's name in the Mews Dashboard search bar.
2. Go to the Billing tab. Locate the bill you want to settle.
3. Click + Add product and select ‘Tips’.
4. In the new window, under Amount, enter the tip. Click Create. 
5. Click the Charge and close button. Note: Mews only displays the Charge and close button for guest profiles with attached payment cards.
6. Select the correct payment card from the dropdown list. Note: The dropdown displays all payment cards attached to the customer's profile.
7. To charge the card and close the bill, click Confirm.
8. Mews displays the Review and close screen. Review the bill and update with any additional information.
9. To close the bill, scroll down and select Close.  

  

Step 3: Paying out tips 

When you add a tip to a bill and close it, you then need to pay out to ensure the tip is not only registered as incoming revenue but also as an outgoing payout. Follow the steps below to ensure your accounting and cashier logs are accurate and no money is unaccounted for:

1. In Mews Operations, click on the profile of the customer who gave the tip or enter their name in the Mews Dashboard search bar. 
2. Go to the Billing tab and click + Add bill.
3. Enter a name for the new bill, for example ‘Tip’, click Create. 
4. Click + Add product and select ‘Tips’.
5. In the new window, under Amount, enter the tip as a negative amount, for example, -10. 
6. Click Create.
7. In the new bill, click Payments > Cash payment. 
8. Click Create. 
9. Click Close, then click Close again to confirm. 
10. Take the cash tip out of the cashier.  

 

You can now manage and process tips in Mews Operations. To keep your logs accurate, process your tip payouts as soon as you receive them.  

 

You can track changes to bills with the Action log.  

 

You can learn more about taking payments here.