Tip Adjustments

If your organization takes card payments through Cosairus Payment Services (CPS) with an Ingenico Lane 5000 terminal, the terminal can ask the customer to add a tip before they tap or insert their card. Petsoft adds the tip on top of the invoice total and records it as Gratuity, so it stays separate from the price of your services and your staff can be paid out from it.

note

The tip prompt is a feature of the integrated card terminal. Cards on file, the virtual terminal, cash, and payments made in the Parent Portal do not prompt for a tip.

How the prompt works

1. Staff select the terminal and click Pay Invoice as usual. See Invoices & POS for the full checkout flow.
2. The terminal shows the tip screen. It offers the preset choices configured for that terminal — up to three percentages, for example 15%, 18%, and 20% — and always offers a custom amount option, so the customer can type any tip they like.
3. The customer picks a preset or enters a custom amount, then taps or inserts their card.
4. The card is charged the invoice amount plus the tip in a single transaction, along with any service fee your terminal is configured to collect.

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The terminal has no separate "No Tip" button. A customer who does not want to tip chooses the custom amount option and enters 0. That is why the custom amount option is always offered and cannot be turned off.

Percentages are calculated on the amount sent to the terminal, which is the amount being paid, including sales tax.

Setting up your tip percentages

Tip prompts are enabled on the terminal by Petsoft Support. You cannot switch them on from your facility settings.

Create a support ticket from Help > Support Tickets (see Support tickets & help desk) and include:

• The facility and the name of each terminal the prompt should be enabled on
• Your preferred percentages, up to three, for example 15, 18, and 20
• Whether you want the prompt on every terminal or only some of them

Whole percentages only — 18, not 17.5. If you prefer to offer fixed dollar amounts instead of percentages, such as $2, $5, and $10 (up to $9,999 each), say so in the ticket: a terminal's presets are all percentages or all amounts, not a mix. You can also ask for no presets at all, so the customer is only offered a custom amount, or ask Support to turn the prompt off again later.

Where the tip appears

Place	What you see
Invoice	A line named Gratuity for the tip alone. The invoice total grows by the tip, and the invoice reaches Paid when the payment covers the remaining balance. Pet parents see the same line on the invoice in the Parent Portal.
Payment	The payment amount is the full amount charged to the card, including the tip.
Receipt	A Gratuity row below Sales Tax on the printed receipt, and a Gratuity item in the emailed receipt.

Refunds and partial payments

• Refunds. The Gratuity line is an ordinary invoice line, so Refund Invoice lets you refund it on its own, leave it in place while refunding a service, or return it along with everything else. Refunding the whole invoice returns the tip along with the rest of the payment.
• Partial payments. Each terminal payment prompts for a tip separately, on the amount being paid at that moment. A customer who pays in two visits can tip on each, or on neither.

Reporting on tips

The tip is part of the card payment and appears on the payment and the receipt, but the Credit Card Revenue Report does not include it. That report totals the items sold on each invoice, and a tip is not an item. Behind the scenes Petsoft posts the tip to a Gratuity Payable account rather than to sales revenue, so it is money you hold for your staff, not income from services. Petsoft records each tip on its invoice; how you distribute tips to employees is up to your business.

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Because tips reach your bank account but not the report, they are one reason a bank deposit runs higher than the Credit Card Revenue total for the same period. See Financial Reporting Guide for the other usual causes.