PetGroomBossPro Blog — Billing, Tips & Payments

The Grooming Tips Report: Every App Tip in One Place

Tips are small amounts that add up, and small amounts are the easiest things to lose track of. When tips come in one at a time on different invoices from different customers, the only way to know the total is to add them up. The tips report does that for you.

Where the Tips Come From

The way customers tip was covered in Grooming Tips in the Customer App: $10, $20, $30 or Other on a Paid Invoice. Once a customer has paid an invoice, they can leave a tip on it in the customer app, choosing $10, $20, $30 or another amount.

Every one of those tips lands on the PetGroomBossPro tips report. The report is the record of app tips, separate from the invoices themselves, so the owner can see tips without opening each paid invoice.

Why One Report Matters

Without a report, tips live in two places: the owner's memory and the bank statement. Neither is good at answering simple questions. How much did customers tip this week? Which visits brought in tips? What does the team need to be paid out?

A tips report puts the answer on one page. It turns tips from something you notice now and then into something you can count on and plan around. For a business with more than one groomer, it is also what makes paying tips out fair, because everyone can see the same numbers.

It also saves time. Without a report, finding the week's tips means opening invoice after invoice and adding them up. With one, it is a single page you can read in a minute and come back to whenever someone asks.

Paying Tips Out to Your Team

Many owners pay tips out to their groomers on a regular schedule, often with payroll. The tips report is what you work from. Look at the tips for the period, decide who they belong to under your policy, and pay them out.

If one groomer works a van alone, their tips are usually theirs. If a groomer and a bather share a van, you may share tips between them. How you do that is your call, and the software does not decide it for you. The report gives you the numbers; the split is an office practice. That topic has its own article: Splitting Grooming Tips Between Groomer and Bather: An Office Practice, Not a Software Setting.

Clean Records for Your Bookkeeper

Tips and sales are not the same thing, and your bookkeeper will want to see them separately. Because tips are left on paid invoices and listed on their own report, they stay apart from the invoice totals. Reports show what was billed and paid; the tips report shows what was tipped.

How tips are handled for tax and payroll depends on where you work, so ask your accountant. What the software gives you is a clear record to hand them, rather than a pile of bank transactions to sort through.

Pick a regular day to look at the report, such as the end of each pay period or once a week during your billing routine. Looking at tips on a schedule means nobody has to ask “did that tip come through?” and the payout is the same process every time.

Cash Tips Are Not on the Report

The tips report covers tips left in the customer app. Cash handed to the groomer at the van door never touches the software, so it will not appear on the report.

If your business pools or shares tips, decide how cash tips fit in and make the rule clear. Some owners let groomers keep their own cash tips and only pool app tips. Others ask groomers to log cash tips separately. Either way, the tips report is the reliable record for app tips.

Using the Report to Learn Something

Beyond paying out, the tips report can tell you a little about how customers feel. A customer who tips on most visits is probably happy. A customer who used to tip and stopped might be worth a check-in. A groomer whose customers tip often is likely doing something right that the rest of the team could learn from.

Do not read too much into any single tip. Plenty of happy customers never tip in the app. But over time, the report is one more signal alongside ratings and referrals in the customer app.

For ideas on encouraging tips without asking for them, read More Grooming Tips Without Asking at the Door. And to see the tips report alongside invoices, card on file and the rest of billing, visit the pet grooming invoicing software page.