Running out of cash to pay daily credit card tips
Restaurants collect most customer payments electronically, leaving them without enough physical cash on hand to pay out daily tips. This forces owners to make frequent, large bank runs to withdraw thousands of dollars or abandon daily cash payouts altogether.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1transitioning credit card tips to regular payroll checks
- 2using daily digital tip payout cards or platforms
- 3frequently visiting the bank or ATM to withdraw large sums of cash
- 4keeping large amounts of cash in an on-site safe
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“It’s been years since we brought in enough cash to cover cc tips. I got tired of going to the bank and pulling 5-10k out of our checking for servers to get cc tips. I also hated having that much cash in a safe.”source ↗
“I do not like this system, it takes all our cash.”source ↗
“I have an issue with repeatedly going to the bank to pull cash to use in the store.”source ↗
“I simply don't have the cash on hand to do that.”source ↗
“We don’t have enough cash sales to do this so we just cut them a check at the end of the week.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4When should I prioritize cash savings over retirement contributions?
- 37How to decide whether to invest excess savings or keep them in an HYSA
- 2Why do clients take 30, 60, or 90 days to pay invoices?
- 2Do I need to tip wedding vendors who own their business?
- 4Why are Shopify payouts held and put on a rolling reserve?
- 7Why do I avoid using my emergency fund?