A tip is optional and chosen by the customer. A service charge is set by the business and applied automatically, usually to a specific fulfilment type like eat in. They're handled differently under UK employment law — since 2024, discretionary tips and service charges must be passed to staff in full — and they need to be handled differently on a receipt too, or the whole thing reads as one confusing line.
What the customer actually sees
At checkout, a tip is a customer-chosen amount or percentage, clearly separate from the order total. A service charge, where one is configured, shows as its own line with its own label — never folded silently into the food total, because a customer who can't see it separately can't make an informed choice about it.
Rules on tipping, service charges and how they're distributed to staff change and vary by structure — check current guidance for your business rather than relying on a blog post for the specifics.
Setting it up
Tip and service charge settings live together in the admin: whether tipping is offered at all, the suggested percentages or amounts shown, and whether a service charge applies automatically to any fulfilment type. Getting this right once means every receipt afterwards is correct without a manual check.
Where it lands on the statement
Tips and service charges are tracked separately from the order value on the monthly statement too, for the same reason they're separate at checkout — see reading your first monthly statement for how that reconciles.
No setup fee, no contract. Nomvo is £69 a month, or £54 a month equivalent billed annually — no commission on any order. Card processing is charged separately by Stripe at their own published rate.
