Like many service industries, many pet care businesses collect tips from their customers. Tips can be a great way for your clients to show their appreciation for everything your team does for their pets. In this guide we will take a look at the process for enabling tips on your BusyPaws account.
For more information on tips, see our guides on How Clients Add Tips and Tracking Collected Tips.
Tips are part of the online payment process and are therefore set up to be used with Stripe payments. If you've not yet added Stripe to your account, check out our help guide on Stripe Payments.
Global Settings
Tips are an optional functionality within BusyPaws. To begin collecting tips, you will need to enable them on your account. Start by click the gear icon at the bottom of the lefthand menu bar.
Then select "Invoices" under "Product Configuration".
Locate the "Tip Options" section just below "Taxes".
Click the "Collect Tips" toggle to enable tips.
By default, tips will apply to all services, series, add-ons, and packages.
After enabling tips additional options will populate below the toggle. These options set the default prompts for clients when they choose to add a tip. Use the "%/$" buttons to choose whether tips should be percentage or dollar based.
Then enter the values for the three default tip prompts.
While the three defaults provide clients with preset options they may find easier to select from, customers are also able to choose a custom option. The custom option will always be in dollar-based format.
If you wish to exclude certain services, series, add-ons, or packages from tip collection, click "Configure Services".
The resulting pop-up includes options for restricting tips. By default, each will be set to "Applies to all...". Select the "Specific services", "Specific series", "Specific add-ons", and/or "Specific packages" button(s) to populate toggles for each purchase option in those categories.
After selecting one of the "Specific [item]" buttons, use the toggles to control which purchase options will prompt clients for tips.
Once you're happy with your chosen settings, click the "Save Settings" button to confirm them.
You'll then be redirected back to the main Invoice & Payment Settings page, with a green "Tip options saved successfully" banner displayed at the top.
The tag next to "Tip Options" indicates whether or not tips apply globally or to specific payments. This tag will only appear after you have selected Configure Services and saved your preferred settings. If no tag appears, tips will apply to all purchase items.
In-person purchases made on the integrated point-of-sale card card reader are only able to use the global tip settings. If different values are chosen at the service/series/package/add-on level those settings will apply only to online payments.
Service Settings
If your business offers a variety of services, you may wish to to not only disable tips on some services, but also to adjust the default amounts for others. For example, you may want the majority of your services to have a percentage based tip prompt, but for nail trims you want dollar-based options.
Settings chosen at the service level include only overrides for the three default tip options and the tip format (percentage vs. dollar). If you wish to disable tips for a service altogether, you will need to adjust the global setting options.
To adjust the default tip options for a service, start by locating it on your main Services page and selecting either its name or its gear icon.
Scroll down to locate the "Custom Overrides" section on the service's settings page. Click the "Tip Amounts" toggle to turn the override on (purple).
Enabling the toggle populates "%/$" buttons to choose the tip format and three fields to set the default tip prompts. These values will override the global settings chosen for tips.
If tips have been disabled globally or for the chosen service you will not be able to set an override at the service level.
Since tips can also apply to series, packages, and/or add-ons, override settings are likewise available for each purchase option.
Series
To adjust the default tip options for a series, start by locating it on your main Services page and selecting either its name or its gear icon.
Just as with services, there is a "Custom Overrides" section on the series' settings page. Click the "Tip Amounts" toggle to turn the override on (purple) and adjust the tip amount defaults.
If tips are disabled globally or for the chosen series you will not be able to set an override for the tip amounts.
Packages
Tips cannot be collected through the Package Purchasing Portal or purchases made through package direct links. If tips are enabled on packages clients will only be able to choose tip options if purchasing through the self-booking process or when paying a manual invoice.
To adjust the default tip options for a package, start by locating it on your main Packages page and selecting its name.
Find the "Tip Options" setting located beneath the "Package Image" section.
Click the "Tip Amounts" toggle to turn the override on (purple) and adjust the tip amount defaults.
If tips are disabled globally or for the chosen package you will not be able to set an override for the tip amounts.
Add-Ons
To adjust the default tip options for an add-on, start by locating it on your main Add-Ons page and selecting its name.
Find the "Tip Options" setting located beneath the "Price" field.
Click the "Tip Amounts" toggle to turn the override on (purple) and adjust the tip amount defaults.
If tips are disabled globally or for the chosen add-on you will not be able to set an override for the tip amounts.
Now that you know how to configure tips on your BusyPaws account, you may want to check out our other help articles to learn a bit more!
Keep in mind that tips are part of the online payment process and are therefore set up to be used with Stripe payments. If you've not yet added Stripe to your account, check out our help guide on Stripe Payments.