When a guest tips an employee, outlet, or department, Aplauso keeps that entity as the canonical destination and calculates any employee allocations from that destination's own saved rule. This is called tip distribution.
When Does Splitting Apply?
Every rating and tip has one canonical destination: an employee, outlet, or department. The destination is selected by the link or kiosk flow the guest uses.
- Employee destination - the employee receives the dividend directly unless that employee has an enabled sharing rule.
- Outlet destination - the dividend is split equally among active employees assigned to that outlet unless the outlet has an enabled position-group rule.
- Department destination - the dividend is split equally among active employees assigned to that department unless the department has an enabled position-group rule.
Sharing changes only the tip allocation. The guest's rating remains attached to the canonical employee, outlet, or department.
Rules belong to the exact destination. An outlet does not silently inherit its department's rule, and an employee does not silently inherit an outlet or department rule.
Distribution Rules Available
Employee sharing
In Business → Team settings, open an employee's actions and choose Tip distribution. Select active employees at the same location and assign fixed percentages totaling 100%.
Outlet or department groups
Open the destination from Business → Departments or Business → Outlets, then use its Settings → Tip Distribution panel. Create position groups and assign each group a fixed percentage totaling 100%. A group's share is divided equally among active employees at that exact destination whose recorded position belongs to the group.
The configuration takes effect immediately for future tips.
Enabled rules must remain fully payable. Every employee recipient must be active in the same location, every funded position group must have at least one active matching employee, and percentages must total 100%. If any condition stops being true, new payments to that destination are blocked until the rule is fixed or disabled. Disabling the rule restores the direct employee or equal collective default.
How Aplauso Calculates and Routes the Split
When a tip is created:
- Aplauso records the canonical destination and hierarchy.
- Aplauso reads only that destination's enabled distribution rule.
- Aplauso calculates and stores the per-employee allocation plan.
- After payment is confirmed, those allocations become employee dividend records.
The guest sees a single payment confirmation regardless of how the split is processed behind the scenes.
Reviewing Split Distributions
Business reporting rolls the canonical tip and rating up through property, department, outlet, and employee scopes. Employee earnings use the resulting allocation or dividend records; collective ratings are not relabelled as personal employee ratings.