Recently through work I was observing customer payment of restaurant bills. I was surprised to see that many people who are paying by credit card calculate a tip amount that makes the overall total an exact dollar number. For example, if the bill is $63.37, they may add a tip of $11.63 to bring the total to $75.00.
I personally do not do this - I would work out that the tip should be somewhere in the $10 - $15 range and add a whole number of dollars according to the quality of service.
So, do you do the rounding? If so, why? I can understand it when paying with cash to avoid getting change in coins, but why do so with a credit card payment?
And a supplementary question for servers - does it make life any easier or harder if the tip is a round number (and the total check not), or the tip is a “funny” number in order to round the check?
What Snake-Hips said. Calculating percentages is tough enough after a few drinks. Then try to add an odd tip amount? That would exceed my abilities under the usual circumstances.
I’ve been known to calculate tips so that the total bill is an even dollar amount. I don’t do it all the time though.
Mainly, if there’s a group of us (and we’re just going to split the bill equally), rather than asking the waiter/tress to split the bill, because it makes it simpler to tell people that they need to give the person paying the bill $15 instead of $14.57 or whatever.
Also, if I’m paying with a checkcard instead of a credit card, I’m likely to do it. It just makes things simpler when balancing my checkbook (although there are enough other items that are not even dollar amounts that it doesn’t simplify the process that much).
Plus I’m kind of a math geek and I like the calculation. Not as much fun as say, doing my taxes, but still.
Depending upon how the restaurant pays out the tips, making the tip an odd amount, like $11.73, can be a pain in the ass. In one place I worked, back in the Pleistocene Era, the cashier would pay the waiter in cash for each tip, when the payment was rung up. So, having odd amounts was really annoying.
I’ve never heard of doing this. Cash, yes, I do it with cash. But it seems like it’d be a pointless PITA to do it with credit. Most of the time when I pay with credit I leave a cash tip anyway. I know they get the money either way but I feel better about it if there’s actual cash visible.
I’m with Lsura. I thought my reason was using my debit card (thus the ease of balancing my checkbook), but then I had to admit to myself that I never balance my checkbook, or even write down my debit purchases. The truth is, I’m a math geek. And when I’m paying with cash, I’ll often pay in a way to get the least change: $22.07 for a $16.82 purchase, for example. (That used to be more fun in the days when the clerks used to count back the change “the old way”, and **lots ** more fun when the registers didn’t calculate the change for them.)
On the off chance that I ever actually attempt to balance my checking account, I’m convinced that nice round numbers are more convenient. I always round up from the appropriate tip amount so it’s actually good news for servers.
I have no real reason why - I just do…I know the tip should be about $X. I’ll put down a tip so that the total adds to a whole dollar amount. Subtracting from 100 is one of those things you learn at 5 - it’s much easier than calculating the tip in the first place.
However, if it makes things harder for servers, I’ll stop.
I do it too, just becuase I am a geek. I always figure the tip to the the percent I want to give, and then up the change so that I get an even dollar amount. I just did it last night when th elady and I went out for Vday dinner. It just somehow feels better in my head that I spent $150 on dinner instead of $149.17
I always round up so that the amount is the highest penny amount that I don’t have to carry. So say the bill is 12.33 and the service was not annoying I would want to tip about +20% , then I make the tip for 2.66.
I do the opposite, if the tip makes the total a even dollar amount, I will ajust it so it is not. I hate going through the CC statement and seeing all even $ amounts - it makes it harder to reconsile them, the full service gas stations are bad enough.
If I frequently round off to the nearest dollar I exponentially increase my chance of having a duplicate (or triplicate) dollar amount. Add to that that some merchanst have names not matching the receipt and I think you can see the reason. Gas is particularly bothersome because I usually fill after that light comes on, so the amount of gas is frequently the same.
I always round up for tips, usually to the nearest $5 in restaurants (I tip at 25 to 30% unless the service sucked). I do the same thing at the hairdressers, too.
Why? Because I do. Having worked in the service industry and getting 6 cent tips, I know that every little bit counts and anyone who complains about odd numbers doesn’t really need their tips.
As a server, I appreciated every dollar. It does seem a little funny though. I often look at it and wonder if people try to round off the bill at the grocery store.
But whatever. It really doesn’t matter that much to me if you leave me $5 or $5.13. At the end of my shift, the computers show the total amount I owe the restaurant for cash sales, minus the total of all of my credit card tips. Very easy.
No, duh, I’d rather get $12 than $11.73. And the cashier would rather take ANY even dollar amount out of the till, and put it into my tip envelope, rather than have to count out a handful of small change.
I tend to round the pre-tip amount up and tip 20% off of that number. So, for example, if the bill comes to $13.23, I round that up to $14.00 and tip $2.80 for a total of $16.03.
I even do that when the initial dollar amount is 1 cent over; so, if it’s $13.01, I still tip $2.80.
And the cashier would rather take ANY even dollar amount out of the till, and put it into my tip envelope, rather than have to count out a handful of small change.