Creating a Whole House tip pool

Everybody's tips go into one pot, and everybody shares it.

This is one of the most-asked-for arrangements, and the basic version takes one row.

New to tip pools generally? Read §1 of the main guide first — it explains "gives" and "receives", which is all the background you need here. If your house runs percentage tip-outs instead (servers give the bar 3%), you want Creating a standard percentage pool.

Contents

1. What "whole house" means
2. The setup
3. How it splits between people
4. Excluding jobs
5. Overriding one job
6. Points, explained properly
7. Check it before payroll
8. Troubleshooting

1. What "whole house" means

Every tip anyone rings goes into one pot. Everyone working that day takes a share.

Whoever you include is both putting in and taking out. Somebody who rings a check doesn't keep their own tip; they get a share of the whole pot like everyone else.

Two special options make this possible

At the top of both job dropdowns:

• Every job — in the gives slot: every job that rings a check contributes
• Everyone on the clock — in the receives slot: everybody working shares

They aren't real jobs on your job list. They mean "whoever that turns out to be on the day", so the pool never needs updating as you add jobs or change staffing.

This is why it's one row. Before these existed you needed a row for every pairing of jobs — six jobs meant thirty-six rows — and a missed pairing quietly stopped one job receiving from one contributor. Nobody notices until payroll.

2. The setup

1. Tip Pools → New pool

2. Name it — Whole House is fine. The name shows on the Tip report.

3. Pool type: Percentage

4. Pot size: One pot a day

5. Split method: By hours worked

6. Add one row:

   Every job gives 100 % of Tips to Everyone on the clock

7. Save

The row reads back to you as:

Everyone puts 100% of tips into one pot and the whole house shares it

and carries the 🔄 pool badge, because everybody contributing is also receiving.

Pooling only part of the tips

100 % puts every tip in. Plenty of houses pool a share and let people keep the rest:

Every job gives 30 % of Tips to Everyone on the clock → Everyone puts 30% of tips into one pot and the whole house shares it

Everyone keeps 70% of what they rang; 30% goes in the shared pot.

3. How it splits between people

"By hours worked" means hours in the pot — the whole shift on a daily pot. Not the time somebody was on the floor for one particular check.

Split evenly is easy to pick by accident. If one person works two hours and another works ten, splitting evenly hands them the same money. Some houses do that deliberately — just make sure you are.

4. Excluding jobs

Common: everyone shares except managers, or except the kitchen. Open the row's ⚙ gear and use Pay everyone except.

You can exclude two ways, and you can use both at once:

Every job gives 100 % of Tips to Everyone on the clock, excluding Host → Everyone puts 100% of tips into one pot and the whole house shares it, except Host

Every job gives 100 % of Tips to Everyone on the clock, excluding Back of House → Everyone puts 100% of tips into one pot and the whole house shares it, except Back of House

The one thing to understand about exclusions

An excluded job still contributes. It just doesn't get paid.

A Host who rings a check still puts that tip into the pot — they simply take nothing back out. That asymmetry is deliberate, and it's what people usually mean. If you want a job out of the pool entirely, don't exclude it — see §5.

Prefer a labor group when there is one

Excluding Back of House keeps working when you hire a new prep cook next month. Excluding the Cook and Dish jobs by name does not — the new job isn't on your list, so it starts getting paid and nobody notices. NX resolves the group fresh every time the pool runs.

Exclusions only apply when the row pays Everyone on the clock. On a row that names its receiver there's nothing to exclude, and NX tells you the list is having no effect rather than letting you believe a protection is in place.

5. Overriding one job

Excluding stops a job being paid. Overriding changes what a job puts in. Add a second row that names the job:

Every job gives 100 % of Tips to Everyone on the clock Bartender gives 50 % of Tips to Everyone on the clock → Bartender gives 50% of tips to everyone on the clock

Bartenders now put in 50%, everyone else 100%. Bartenders still receive from the pot.

The rule: a row naming a job replaces the "Every job" row for that job. It does not stack. Bartenders pay 50%, not 150%.

Taking a job out of the pool completely

Set its override to 0 %. It contributes nothing — and because a 0 % row is still a row that names the job, it also stops the default applying to them.

What does not override

A row pointing at a different receiver is a separate arrangement and applies as well:

Every job gives 100 % of Tips to Everyone on the clock Server gives 3 % of Tips to Bartender

Servers put into the house pot and tip the bar. That's usually what people mean when they set both up, so NX doesn't merge them.

If a tip-out row has nobody to pay

A tip-out added on top of the house pot — Server → Barback 5% — pays nothing on a night with no barback, and its share is not given back to the pot. It stays with whoever rang the check.

The main house row (Every job → Everyone on the clock) almost never hits this, because somebody is always on the clock. It's the named tip-out rows that strand.

To catch it, open one row's ⚙ gear and tick:

☑ Pay this row whatever the other rows don't distribute

That row is settled last and picks up anything the others couldn't hand out. It has no percentage — its amount is whatever is left. One per pool, percentage pools only. Full explanation in §6 of the percentage guide.

Unsure how a combination behaves? Put it in and run the dry run. It costs nothing and settles it.

6. Points, explained properly

Points are the alternative to percentages, and they're widely misunderstood. Two facts clear most of it up.

Fact 1 — points are a ratio, not a percentage

10 points is not 10%. Points only have meaning next to other points.

• Everyone on 5 points → everyone equal
• Everyone on 1 point → exactly the same result
• Cooks on 10, everyone else on 5 → cooks count double

Only the proportion matters. 10 and 5 is identical to 2 and 1. The most any row can carry is 10, which is plenty — you're describing a ratio, not a score.

Fact 2 — a points pool always pools the whole tip

Choose Points pool and 100% of every tip goes into the pot. There is no percentage to set.

If you want to pool only part of the tips — the 30% example in §2 — you need Percentage, not points. This is the single most common mix-up.

Points and hours work together

Your share is your points × your hours. On By hours worked, someone on 10 points working 4 hours and someone on 5 points working 8 hours take the same amount.

Setting one up

1. Pool type: Points pool
2. Row: Every job → Everyone on the clock, 5 points → Everyone takes 5 points of one shared pot

Everyone counts equally, weighted by hours. To weight a job differently, add a row naming it:

3. Row: Every job → Cook, 10 points → Cook takes 10 points of the pot

Cooks now count double. Same override rule as §5 — the named row wins for that job.

Which should I use? Percentage, unless your house genuinely thinks in shares ("cooks get two shares, dish gets one"). Percentage also lets you pool part of the tips, which points cannot.

7. Check it before payroll

The status light

A whole-house pool should show 🟢 Active. Anything else, open it and read the reality check.

The dry run

Preview tab → pick a recent busy business date → run. Nothing is saved and no money moves.

Look at:

• Per-employee net — what payroll would adjust by. Scan for anyone at zero who shouldn't be.
• Total distributed vs tips collected. On a 100% pool these should be very close.
• Per-job reality check — a job with no active employees can't receive.
• Anyone you excluded should show tips paid in and nothing coming back.

Run it on a busy day. A Tuesday lunch with two staff won't show you what a Saturday will.

8. Troubleshooting

🔴 Inert

1. Pool type isn't Track only — Track only never moves money, by design.
2. There's at least one row.
3. The row has a percentage (or points) above zero.
4. Your exclusions haven't excluded everybody — NX blocks saving if nobody is left to pay.

🟠 Partly dead

A row points at a job nobody holds; the reality check names it. Usually an override or tip-out row aimed at a retired job — the "Every job" row itself can't cause this.

Somebody got nothing

• They weren't clocked in when the checks closed
• They're excluded — check §4, and remember they still contribute
• Their shift was still open; provisional numbers settle at close-day

The dry run distributes less than the tips collected

A row couldn't pay — usually a named tip-out whose job was unfilled that day. Its share stays with whoever rang the check rather than returning to the pot. A remainder row catches it; see §5.

An excluded job is still getting paid

Check whether you excluded the job or the labor group, and whether that job is actually in the group you excluded. A job in no group isn't caught by a group exclusion.

Somebody's paying twice

You've got a named row and an "Every job" row aimed at different receivers, which both apply on purpose (§5). If you meant the named row to replace the default, point it at the same receiver.

The numbers look too small

Check the percentage — 10 % where you meant 100 %. The row reads itself back in plain English; read it out loud and it's usually obvious.

Getting help

If the dry run hasn't told you why, send NX support:

• the pool name and your venue
• the business date you're looking at
• what you expected and what happened

The dry run output for that date is the most useful thing to include.