Tips are a meaningful part of revenue for a lot of small businesses — restaurants, coffee shops, salons, food trucks. If you're accepting Bitcoin payments, you probably want tips to work the same way they always have. Good news: they do, with a couple of small things worth knowing.
OrangeTill has tip presets built in. You set them once in Settings, and they appear automatically after each payment — your customer taps their preferred amount and sends a second payment for the tip. No math, no awkward pauses at the counter.
Setting up tip presets
Tap the gear icon. Navigate to Tip Presets.
Most merchants use 15%, 18%, and 20% — the same amounts they'd show on a card terminal. You can customize these to whatever fits your business. A coffee counter might use 10%, 15%, 20%. A full-service restaurant might prefer 18%, 20%, 25%.
Toggle the tip prompt on. After each confirmed payment, OrangeTill will show the customer their tip options before they close the screen.
How tips are recorded
A Bitcoin tip is a separate payment from the original transaction. When a customer tips, their wallet sends a second payment to your wallet address — the tip amount converted to crypto at the live exchange rate at that moment.
In your OrangeTill transaction history, the tip appears as its own line item with a note indicating it's a tip. Your CSV export includes both the original payment and the tip, each with their own timestamp, dollar value, and transaction ID. When you hand your export to your accountant, they'll see the full picture clearly separated.
Tips in Bitcoin are still ordinary income — taxed the same as any other payment you receive. The dollar value at the time the tip arrives is what gets reported. OrangeTill records that automatically so you don't have to think about it.
Should you prompt customers to tip?
This is a business decision, not a crypto decision — the same question you'd face with any POS system. A few things worth considering:
Crypto customers tend to be enthusiastic early adopters. People who are paying in Bitcoin at a small merchant are often genuinely excited to support a business that accepts it. A tip prompt at the end of a smooth payment experience often lands well. This isn't a rule — just something a lot of merchants who accept Bitcoin have noticed.
The prompt is opt-in on both sides. You control whether it appears. If you run a business where tipping isn't customary, just leave it off.
Keep the same amounts you use everywhere else. If your card terminal shows 15/18/20%, use the same in OrangeTill. Consistency is less confusing for customers and makes record-keeping cleaner.
The tip prompt is one more moment of trust at the counter. If the payment went smoothly, that moment usually goes well.
Tips and your quarterly tax summary
OrangeTill's quarterly tax summary includes tip income separately from sale income. When you run the report, you'll see total payments and total tips broken out as distinct line items — which is exactly what your accountant needs to categorize them correctly for payroll, tip reporting, and income tax purposes.
If you have employees who receive tips, your obligations under IRS tip reporting rules apply to Bitcoin tips the same way they apply to cash tips. The amount is the dollar value at the time of receipt — which OrangeTill records automatically. Talk to your accountant about your specific tip allocation and reporting obligations if you have staff.
New Hampshire has an 8% Meals & Rooms Tax on prepared food and lodging. Tips are generally not subject to the Meals & Rooms Tax — they're gratuities paid to service staff, not charges for the food itself. OrangeTill's tax back-calculation applies to the sale amount, not the tip. Make sure your accountant confirms this for your specific situation.
Tips, taxes, payments — OrangeTill keeps the records.
Every sale and every tip is logged with the date, dollar value, and transaction ID. Export anytime and hand it to your accountant.
Try OrangeTill for Free →