Tip pools sound easy until the Saturday envelope is on the desk and everyone suddenly has strong opinions. Front-of-house should get more than back-of-house, sure. But how much more? A server who worked four hours should not get the same share as the server who worked eight. Your math needs to be boring enough that nobody has to debate it after close.
How the math actually runs
Run the math in two stages. Start by splitting the day's pool by group. On an $860 tip day, 70% front-of-house gets $602, 25% kitchen gets $215, and 5% runners gets $43. Then split each group by hours worked. An 8-hour server gets twice the share of a 4-hour server inside that same group.
Built on top of your schedule
Your tip split should use the same hours you trust for scheduling and payroll review. If you re-enter shifts into a second spreadsheet, you have already invited mistakes. Nobody needs one more file named tips-new-new.xlsx.
Group definitions you can configure
Front-of-house
Servers, hosts, baristas, and counter staff usually sit here. They handle the guest touchpoints, so this group often receives the largest share.
Back-of-house
Line cooks, prep, and dishwashers belong here when your house policy includes the kitchen. Some restaurants share heavily into BOH. Others keep the pool front-only. Pick the rule you can explain without blinking.
Specialty groups
Runners, bussers, bar-only, or manager-on-shift can each get their own group when that matches your floor. Keep the setup close to how the shift really works.
Why fair-by-hours matters
A flat split punishes the person who carried the longer shift. A flat per-shift split rewards four hours the same as eight. Hours-weighted distribution is not fancy; it is just fair enough that your team can move on.
What you take out of it
You want a daily payout per employee, a group total you can sanity-check, a weekly summary for payroll, and enough detail to explain the split later. If someone asks why they got $94.37, you should be able to answer before the dishwasher finishes laughing.
The same operation usually needs the restaurant schedule maker for the shifts underneath the tips, and the free scheduler when you want to sketch a draft week without logging in.
Tip pooling rules vary by province. Read the guide on tip pooling laws in Canada for the legal side, or use the broader restaurant shift management playbook to place tips beside scheduling and stat holidays.