Employer Frequently Asked Questions

 
Employer FAQFind the answers to the questions that employers ask most frequently
General Do payments go direct to employees?
No. Credit card payments can only be made to businesses, not individuals. Payments go to your business account, then are disbursed by you through payroll, or automatically by us.
 Do you support Canadian or US dollar accounts?
Both. We support businesses who operate in Canadian or US dollars.
 
Fees What fees are there?
All of our fees are tabulated on our pricing page. The following is a wordy description of what each of the fees are.
We'll break this up into three categories: (1) things you will be billed for, (2) things you are paying for but that are invisible to you, and (3) things you might get charged in some circumstances. Here we go...
(1) things you will be billed for:

                            Onboarding fee
                            A one-off $75 fee to cover the costs of processing documents.
                            Subscription fee
                            A monthly fee for your subscription to tippl. This is made up of a fixed fee, and a variable fee based on the number of employees you have on the platform. See our pricing for more information.
                        (2) things you are paying for but that are invisible to you:

                            Maintenance fee
                            A monthly fee charged to keep your account open. This is included in your subscription fee.
                            PCI monthly fee
                            A monthly fee charged by the Payments Card Industry for 'PCI compliance'. This is included in your subscription fee.
                        (3) things you might get charged in some circumstances:

                            Chargeback fee
                            A fee charged in the event of a chargeback. To reduce the probability of chargebacks all plans include 3D Secure 2 which reduces fraudulent transactions, increases checkout completions, and shifts the risk off your business.
                            PCI non-compliance fee
                            A fee charged for non-compliance with PCI obligations. In short, we take care of most of your PCI obligations. You just need to complete a short PCI compliance questionnaire annually. You can avoid being charged this fee by completing the questionnaire in a timely manner.
                            Returned payment fee
                            A fee charged when a transaction fails due to insufficient funds in your account. For example, if one of the above fees is charged, or for customers on our 'Pro' plan if we make a disbursement by Electronic Funds Transfer to one of your staff, but the payment fails because you do not have sufficient funds in your account.
                        
 Who pays the transaction fee?
The customer pays the transaction fee. The transaction fee is removed from the payment before you receive it. For example, for a $10 tip the customer pays $10.38. The credit card processors remove 38 cents from this amount, leaving the $10 tip available for the employee.
 Why is the per transaction fee so high?
It's not! We're cheaper than Square*. At the time of writing Square charge 2.8 % + 30¢ for card-not-present payments, whereas we charge 3.7 %. That means for a $20 payment they charge 86 cents, whereas we charge just 74 cents.
* Maybe you were thinking about card-present payments (when a customer taps or inserts a credit card)? Those tend to be around 2.5 %.
 Do customers mind paying the transaction fee?
 We have not had any feedback that the fee is an issue. In fact, the feedback we have had is that the transparency around fees is good.
 
Onboarding Is there an onboarding fee?
Yes. There is a one-off onboarding fee of $75 to cover the costs of processing your documents.
 Why is there an onboarding process?
To keep everyone safe. Know your customer guidelines and regulations in financial services require us to verify the identity, suitability, and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with you. The procedures fit within the broader scope of anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing regulations.
 What is involved?
An online form with the following sections: your name; business type and address; tip estimates [we can help you if you like]; bank signer details (name, address, date of birth); ID verification (two types of photo ID, bank statement); and void cheque details (so we can pay money to you!).
 Who will see my data?
The onboarding process is run by our payments partner, Bambora / Wordline. Bambora is PCI-Level 1 certified — the highest level of Payment Card Industry (PCI) certification. We (Tippl Inc.) do not store, nor do we see, any of your onboarding data.
 Can I know more about Tippl Inc?
Sure! Here is our Federal Corporation Information.
Our business has been approved by our payments partner (Bambora Worldline), their underwriting banks, and FINTRAC. Our payments partner are happy to help if you have questions (they're based in Victoria BC and are super helpful!) just contact us and we'll introduce you.
 
PCI compliance What is PCI DSS?
PCI DSS is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. There is a good overview of PCI DSS on Wikipedia. This is an unavoidable aspect of accepting credit card payments.
 What is the Self-Assessment Questionnaire?
The PCI DSS Self-Assessment Questionnaire is a validation tool intended for small to medium sized merchants and service providers to assess their own PCI DSS compliance status.
 Can you help me fill out the payment profile and questionnaire?
If your only card processing with Worldline is through tippl, then please see our example PCI DSS profile. We cannot tell you how to fill out your profile, but our example should be representative ;)
If you have additional card processing arrangements with Worldline, then please contact Worldline for assistance.
 
Taxes Do I need to pay Employment Insurance (EI) and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) contributions on tips?
If you are on our 'Essentials' plan where you disburse payments to your staff, then yes, just as you would for regular card-present tip payments.
For small and medium businesses, it's really not worth the hassle of trying to avoid the costs. The benefits of cashless tipping far outweigh the costs — use our gratuity calculator to make your own assessment.
If you are on our 'Pro' plan where we disburse payments to your staff, then it might be possible for you to avoid withholdings under the Canada Pension Plan ("CPP") and Employment Insurance Act ("EIA"). We have worked with a tax lawyer on this, see our EIA and CPP fact-sheet for more details.
 Do you support tip pools and committees?
Yes — you can create tip pools so that, for example, kitchen staff and/or front of house staff can receive a share of tips. We plan to extend these features throughout 2025.
 