5 Ways to Record Restaurant Checkout Slips Accurately

Know what the slip is saying

A checkout slip can contain sales total, tax, cash received, card amount, tip and tip-out. Sales total is not the same as tips. Before entering anything, circle or mentally separate the fields you need for your personal record. Never infer a tip just because a total is large.

A concrete check prevents errors: suppose a slip shows sales 180, card 150, cash 30, card tip 24 and tip-out 6. Your tip record is 24 before the separate 6 deduction, or 18 after it, depending on the label. The 180 is sales, not a tip.

Read the printed label, not only the position of a number, because layouts vary between terminals and employers.

Keep the image or export only as long as it serves your own reconciliation and privacy needs.

1. TipTill on-device scan first

TipTill’s US App Store listing describes scanning checkout slips on the iPhone and highlighting extracted values for review before saving. That makes it a sensible first pass after a shift: capture the slip, inspect each field, and correct anything the image does not show clearly. It does not remove the checking step.

The listing also describes local records, optional iCloud sync, no account, no ads and all features included free on iOS 26 in English and German. These are published product claims, so confirm the current App Store page and your device compatibility before depending on them.

The useful result is a checked row, not a photograph that you have never compared with the saved fields.

A clear review habit prevents a quick scan from becoming a confident but incorrect record.

2. Manual entry with a deliberate check

Manual entry is often the safest fallback when a slip is folded, faint or crowded. Enter the date, sales, cash, card, tips and tip-out one at a time. Then compare the saved values with the paper before leaving the checkout area. A second glance is faster than reconstructing a missing number later.

Use a small checklist: does cash plus card equal the payment total, is the tip amount labelled separately, and is tip-out before or after the displayed amount? If the slip is ambiguous, write “pending” and retain a photo rather than inventing a zero.

Manual entry is intentionally slower than a scan: its value is that you see and confirm each required field.

Use the same field order each shift so a short manual check stays repeatable.

3. Built-in camera scan plus record

The iPhone camera and Notes can scan a document, with automatic or manual capture and corner adjustment; Apple says a scan is saved as a PDF in the note. This is excellent for preserving a readable copy when TipTill’s structured entry needs manual completion. It is not a promise that Notes will turn every restaurant slip into structured tip fields.

After scanning, read the values yourself and enter them into TipTill or a log. Keep the PDF or photo only as long as useful and avoid storing customer or card details that you do not need.

A PDF preserves the page appearance, while structured fields still need a deliberate human entry and review.

The scan is evidence of the page, not evidence that every extracted value is correct.

4–5. Employer export or spreadsheet

If the employer provides a POS export, use it as the source and map its labels before copying. An export may already separate sales, cash, card and tips, but names differ. Preserve the original file and note the period; do not treat a downloaded CSV as proof that every column means what you expect.

A spreadsheet is the flexible fallback: one row per slip, columns for date, sales, cash, card, tip, tip-out, checked and note. Formulas can total the rows, while a “checked” column makes review visible. None of these methods automatically extracts structured tips from every other app; inspect the values.

Exports can cover several shifts, so record the date range and avoid treating a settlement total as a new tip.

If a column remains unclear, keep it separate rather than forcing it into the tip field.

Frequently asked questions