Plenty of restaurants add a service fee, merchant fee, or similar charge on top of the meal. Those lines are real money you still owe — but they’re not the kind of thing most people tip on. If you tip 20% of a subtotal that includes them, you’re tipping on the fee itself.
Eva Split lets you mark any line item as tip exempt. It stays on the receipt and in each person’s total, but it drops out of the tippable subtotal. Percentage tips (and proportional tip splits) use only the lines that should be tipped on.
The problem in numbers
Say the table ordered $100 of food and drink, and the receipt also lists a $5 service fee. Tip 20% of $105 and you pay $21 in tip. Tip 20% of the $100 meal and you pay $20 — the fee is still split among whoever owes it, but it doesn’t quietly add an extra dollar of tip.
On a larger check, or with a bigger “kitchen appreciation” / merchant fee, that gap adds up. Tip exempt keeps the percentage honest without removing the fee from the bill.
What to mark tip exempt
Use tip exempt for charges that belong on the receipt but shouldn’t drive tip math. Common examples:
- Service fees or automatic service charges printed as their own line
- Merchant fees or credit-card processing surcharges
- Other add-ons your table agrees aren’t tippable — as long as they’re still amounts people need to pay
Food, drinks, and shared plates stay tippable. Tip exempt is about the fee lines, not about skipping tip on someone’s entrée.
How to mark a line tip exempt
Tip exempt lives on each line item’s actions menu. It works on AI-scanned receipts and on lines you add by hand.
- Open the receipt and find the fee (or add it as its own line if it isn’t there yet — e.g. “Service fee” for $5.00).
- Open the line’s menu (the ⋮ icon on that row).
- Tap Tip exempt so it shows a checkmark.
- Set tip as a percentage as usual (for example 20%). Eva Split calculates tip from the tippable subtotal only.
Assign the fee like any other line — to one person, or split across the table — so it still shows up in Amount due. Only the tip calculation ignores it.
What stays the same
- Tip-exempt amounts are still part of the receipt total and each person’s share
- Tax has its own control — Tax exempt — if a fee shouldn’t be taxed either
- Flat tip amounts still work; percentage tip is where tip exempt matters most
- Sharing still works — anyone with the link sees the same tippable math update live
New to Eva Split? Start with how it works, or try the demo.