Discounts, taxes and charges
What this is for
The subtotal is the food. Everything else on the bill — discounts, service charge, tax, delivery fee, tip — is on this page.
They apply in a fixed order, and the order is what makes the arithmetic explainable when a guest asks:
Discounts
Applied to the whole order, from the POS.
- Select Add Discount.
- Choose a Discount Type:
- Percent — 10% off.
- Fixed — $5 off.
- Enter the Discount Value.
- Restodesk shows the Calculated Discount before you commit. Check it.
The discount comes off the subtotal, before charges and tax.
Using discounts sensibly
- Percent for goodwill, fixed for vouchers. A percentage scales with the bill; a voucher is a number someone was promised.
- Discounting is a permission. If your staff shouldn't be giving 50% away, make sure the role they're on can't. See Your team.
- Every discount shows in reporting. That's what makes it possible to notice one till discounting three times as much as the others.
Service charge and other charges
Charges are configured once and then apply automatically. Each one has:
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Charge Name | What prints on the bill — "Service Charge", "Packaging", "Card Fee". |
| Charge Type | Percent of the order, or Fixed amount. |
| Charge Value | The percentage or the amount. |
| Order Types | Which order types it applies to. |
The order-type control is the useful part: a 10% service charge on dine-in only, a fixed packaging charge on delivery and pickup only. Set it once, and it stops being something staff have to remember.
Name charges the way you'd defend them to a guest. "Service Charge" is a conversation you can have. "Additional Amount" is not.
Tax
Tax is set up under Settings › Taxes, and there are three decisions.
Order-level or item-level
| Mode | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Order-Level Tax | One rate on the whole order total. |
| Item-Level Tax | Each item carries its own rate. |
Item-level is the right answer wherever food and drink are taxed differently — which is most places. Order-level is simpler and fine where everything you sell is taxed the same.
Inclusive or exclusive
| Mode | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Inclusive Tax | Menu prices already contain the tax. |
| Exclusive Tax | Tax is added at checkout on top of the menu price. |
This is a customer-expectation question, not an accounting one. In markets where menus show the final price, use inclusive; where tax is added at the till, use exclusive. Getting it backwards means every price on your menu is wrong by the tax rate.
What tax is calculated on
Tax Calculation Base decides whether service charges are taxed:
- Include service charges — tax is on
(subtotal − discount) + service charges. - Exclude service charges — tax is on
(subtotal − discount)only.
Which is correct depends on where you trade. Ask your accountant once and then leave it alone.
Delivery fee
Delivery orders carry a fee, set as the Default Delivery Price on the order type. It's added after tax and appears as its own line.
Different delivery platforms can have different fees by giving each one its own order type — see Custom order types.
Tips
Added at payment, not while building the bill.
Add Tip offers:
- Suggested Tip — preset percentages.
- Custom Amount — a figure you type.
Before you confirm, the screen shows the Current Total and the New Total so the guest can see exactly what they're agreeing to. Read it out. Nobody enjoys discovering a tip afterwards.
A Tip Note can be attached — useful when a tip is meant for a specific person.
Order totals elsewhere are shown excluding tip where it matters, so your food revenue stays separate from gratuity.
Reading the bill back to a guest
When someone asks why the total is what it is, go down the bill in order: items, then discount, then charges, then tax, then delivery, then tip. Every line is named, and the names are the ones you chose.
That's the real reason to name charges carefully — it's the difference between an explanation and an argument.
Good to know
- Charges and taxes are set at restaurant level, and apply across branches unless you configure otherwise.
- Changing a tax rate or a charge affects new orders. Bills already open keep what they were built with.
- A discount applies to the whole order, not to a single line. To take one dish off, cancel that item — see Building a bill.
- Tax settings can be seen broken down per item on the order, which is the fastest way to check a rate is doing what you meant.