Add-ons

When a sale carries a tip, an auto-gratuity, or a surcharge, that extra posts to QuickBooks as its own line — separate from the products. So when you post each sale as an itemised receipt, QuickBooks needs to know which item each kind of add-on should post under. You set this up once under Map add-ons.

This is only needed when sales post as Each sale, where add-ons post as receipt lines mapped to items. A Daily summary posts the day’s totals, so it maps each add-on to an account instead — a tip to a liability account (it’s money you owe your staff), an auto-gratuity or surcharge to an income account — see Accounts and How sales post.

There are three add-ons, and you map each to a QuickBooks item:

• Tip — a tip a customer adds at checkout.
• Auto-gratuity — an automatic gratuity (service charge) added to a sale.
• Surcharge — a surcharge added to a sale.

Add-on lines post without tax — a tip, gratuity or surcharge isn’t itself taxed, so its line carries no VAT.

Map your add-ons

1. On the QuickBooks page, open Map add-ons.
2. For each add-on, search your QuickBooks items and pick the one it should post as.
3. Saving asks you to confirm with two-factor authentication — it’s how Swann Retail protects a change that decides where your money posts.

You only need to map an add-on you actually take. If you never add a surcharge, mapping it can wait until you do — but a sale that carries an add-on you haven’t mapped is held (below).

When a sale won’t post for an add-on

Swann Retail never guesses which item an add-on belongs to. So if a sale carries a tip, gratuity or surcharge whose add-on you haven’t mapped yet, that whole sale is held rather than posted with the add-on missing — you’ll find it under Fixing what won’t post as a sale add-on isn’t mapped. The same is true of a refund: if you refund a sale that carried a tip, gratuity or surcharge you haven’t mapped, that refund is held until you map it.

To clear it, open Map add-ons and map the add-on that was missing. Mapping it clears the row and re-posts the held day on its own at the next sync — you don’t have to re-post it or mark it Resolved by hand. To post a held day right away rather than wait, see Post a day yourself.

This is the same idea as an unmapped product or tax code — Swann Retail would rather hold a sale than post it wrong, so the fix is always: map what was missing.