Taxable Service Charge

This article will cover the steps of creating a Taxable Service Charge. Service charges are forced “fees” that are applied to each check on the specific menu(s) that the special item type is added to.

The correct menu allocation must be chosen as the item cannot be 'switched off' and must be deleted by our team if it is applied to the incorrect menu.

Important Note: To use a Taxable Service Charge the customer MUST ONLY have 1 tax rate for their entire venue. If they’re using multiple tax rates or have non-taxable items then the Taxable Service Charge cannot be created. This is because tax by item cannot be used and a Venue Tax Rate must be applied. 

Note: If you are using a service charge on a POS menu then you will need to add the Feature Flag "service_charge_service_types" and request a stadium restart for that customer's org. If you need assistance with feature flags, please reach out to the STV Implementations Tech Team to update it for you.

Explanation of Taxable Service Charge:

• A Taxable Service Charge can only take the form of a percentage of the bill (calculated on the total of items, including other charges).
  
  • Often customers will apply Service Charges to a “Wait Staff” or “In-Seat” menu to apply a percentage-based fee for services being provided. It cannot be removed from the check and the guest can choose to tip on top of the Service Charge.
  • They can be applied to any menu type.

Setting Venue Level Tax:

1. Navigate to your Ecosystem and Organization in Canopy Classic. You can also access Canopy Classic by visiting your instance-menu.ordernext.com in Canopy 2.0. Then select the dropdown under your Venue Name by the upper left-hand corner and select Canopy Classic.
2. Once in Classic, navigate to F&B → Venue Settings.
   • From here, scroll down and select the dropdown for Tax.
3. Under Tax make adjustments to the following,
   • Tax by Item = NO
   • Tax Rate on Items = NO
   • Food Tax Rate = Your desired tax rate in decimal format. 
   • Tax Inclusive Location = Set to NO for Add-On or YES for Inclusive.

4. When you’re finished making changes select update at the bottom of the page to apply the changes.

Next, we have to navigate to Canopy 2.0 → Items so we can bulk apply your Add-On or Inclusive setting with no tax rate. Even though we set this at the Venue Level we still need to apply it per item. 

Important Note: Your Taxable Service Charge (Special Item Type) should remain set to non-taxable, otherwise the item will double-tax. So after bulk editing your items in Canopy 2.0 search for your Service Charge and set the tax type back to non-taxable. 

1. Begin by accessing your instance-menu.ordernext.com; by default, this will bring you to the items page.
2. At the bottom of the page increase your rows to 100.
   
   

3. Next, select the ‘Check All’ box at the top of the page to select all rows on the given page. This way you can bulk edit those items to adjust the tax type.
   
   

4. After bulk selecting your items navigate back to the bottom of the page and select ‘Bulk Edit.’
   
   

5. Finally, under your ‘Bulk Edit’ options you should select the same tax type that you selected for your Venue Level tax.
   • You should select either ‘Make All Add-on Tax’ or ‘Make All Tax Inclusive’ and leave the tax field blank.
   • Save your changes and proceed with the same steps if you have any additional pages of items.

Continue with the next steps to create your Taxable Service Charge.

Creating a Taxable Service Charge:

1. Navigate to your Ecosystem and Organization in Canopy Classic. You can also access Canopy Classic by visiting your instance-menu.ordernext.com in Canopy 2.0. Then select the dropdown under your Venue Name by the upper left-hand corner and select Canopy Classic.
2. Once in Classic, navigate to F&B → Global Items.
   • From here, scroll to the bottom of the page and select Create Items. 

3. Under the creation page you will have the following options,
   • Name(Required): This should reflect the name you want shown on the customer's receipt for the service charge. It’s recommended that you name it “Taxable Service Charge.”
   • Price(Required): The amount should be set to Zero.
   • SKU: We suggest using VN001 as the SKU unless it’s already in use. You can count up in the digits or add them to the end.
   • Special Type: Select “Taxable Service Charge”
   • Location(Required): As previously advised be sure to select the correct Location and Menu you wish to add this charge to as this cannot be undone without escalation to the support team.

4. Once submitted, you will need to navigate back to Global Items and the item where we will select ‘Details.’

5. Click on the 'ITEM DETAILS' edit button.

6. In the next screen click on 'ADD MORE DETAILS.'

7. In the Item Details section you will find the following options,
   • Metadatum Name: Input the following detail, item_special_type_rate
   • Metadatum Value: Input the percentage amount you wish to add to a bill in its decimal format. 
     • i.e. for 20% use 0.20, for 5% use 0.05 or for 7.5% use 0.075

8. Once complete click on the UPDATE button to save the changes.

This percentage-based Taxable Service Charge will now be added to any order placed on menus to which this item is added. As previously advised if the item is added to the incorrect menu it will need to be deleted with help from the support team.