Is there a way set up payroll to pay employees commission or hourly which ever is higher?

[PetParlor]

Is there a way set up payroll to pay employees commission or hourly which ever is higher?

[TheRealChipA]

Hey @PetParlor.  There is not.  I don’t know of any payroll service that has this capability, either.  Most likely, and I’m only guessing here, this is because there would be serious legal issues with this kind of thing that would cause IRS scrutiny, or at least state labor board scrutiny.  

Anyway, at my ice cream shop, I have what I call a tip guarantee.  If the tip pool each week does not average out to a certain dollar amount per hour for each employee (say it has been a bad weather week), then I make up the difference.  But in order to do this things — which is similar to your issue, I think — I have to have a spreadsheet to calculate the make-up amount so that I can manually enter it at payroll time.

I’m not sure that there would be enough of a benefit to the entire Square seller community to have this sort of feature — enough to make it worth Square’s efforts to implement it.  However, if you feel strongly about it you can always head over to the Ideate Board and submit a feature request to the Staff/Payroll team for them to evaluate.

[PetParlor]

When I worked for a corporate PET COmpany 😉 as a dog groomer, we were paid either hourly or commission based on whichever was higher. Let's say I worked 40 hours at $15 per hour that would be $600 before taxes, however if I earned commission that could easily be double. So I would get paid the higher amount. We call it "commissioning out" when commission exceeds hourly. Tips are paid either way and not considered in wages.

Here in my own shop I have just hired my first employee and she will inevitably make more on the commission for grooming dogs, that she would hourly, however there is always that rare day where maybe she didn't have as many dogs booked and will earn hourly, because in that instance hourly would be more. 

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

@PetParlor I understand. I guess that does make some sense, as long as it is clearly spelled out in employee handbooks, etc, to avoid confusion.  I’m betting that this “unnamed” (ha) pet company had their own payroll software to handle this, however.  I can’t remember ever seeing it in the big name payroll services, but honestly I’ll admit that I never looked for it, anyway.

Anyway, besides submitting a feature request, you could look for a third-party payroll app that integrates with Square.  These are found in the Square App Marketplace and, based on your further explanation, it’s  possible you’d find something there that would work for your needs.  

Good luck!

[PetParlor]

Thank you! I will look in the apps.