The rooms
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Built by people who worked every one of these shifts.
The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act requires 3 years of tipping records — consultation timestamps, distribution history, policy versions. Certainlyours builds that infrastructure automatically and lets you download your annual tipping records report any time. From £599 a year after 60 days free. The price is secondary. The 3 years is the product.
The legislation
The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 came into full effect on 1 October 2024. It isn't optional. It isn't future legislation. It is the law right now — and enforcement is active. Businesses that fail to comply face employment tribunals, financial penalties, and reputational damage.
Certainlyours — The CS is the compliance system built specifically for the hospitality industry. Direct tipping. Transparent tracking. Reviews that go to both the worker and the venue. Everyone wins. And you stay protected.
For operators · 60 days free
Teams choose how tips are handled. Staff vote on the model, the rule is recorded in writing, and The CS applies it automatically inside the app.
The CS standard
Built for the Tips Act 2023. Ready for the proposed 2026 consultation rules. Every feature in Certainlyours maps directly to a legal obligation — not a best practice, a statutory requirement.
The government's own plain English summary. What employers must do. What workers are entitled to. What happens if a venue doesn't comply. Two pages. No jargon. If you read nothing else — read this. It is the clearest statement of what changed in October 2024 and what every hospitality business is now legally obligated to do.
Read the Factsheet →The factsheet lists four things a venue must have: a written policy, a distribution record, a consultation process, and a way to demonstrate compliance. Certainlyours produces all four automatically — and packages them into a single Annual Tipping Records Report you can download any time.
Certainlyours already includes the worker consultation framework the 2026 changes will require. When a venue creates or updates its tipping policy, the app logs which staff were notified, when, and whether they acknowledged. That record is stored automatically — no additional process needed when October 2026 arrives.
The law itself. Requires all tips be passed to workers without deduction. Mandates a written tipping policy for any employer who receives tips more than occasionally. Requires three years of records — total tips received, amounts allocated to each worker, and distribution history. Enforcement active from 1 October 2024.
Read the Act →The Act requires a written tipping policy (Section 6, s.27I) and three years of distribution records (Section 6, s.27J) — including total tips received, amounts per worker, and full allocation history. Certainlyours auto-generates the policy and builds the record from day one.
HMRC's official guidance on tax and National Insurance treatment of tips. Section 5 covers income tax on direct tips. Section 9 covers tips paid electronically — including examples of digital platforms where tips bypass the employer entirely and go straight to individual staff. This is the section that defines the tax position of the Certainlyours model.
Read the Guidance →Section 9, Examples 16 and 17 describe how Certainlyours direct tips work: tips paid electronically direct to employees with no employer involvement. For those, HMRC's position is: "No National Insurance contributions are due and PAYE will not apply." Team (pool or proportional) tips are different: the venue sets the sharing rule, so ask your adviser whether a tronc or NIC/PAYE applies to them.
Certainlyours is not a tronc arrangement. There is no troncmaster. There is no tronc PAYE. The tronc sections of this guidance (Sections 6 and 8) do not apply — because tips never pass through the employer in the first place.
The draft statutory code that explains what "fair and transparent" actually means in practice. Covers written policy requirements, what must be in them, how workers must be notified, and what constitutes a valid consultation. This is the document an employment tribunal will reference when assessing whether your distribution was compliant.
Read the Code →Certainlyours auto-generates a written tipping policy on signup, records every consultation with a timestamp, and stores all policy versions with version history for 3 years. This is the exact evidence trail the Code requires an employer to produce at tribunal.
Official materials are provided for information only and do not imply government endorsement of Certainlyours or its services. Links open the original source documents published by HMRC, the Department for Business and Trade, and UK Parliament.
The package
The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act doesn't ask you to comply for a year. It requires three years of tipping records — consultation timestamps, distribution history, policy versions — ready on demand. Certainlyours is built around that obligation. Every feature exists to produce one thing: a compliance record that holds up.
Download it from your dashboard any time. Built to organise consultation records, tip history, policy versions, and checklist evidence — ready for adviser, ACAS, or tribunal review.
The system
Four steps. Direct where possible. Documented where pooled. Clear either way.
Built for both sides
Every week without a compliant tipping system is a week of legal exposure. Tribunal claims don't need lengthy service periods. One disgruntled worker. One claim. That's it.
The review engine
Every tip triggers the option to leave a review. That review is verified as genuine — but no tip amount is ever shown publicly. Reviews are about the person and the service, full stop.
The review links to the individual staff member's profile — their portable career asset — and simultaneously surfaces in the operator's venue dashboard. Staff build reputation. Operators get real performance insight. Nobody is isolated. Nobody sees what doesn't belong to them.
60 days free · then plans by team size
The law requires 3 years of tipping records. Certainlyours builds that infrastructure, delivers your annual tipping records report, and turns every tip into a transparent, transparent, evidence-ready transaction. The law has already changed. The question is whether you have.
Certainlyours supports direct digital tipping through Stripe Connect. Where a customer tips a worker directly and the venue does not receive, pool, allocate, or control the tip, that flow may sit outside employer-controlled tipping rules under the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023. Where a venue receives or controls tips, the venue remains responsible for fair allocation, written policies, records, and legal compliance. Certainlyours provides infrastructure, records tools, and policy drafts — not legal advice. The Annual Tipping Records Report is designed to organise records for adviser or tribunal review; it does not constitute legal certification of compliance. Venues should seek independent legal advice where required.