CashoutGlossary / Comp
Comp
Food or drink the house gives a guest free, taken off the check with a manager's OK. It lowers the bill and often the tip, but maybe not your tip-out.
A comp is food or drink the house gives away: a dessert for a birthday, a dish that went back, a round for a regular. The item gets rung in and then taken off the check, usually with a manager's approval. A void is different. It removes an item that was never served, like a ringing mistake.
Comps touch your money in a few ways:
- Tips. Many guests tip on the check total, so a big comp can shrink the tip unless the guest tips on the full value.
- Tip-out. If your tip-out is a percent of sales, ask whether comped items count in your sales number. That's house policy, not law, and it decides whether you tip out on food nobody paid for.
- Tip allocation. Form 8027, which sets the 8 percent base for allocated tips, counts free food or drinks in gross receipts only in a narrow case: tipping for them is customary and they're given in connection with a separate for-profit activity whose receipts aren't counted on line 5 of the form and aren't nonallocable receipts.
A common mistake is letting comps blur your records. Note big comps in your shift notes, so a night with low tips on high sales makes sense when you look back, and so you can check your tip-out against what guests actually paid.
Related terms
Tip-out · Section · Allocated tips · Form 8027
