Is it legal for waiting staff in a restaurant to bring in their own floats to front the business so cash can be taken?

Posted by Either_Apartment_795@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 15 comments

Cash floats on site have been stopped since Covid but staff are bringing in their own money to front till floats this includes multiple under 18's. I have never known of this in the 15 years I have worked in hospitality and seems very dodgy to me. I have only worked here for 3 weeks. Any help is greatly appreciated. Post was removed from legal advice uk.

Reply to Post

15 Comments

[-]

VerbingNoun413@reddit

You mean paying to work on the tills? Or are they bringing in bags of change to exchange for larger denominations? Either way this is demented even by the standards of this sub. Floating a till is not hard.

[-]

Material_Attempt4972@reddit

lol get fucked. If the company can't provide the cash, well they need to lose the trade.

[-]

rob849@reddit

Back in my bartendering/waiting days, "keep the change" tips were a decent amount. There is apparently a proper way to do what the OP descibes, in the US at least it's known in the industry as "bringing your own bank". Personally if the alternative is cashless, and an employer went about it the right way, I wouldn't have had an issue with providing the float.

[-]

RonnCraggs@reddit

Exactly

[-]

Lorathia13@reddit

I had to do this when I worked as a waiter at a certain pizza chain. It's kinda shitty, but legal I guess

[-]

RonnCraggs@reddit

> Cash floats on site have been stopped since Covid Why? Also why would you even do this.

[-]

BestEverDeathMetal@reddit

I've brought in my own float before when I was in charge of managing my "till" as a waitress until I cashed out at the end of my shift, so I could give out change, but this was in America. Totally not a UK thing from the places I've worked at here (London)

[-]

redunculuspanda@reddit

This feels like something one or two staff did to try and be helpful and now it’s just how things are done. Personally there is absolutely no way I’m using and potentially loosing my own money to a dine and dasher or an error on a till.

[-]

BritishBlitz87@reddit

It's not illegal, bus drivers have to do it. But I've never heard of waiters bringing their own float.

[-]

Either_Apartment_795@reddit (OP)

An under 18 can’t get a loan or a contract phone but can use their own money to front a business. This seems illegal to me. With regards to bus drivers. They have their float accounted for and have policies and due diligence in place. I have no documentation of any amounts the wait staff bring in and if the site is a non float site are we insured? I sign nothing apart from a banking slip. If we weee robbed we have no idea how much money was actually taken because we don’t count them at the start or end of the shift.

[-]

JJBrazman@reddit

Under 18s working is a complicated area and I am not a lawyer, but if people are bringing in their own money and there’s no record of how much they brought in or got back and when, then this is at least an incredibly shoddy business practice. If the insurance is predicated on the site being ‘non-float’ then this is definitely against the terms of your insurance, and you wouldn’t be covered. Even if it were insured properly you’d struggle to make a claim without proof of the amounts involved. With under 18s involved it definitely sounds like some sort of malpractice.

[-]

Either_Apartment_795@reddit (OP)

I should add we have no tills. Just pos screens. They carry all cash on them personally.

[-]

boldstrategy@reddit

Assume this is so the employee loses the money if the till is down?

[-]

sprucay@reddit

Don't know about legality but it definitely seems shit. If the restaurant wants to take cash, they should provide the float. Why are the waiting staff doing the boss' job for them?

[-]

AutoModerator@reddit

**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*