What actually happens to your money if you pay a tip using your card at a restaurant

These days when you're in a restaurant and putting cash towards a tip for your waiter, it's often done via card.

Lots more people are going cashless these days, which means the post-meal whip round to find some money and put it on the little plate they bring you the bill on is no longer the regular ritual it once was.

Your approach to tipping is going to vary depending on where in the world you are and the local customs, which themselves hinge on how eager a place is to ensure their service staff are paid properly.

But these days when they hand you a card reader and ask you to pay for your meal there's often an option to add on a tip.

Since you're not handing over actual cash money, you might wonder where those earnings go and how much actually ends up in the pocket of the person you wanted to tip.

Paying a tip by cash isn't as common as it used to be. (Getty Stock Photo)

It's a complicated business, and according to Food & Wine, it first depends on the policy of the establishment you're tipping at.

Some places will decide that all the servers share the tips communally so that one member of staff lucky enough to get the table of drunk rich people doesn't leave the others without.

Other places will insist that servers keep only the tips made from their tables, while some establishments might demand a portion of the tip themselves.

It gets even more complicated if you're tipping by card, as all that money is just numbers on the screen.

Apparently tipping via card can mean it takes time before the money actually ends up in someone's account, as the extra dosh might go on someone's payslip and be doled out when they're getting their wages.

Tipping by card might be easier, but where does your money go? (Getty Stock Photo)

Paying by card might also mean that some money goes back to the restaurant, even though it was paid as a tip, as there's a processing fee for credit cards which may get knocked off the final total.

Some Dublin-based students previously created a system which made sure all the tip money from a card went to the server.

Under the system they devised every server had their own pin number which you pay into, essentially cutting the restaurant out of the picture.

Meanwhile, a Brit abroad in the US ended up getting bamboozled by the 'automatic gratuity' which is skimmed off card payments without so much as a say-so.