Red Lodge Hospitality Group
Red Lodge Hospitality Group has built a collection of 4 distinct dining and lodging concepts in Montana’s Beartooth Range, each with its own identity, team structure, and tip distribution rules. From Red Lodge Pizza Co. and The Carbon County Steakhouse to Bogart’s Restaurant and The Pollard Hotel, managing tips across restaurants, banquets, and hotel operations became increasingly complex. With different staffing models and payout rules across locations, Laurel Sweeney and her team spent hours each pay period managing notebooks, spreadsheets, and manual reconciliation. They needed a more efficient way to simplify tip management, improve accuracy, and create greater transparency for their teams.
~48 hrs/month
Saved across managers by eliminating manual tip tracking
0 Tip Disputes Reported
By giving front-of-house staff 100% tip transparency through the TipHaus Employee App
New Tip Channel
Unlocked for housekeeping at The Pollard Hotel through QR Code Tipping
Montana
4
Multi-concept hospitality group (hotel, steakhouse, pizzeria, bar)
Laurel Sweeney, Controller
Tip distribution across 4 concepts relied on handwritten notebooks and manager-built spreadsheets, creating data gaps, math errors, and hours of manual reconciliation every pay period.
TipHaus automated tip calculations across 4 concepts, integrated with Toast, and gave employees real-time visibility into their earnings through the Employee App. QR Code Tipping also created a new way for guests to recognize The Pollard Hotel’s housekeeping team.
Reduce tip calculation time by 80% while eliminating manual errors and discrepancies—ensuring accuracy and legal compliance
Calculate your ROI
Give your team daily access to their earnings. No cash, no bank runs, no stress.
Find out how digital tip payouts are transforming restaurant operations and employee retention.
Red Lodge Hospitality Group has spent more than 30 years building a collection of 4 unique hospitality concepts in Montana’s Beartooth Range, including Red Lodge Pizza Co., The Carbon County Steakhouse, Bogart’s Restaurant, and The Pollard Hotel.
With each concept operating differently, managing tip distribution across restaurants, banquets, and hotel operations became increasingly complex. Laurel Sweeney, Controller at Red Lodge Hospitality Group, was looking for a way to replace manual spreadsheets and create a more consistent, transparent tip process across all locations.
That’s when Red Lodge turned to TipHaus.
In the early days, Red Lodge Hospitality Group managed tip distribution through manual processes, with servers settling tip-outs directly with the kitchen using cash and envelopes. As the group expanded and card payments became the norm, that approach became harder to manage.
Managers began using Toast shift reviews to track tip-outs, but still had to manually record amounts in notebooks and transfer data into spreadsheets for payroll. Across 4 concepts and approximately 120 employees during the off-season, this process required about 48 hours per month of manual tracking and reconciliation, leaving room for errors.
At one point, a missing notebook page highlighted the risks of relying on manual processes.
For Laurel, tip reconciliation alone took 2+ hours per pay period, often increasing to 4+ hours when discrepancies occurred. The team needed a more reliable, automated way to manage tip distribution across all locations.
Before TipHaus, we'd write everyone's tips down in a notebook, then managers had to manually enter everything into a spreadsheet. It was a slow, tedious process.
Laurel Sweeney
Controller
TipHaus replaced Red Lodge Hospitality Group’s manual tip tracking process with a centralized system that automated calculations, reporting, and tip visibility across 4 concepts.
Custom tip rules were built for each location and role, allowing Laurel to manage different distribution models while eliminating handwritten tracking and spreadsheet reconciliation. Through the Toast integration, sales and shift data sync directly into TipHaus, reducing manual entry and saving managers approximately 48 hours per month across the group.
Employees gained real-time visibility into their earnings through the TipHaus Employee App, helping create 100% tip transparency and eliminating tip disputes. TipHaus also built a custom payroll export for all 4 concepts, streamlining payroll preparation and reducing additional administrative work.
In October 2025, Red Lodge expanded its use of TipHaus with QR Code Tipping at The Pollard Hotel, creating a new tipping channel for housekeeping and giving guests a simple, cashless way to recognize staff.
TipHaus is a huge time saver for my servers. There is 0 time spent calculating tips or doing payouts manually. The employee app puts everything right there on their phones, black and white, and that brings 100% transparency. No questions asked. They trust the system. I would recommend TipHaus to any operator. It has been set it and forget it, very easy to use, and ready to roll from the very first kick-off call.
Laurel Sweeney
Controller
See why TipHaus is trusted by 500,000+ hospitality professionals
For Laurel and the Red Lodge Hospitality Group, TipHaus has transformed tip management from a time-consuming manual process into a reliable system that runs in the background. With more time back, greater transparency for employees, and a simpler way to manage four unique concepts, the team can stay focused on what matters most: delivering great hospitality.
