>>Where did you get that figure. We always tip at 15% (if good service) and try and leave the tip as cash and not included on the bill if paying by card. That way there's more chance of it going to the staff and not to the business.
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>One of the reasons for including the tip is that when you tip in cash, only the waiter/waitress gets it. The other way, it is often pooled so that the people in the back - cooks, bottle washers, table cleaners, etc also get a piece of the action. Many of them are working just as hard as the waiter to give you good service.

There's the so-called "server banking", which I thought had to do something with server farms or that it was network related in some way. It's actually a virtual piggybank part of the cash register, where the waiter leaves the extra cash (and I had to write some code to register anything that came in or out of there), or borrows cash to have change when needed, and where at the end of shift all the tips are added to any cash there - and then split between the waiter and the background staff. By end of shift, it all has to match - total money billed, cash in the register, cash in the pocket (zero - return to piggybank before closing) etc. Then a report is produced with who gets what (percentages need so be set in advance), and that goes to payroll.