Fineprint New York Administrative-Charge Notice Check
For New York clubs that add a charge to bottle-service packages, private parties and banquets

“Admin fee 20%” in 9-point is a gratuity.

Fineprint reads the words the venue printed for each package, party or banquet charge — on the contract, the menu and the bill — and checks each one says the charge is for administration, is not a gratuity, and will not go to the staff, in type no smaller than 12-point. A notice that fails turns the charge into a presumed gratuity, owed to the staff, until it is fixed.

Open the demo See pricing

Opens in this browser with an invented club already in it. No account, no email address, nothing installed.

Fineprint with its example records in itOpen the free demo →

The problem

In New York, a service charge is presumed to be a tip.

Under the state’s hospitality wage rules, a charge on top of food and drink is presumed to be a gratuity, and a gratuity goes in full to the staff who served. A charge for administering a banquet or package escapes that only if the customer is told, in the contract, any priced menu and the bill, that it is for administration, is not a gratuity and will not go to staff — in ordinary words, never smaller than 12-point. The venue has to prove it.

3 places

the notice must appear: the contract, the menu with prices, and the bill.

12 NYCRR 146-2.19 →
12-point

the smallest the type may be, and similar to the text around it.

12 NYCRR 146-2.19 →
Presumed

a gratuity — and owed in full to the staff — when the notice is missing or wrong.

Will not call a charge an administrative charge that is not.

Each notice is read as printed: the three statements, the type size against the text around it, and a dated copy on file. A notice missing any of them turns the charge into a presumed gratuity, listed with what is owed to the staff, until every notice for that event says it.

How it works

Events, wording, gratuity records

Add each event charge

The package, party or banquet, the amount and any split, and each notice exactly as printed, with a fingerprinted copy.

Try the wording first

Paste a statement before it goes to the printer and see what it lacks.

Keep the gratuity records

Every charge that is, or is presumed, a gratuity, what was paid to whom, kept six years.

What it will never do

It reads your notices. It does not write the law.

Fineprint checks the words you printed. Whether a bottle package is a package deal is the venue’s own call.

No files kept.Each copy is fingerprinted in the browser and stays on your disk.
No filing.Nothing is sent to the Labor Department.
It is not a lawyer.A wage claim goes to one. Fineprint is the evidence you take with you.
It never touches a payment.The subscription is for software.

Pricing

Priced per venue

Less than one bottle’s administrative charge.

Most clubs

One venue

$12/month

One New York club with packages or events.

  • Every notice read as printed
  • Wording tried before printing
  • Gratuity records, six years

One venue, yearly

$120/year

The same, two months free.

  • Everything in One venue
  • Dated copies fingerprinted
  • Export for your lawyer

Subscription. Your bank statement says Fineprint Software. Refunded in full on request within 30 days. Your licence key is emailed to you within two working days of payment.

Checkout is our own bitcoin server, not a card processor — nobody we had to apply to and nobody who can close the account. The button takes you straight to it. Give your email address there — that is where your key is sent.

Questions

The ones we actually get asked

What must each notice say?

That the charge is for administration of the event, that it is not a gratuity, and that it will not be given to the staff as gratuities.

What if the charge is partly a tip?

Split it into specific percentages or amounts, in writing, in the same three places. Fineprint checks the split too.

How long are gratuity records kept?

Six years. Fineprint dates each one.

Is this legal advice?

No. It is the evidence you wish you had kept.

What do I actually get when I pay?

The demo on this page is the whole program, running on invented records. Paying gets you a licence key — one line of text, emailed to the address you give at checkout within two working days. Paste it into the program and from then on it keeps your own records. Until then, nothing you type into it is kept.

The key is checked inside the page, on your own machine. It never calls us, so there is still no account and nothing about your business goes anywhere. If you ever stop paying, your records stay exactly where they are, read-only, and Export still hands you every one of them.

Open the demo before the next booking

The invented Manhattan club’s bottle package bill says only “Admin fee 20%” in 9-point. A party “service charge” was kept by the house. A banquet has no copy of its bill. Fineprint names every one.

Open the demo See pricing