ArtistryHost is one of the only booking platforms that uses Square's Orders API to record bookings, which means tax, gratuity, and revenue come through as separate line items in your Square reports. This is different from booking platforms that lump everything into one number and leave you (or your bookkeeper) to split it.
Here's how each charge works, what your guest sees, and where it lands in Square.
Tax
Configure it in: Settings → Payments & fees → "Tax & gratuity defaults." Set your default sales tax rate (e.g., 6.5% for King of Prussia, PA). It pre-fills new experiences, and each experience can still override it.
Guest sees: Tax shown as a separate line item at checkout (Subtotal $75.00 / Tax $4.88 / Total $79.88).
Square reports: Tax appears in the Tax column, not blended into revenue. Your bookkeeper can read tax-due straight off the report without manual splitting.
Tax recognition basis
This is a quietly important per-location setting at Locations → [location] → Edit → "Tax recognition basis":
- Recognize on booking. Tax accrues the day the guest pays.
- Recognize on experience. Tax accrues the day the experience happens.
Most states require one specific basis depending on local rules. If you're not sure, ask your accountant, but for most experiential venues, "recognize on experience" is correct, because that's when the service is rendered.
Gratuity
Configure it in: Settings → Payments & fees → "Tax & gratuity defaults." Set a default auto-gratuity percentage (0 = no auto-gratuity, which most operators use). Like the tax rate, it pre-fills new experiences and each experience can override it.
Guest sees: A gratuity prompt at checkout, either as an optional add-on or a required selection. Defaults to the percentages you set.
Square reports: Gratuity appears in the Tip column, separate from revenue. Tips can be allocated to staff via Square's tip-allocation rules.
Service fee (operator-keeps-it)
Configure it in: Settings → Payments & fees → "Processing fee." Off by default. When on, you set the percentage.
Applies to: Full Prepayment checkouts only — the one flow where the guest pays online. Card on File and No Card Required bookings collect nothing at booking, so there's no checkout to add a fee to; those guests pay in person through your Square POS.
Guest sees: A clearly labeled "Service fee" line at checkout. We let you customize the label. "Service fee," "Booking fee," or "Processing fee" all work — so if you want to pass your card processing cost through to the guest, this is how, and it only ever applies on Full Prepayment bookings.
The important difference vs FareHarbor / Peek: When you turn this on, you keep every dollar of the fee. We don't take a cut. It's additional revenue for your venue.
Square reports: Service fee appears as its own line item, separate from the booking revenue. So you can see exactly how much fee income you've earned.
Processing fee
This isn't a fee you control. It's Square's standard card processing fee (typically 2.6% + $0.10 for in-person, 2.9% + $0.30 for online). Square deducts it from your deposit automatically.
We don't add anything on top. The processing fee shown in your reports is purely Square's.
What this looks like in practice
A $75 candle class booked online, in a 6.5% tax state, with optional 18% gratuity selected, no service fee:
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Class | $75.00 |
| Gratuity | $13.50 |
| Tax (on class) | $4.88 |
| Guest total | $93.38 |
| Square processing | $3.01 |
| You receive | $90.37 |
Each line lands in its own bucket in Square. Your end-of-month reports add up cleanly. Your bookkeeper has fewer questions for you.
"My Bookeo reports don't separate these, why?"
Bookeo's Square integration uses Square's E-commerce endpoint, which doesn't separate tax from revenue. (Bookeo's own support documentation explains this.) Their recommended workaround is to integrate Xero. Another tool, another bill.
ArtistryHost uses Square's Orders endpoint, which preserves the line-item breakdown. No bolt-on tool required.