What does a restaurant receipt include?

The restaurant's details, date/time, server and table, each item priced, subtotal, sales tax, a tip line, and the payment block with method and total — plus a check number tying it to the POS.

Is tax calculated before or after the tip?

Before. Sales tax applies to the food and drink subtotal; the tip is added after tax and isn't taxed. Total = subtotal + tax + tip — receipts that tax the tip are miscalculated.

Why do card payments at restaurants produce two slips?

The merchant copy (with tip and signature lines) is the restaurant's record of the authorized amount; the customer copy is yours. The itemized check is a third document — the one expense reports want.

Can I recreate a restaurant receipt for an expense report?

No — submit originals or your policy's declared substitutes (statement plus note, or a missing-receipt affidavit). Recreations are for your own records of real meals, props and design work.

How to Make a Restaurant Receipt (Tax + Tip Done Right)

To make a restaurant receipt: add the restaurant's header, a check/server/table line, each dish and drink as its own priced line, the subtotal, sales tax calculated on the subtotal, a tip line (blank or filled), and the payment block with method and total. The format is standardized enough that getting the order and math right is most of the realism — and the restaurant receipt template has it prebuilt.

Legitimate uses first: restaurants issuing or reissuing checks, replacing a faded original of a real meal for expense records, prop and design work, and testing receipt-scanning software. Fabricating a meal that never happened for reimbursement is expense fraud — the line drawn in is it legal to make your own receipt.

The 7 steps

Header: restaurant name, address, phone. Real checks often add the location or store number.
Check metadata: date and time, server name or number, table number, guest count — "SERVER: MARIA — TBL 12 — GUESTS: 2." This line is what makes it read as a restaurant check rather than a shop receipt.
Items: one line per dish or drink with its price; modifiers (add avocado) indented with their upcharges. Quantities collapse ("2 HOUSE IPA 16.00").
Subtotal — food and drink before anything else.
Tax: your locality's rate applied to the subtotal, shown as its own line. Some cities stack rates (state + county + hospitality); one combined line is standard on checks.
Tip line: dine-in card checks print TIP: ____ and TOTAL: ____ for handwriting; a completed receipt shows the tip amount and grand total. Counter-service receipts often skip it.
Payment block: method, card brand and last four for cards, amount tendered and change for cash, and a check or receipt number (numbering logic).

The math that must reconcile

Items sum to the subtotal; tax = subtotal × rate (rounded per line convention); total = subtotal + tax + tip. The single most common realism error is tipping before tax or taxing the tip — tips are not taxable sales. If you're reconstructing a real meal from a card statement, remember the statement total includes the tip you wrote: back it out before rebuilding lines (statement-to-receipt logic).

Details that sell the format

ALL-CAPS items in a monospaced look, abbreviated dish names (CHKN CAES SAL), the "customer copy" footer, a gratuity-suggestion block, and the merchant/customer copy distinction for card payments (why two slips exist). For expense submissions, what matters instead is completeness: itemization is what separates the check from the card slip — the requirement explained in the business-meal receipt rules.

Make one now

Open the restaurant template at /create, fill the header, add items, set your tax rate — subtotal, tax and totals calculate themselves, and the PDF prints in thermal-strip format. Under a minute for a complete, arithmetic-perfect check.

The bottom line

Header, metadata, items, subtotal, tax, tip, payment — in that order, with tax on food only and totals that add. The template does the arithmetic; you supply the true facts of a real transaction.