New Jersey restaurants: staff sales, tips and refunds from Clover

Othra lets a New Jersey restaurant owner ask their Clover data who sold the most, who refunded the most, what each person's average ticket was, how much customers tipped and how much sales tax was collected. It answers in plain English with figure cards and ranked staff bars, all worked out from your own orders. It is read only, so nothing in Clover ever changes.

Why do people and payments matter so much in a New Jersey restaurant?

In a New Jersey restaurant, the counter is where labor, tips and tax all meet, so it pays to see them clearly. According to the National Restaurant Association's 2025 figures for New Jersey, the state has 20,553 restaurant locations, 366,400 restaurant and foodservice jobs and $40.4 billion in sales, and restaurants are its third-largest private employer.

The state sets the pay floor. The New Jersey Department of Labor says that from January 1, 2026 the minimum wage is $15.92 an hour for most employees, and the cash wage for tipped workers is $6.05 an hour. With wages at that level, it helps to know who is selling when, and how much customers are tipping.

Then there is sales tax. The New Jersey Division of Taxation, in Tax Topic Bulletin S&U-1, says prepared food sold by restaurants is taxed at 6.625%, whether it is eaten in or taken out. That money passes through your register every day, so it is worth seeing as a number of its own.

What can Othra tell you about your staff?

Othra turns the employee on each Clover order into three ranked views: sales by staff, refunds by staff and average ticket by staff. You ask in your own words, for example "Who sold the most last month?" or "Who refunded the most this week?", and the answer comes back as a ranked list of bars.

Every bar reads the same way. The number on the left is the rank, the name sits inside the bar, and on the right you see the amount plus the number of orders (for sales and average ticket) or the number of refunds. The longest bar is at the top, so you can see at a glance how far apart people are, not just who came first.

Each answer also shows exactly which days it covers: the start and end date, the number of days and the number of orders. A question can cover up to about three months of orders, and for periods up to about six weeks Othra also compares the period before. To see whether this month's ranking looks like last month's, ask about both months.

How do you read staff rankings fairly?

A staff ranking is the start of a conversation with your team, not a verdict on anyone. The bars show who rang up what, and that depends on shifts, roles and which register someone stood at as much as on effort. Four habits keep the reading fair.

Refunds are not blame

A high refund count often points to the person who handles problems. The manager who takes complaints, fixes a wrong order or reverses a double charge will refund more than a new cashier who passes those cases up the line. Read the refund amount next to the refund count, and ask what the refunds were for before drawing any conclusion.

Compare like shifts

Someone who works Friday and Saturday nights will usually out-sell someone on weekday mornings. Ask about the same period for everyone, keep the schedule next to the bars, and compare people who had similar chances: two weekend closers with each other, two morning openers with each other.

Average ticket needs enough orders

Average ticket by staff is a person's sales divided by the number of their orders. One large party order can make someone with a handful of tickets look like the star of the month. That is why Othra only counts people with enough orders in the average ticket ranking, so the list reflects real habits instead of a few lucky tickets.

Look at the trend, not one week

One slow week is noise. Ask the same question for a month or a quarter and see whether the order holds. If it does, you have something worth talking about, such as which add-ons a strong seller suggests that others could learn.

What do tips and payment types show?

With the Payments permission, Othra shows how your customers pay and how much they tip. For the period you ask about, you get the shares of cash, credit and debit, the tips collected, and the sales tax collected.

Payment mix answers practical questions. A large cash share tells you how much is moving through the drawer and needs counting at close. A large card share tells you where card processing costs come from. Tips matter to your team directly: with New Jersey's cash wage for tipped workers at $6.05 an hour, according to the NJ Department of Labor, tipped staff depend on what customers add to the bill.

From payments, Othra uses only amounts, tips, tax and payment type. It never reads card numbers.

Sales tax collected

The sales tax figure is the tax your Clover register collected on the orders in that period. Since New Jersey taxes restaurant prepared food at 6.625% (S&U-1), the tax collected should look reasonable next to your sales. If it looks out of line, that is a reason to review how items are taxed in Clover with your accountant. It is a figure to check, not a tax return.

You can also ask about order types, such as how sales split between dine in, take out and delivery, which helps when you are deciding where to put staff.

Which questions should a New Jersey owner ask first?

The best first questions are short and name a period. Here are six to start with, and what each answer shows:

• "Who sold the most last month?" Ranked staff bars with each person's sales and order count, plus the dates and order total covered.
• "Who refunded the most in the last 30 days?" Ranked bars with the refund amount and number of refunds per person.
• "What is the average ticket by staff member this quarter?" Ranked bars for people with enough orders, with their order counts.
• "How did customers pay last week?" The cash, credit and debit shares.
• "How much did we collect in tips and sales tax in September?" Figure cards for tips and tax collected.
• "Who sold the most this week?" then "And last week?" Two rankings in the same chat, so changes stand out.

For a wider tour of what you can ask, read What is Othra?.

How do you turn this into a PDF for a partner or manager?

Type "make this a PDF report" or press Report, and Othra writes a report on the subject of your conversation. It does not dump the chat; it writes a proper document you can send to a business partner, a general manager or a shift lead.

1. Ask your staff, tips and tax questions in one chat, for the period you want to review.
2. Type "make this a PDF report" or press Report.
3. Othra finds the subject of the conversation and writes the report: the Othra logo on the left, your business name on the right, a summary, the figures, charts (including the staff bars) and recommendations.
4. Download the PDF and share it with your partner or manager.

Every figure in the report comes from the saved answers, so what your partner reads matches what you saw on screen. Our post on New York restaurants, rain and rush hours shows reports from another angle, with weather and busy hours.

How do you connect Clover and get started?

Connecting takes one API token from Clover. Here are the steps:

1. Open Othra at ordero.si/connect and sign in with an Ordero account, or create one.
2. In the Clover web dashboard, create an API token with Read on Orders, Inventory and Merchant, plus Payments (tips, tax, payment types) and Employees (sales by staff).
3. Paste the token with your Merchant ID. Othra checks it and connects.

The first read of a month or more takes the longest; after that, answers come back in seconds. A new chat opens with today's sales and orders so far, compared with the same time last week. There is also a Statistics page with Today, 7, 30 or 90 days and cards for sales, orders, average ticket, refunds, tips and more, computed from every order with no AI involved.

Othra is $19.99 a month per restaurant, and you can cancel any time (see pricing). Want to look first? A made-up pizzeria with three months of orders is free to try before you connect your own Clover. Details are on the Othra home page.

Othra is read only: it never creates, changes or deletes anything in Clover. Your access is stored encrypted, orders are read from Clover when you ask rather than stored in a database, and disconnecting deletes the access. Clover is a trademark of its owner; Ordero is not affiliated with or endorsed by Clover.

What else does Ordero offer New Jersey restaurants?

Othra is one product from Ordero, AI software for US restaurants made by Ordero SI LLC in Austin, Texas. The Ordero New Jersey page brings together what it offers restaurants in the state, and no Ordero product takes a commission on any order.

If you serve customers in more than one language, the Voice Agent is worth a look. Ordero Voice Agent answers your phone in your restaurant's name and takes orders from your real menu, including sizes, toppings and half-and-half pizzas, in eight languages: English, Spanish, Turkish, German, French, Arabic, Korean and Hindi. It says it is an automated assistant and that the call may be recorded, takes several calls at once, passes the call to staff when a caller asks, and never takes card numbers. Plans start at $500 a month.

The Online Order System gives your restaurant its own ordering page at ordero.si/yourname, with an AI chat that takes orders from your menu. Customers pay at pickup or on delivery, and it costs $50 a month.