Why Puffin Doesn't Take Cash — Tipping, Extra Time, and How Payment Actually Works

Most agencies leave this to the awkward moment at the door. We would rather answer it before you book.

Please keep payments on Puffin

That is the heading families see on the confirmation screen and again in the booking email. Here is what it says there, word for word:

Our caregivers are employed by Puffin and paid through us for every hour they work, so there is never anything to settle at the door. A payment made directly, in cash, is not recorded against your booking — it is not covered by our insurance or our guarantee, and neither of you has a receipt for it. Tipping is not expected and we never ask for it.

If a shift runs longer than booked, or you would like to add time, tell us and we will bill it to your booking properly. Call (604) 283-2829 or reply to your booking email.

The rest of this page is the reasoning behind it, because "please don't" with no reason attached is not much of an answer. The short version: the rate you were quoted is the whole price, nothing is held back expecting you to make it up at the end, and the person a cash payment creates a problem for is the caregiver rather than you.

What a cash payment actually does

Our hourly caregivers are Puffin employees. Puffin runs payroll, is registered with WorkSafeBC and pays the premiums, and is the employer of record. You are not employing someone in your home. That arrangement is the thing families are really buying, and it is described in full in employed vs. contractor — who is liable and is your nanny insured? WorkSafeBC explained.

Cash sits outside all of it. Specifically:

It is not recorded hours. WorkSafeBC coverage, payroll, and the caregiver's own record of what they worked all run off hours that exist in a system. An hour paid in cash is an hour nobody logged. If something goes wrong during it, the record says the caregiver was not working.

It is income with no deductions taken. Puffin handles payroll deductions and remittances for the hours it processes. A cash handoff moves that obligation onto the caregiver personally, without warning and usually without them realising. The person most exposed by a generous gesture is the person receiving it.

It removes your record too. You have no receipt, no line item, and nothing to point at if the hours are ever disputed.

It costs you loyalty hours. Ten delivered hours earn a free hour. Extra time billed through Puffin counts toward that ledger. Cash does not — it is invisible to the system that credits it.

None of this is us being precious about process. It is that the protections are made of records, and cash does not make a record.

What happens when a visit runs long

This is the common one, and it has a real answer rather than a shrug.

If a caregiver stays beyond the booked hours — the dinner ran late, the flight was delayed, the evening simply went longer — those hours are charged through Puffin, on the same card already on file for the booking. Not a separate transaction you arrange at the door.

The mechanics, so nothing is a surprise:

1. The extra hours are logged against your booking, with the reason recorded.

2. The charge goes to the same saved card the original booking used, for the hours actually worked.

3. You get an emailed record of what was charged and why.

4. Those hours count toward your ten-hour free hour, exactly as the original booking's hours did.

The card is already there because childcare bookings place a hold when you book and capture after the shift is finished. Extra time uses that same card. There is nothing for you to set up and nothing to settle in person.

What the extra hours cost

Not automatically more. The rate those hours bill at follows the same published rule the booking form used to price the original shift:

One caregiver covers up to 8 hours. Longer bookings are staffed by two or more in sequence, and a booking those caregivers cover between them carries no overtime at all — so a 12-hour booking costs less than an 11-hour one. Only the hours past what they cover bill as overtime, at 1.5x the rate those hours would otherwise be charged at. Overnight hours (10:00 PM – 6:00 AM) carry the overnight rate, so overtime worked overnight is 1.5x the overnight rate.

So it depends on where the extra hours land, not on the fact that they are extra. A shift sold at eight hours has already used everything its one caregiver covers, so a ninth hour is overtime. A twelve-hour booking is staffed by two caregivers who cover sixteen hours between them, so running it to thirteen carries no overtime at all and bills at the ordinary rate. Hours after 10:00 PM carry the overnight rate whether they were booked or added.

Whichever applies, it is worked out against your booking and itemised in the email. There is no version of this where you agree a number in a hallway. The full tier table is on the rate card.

If you want to recognise a caregiver

The honest answer is that money is the least useful thing you can give them, because the money part is already handled and handled properly.

What actually helps: tell us. Caregivers are matched to bookings rather than picking up whatever is open, and feedback about who worked well with your family feeds directly into that. A caregiver whose families ask for them by name is in a materially better position than one who was handed forty dollars at the door.

What we are not saying

We are not telling you what to do with your own money, and we are not going to inspect your hallway. If you tip a caregiver in cash, nothing happens to you.

What we are saying is that the person it creates a problem for is the caregiver, not you — and that every route you might use cash for, Puffin already has a proper one for. Extra time has a mechanism. The rate has no gap in it that a tip is meant to close.