Running payroll at a restaurant has historically been a tricky affair for the (un)lucky soul tasked with the job. Restaurant operators juggle minimum wage laws, minimum wage laws across multiple states (if you’re a chain), incorrectly logged hours (from missed or late clock-ins), overtime, and tip reporting, which can come back to bite you in the pants if it’s not done correctly and you ever get audited.
Suffice to say, there’s plenty of reason for restaurant-tech companies to offer the kind of software that can automate some of this process and improve accuracy at the same time.
Toast, whose restaurant-tech platform has evolved from a simple POS system to a one-stop-shop software system, is the latest company to try its hand at making payroll easier for restaurants. The company this week released its Payroll & Team Management for Restaurants products, which are aimed at helping restaurants with all the issues listed above and more.
The system is designed to work with both small restaurants with only a handful of staff and large-scale operations with multiple locations across multiple states.
Most notably, the system syncs payroll with the restaurant’s (Toast-powered) POS system. Employees clock in and out via the POS system, which also tracks overtime, manages multiple different pay rates, and makes it easier to do things like swap shifts between employees and record any paid time off.
The new products also help restaurants better manage the ever-shifting regulatory and compliance requirements in the restaurant industry. Toast claims its new products will help restaurants better navigate tax laws for each state, as well as and state-specific regulations (e.g., California’s Meal Break & Rest Break law).
Toast is hardly the only company out there working on improving the HR end of the restaurant business. Fourth’s restaurant operations platform has a payroll management feature that assists restaurant operators in a similar fashion to Toast’s, helping to streamline the entire process and minimize human error along the way. A company called 7shifts also offers extensive payroll and employee management features in its platform.
Toast adds the new features to its ever-growing arsenal of front- and back-of-house software products for restaurants. The company raised $250 million in April in a Series E funding round.
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