How to Make Restaurant Payroll Less Stressful

Would you like to make your restaurant payroll less stressful? Watch this video, or read below, for two tips on how to do it. 

You know that three payroll month? It only happens twice per year, but somehow it always seems to happen when your sales are low and you have no cash flow. Three payrolls and no cash. Or what about the time it takes to do your restaurant payroll. You have to track down your data from your POS system, making the managers adjust the in and out time, making sure all the data is correct, enter all the data and then double check it. It takes a lot of time. And if you're a restaurant owner who does it themself, you're really stressing yourself out. 

A lot of restaurant owners don't want to give up the cost of paying a professional payroll company. Especially if they feel like they have the time to do it themselves. But I have a few reasons you should just pay a payroll company to do it for you.

• Number one, a payroll company is going to keep you in compliance with new-hire paperwork. It's required by law that you report every new hire - it's how they put together jobs created reports.
• Second, a restaurant payroll company is going to make sure you pay the right amount of money in payroll taxes, filing it and doing it correctly. You're liable if you mess it up.
• Third, if the IRS comes to you with an audit or any requests, and you don't know what you've been doing, you could be in big trouble. But a payroll company is going to sit between you and the IRS.

Another way to reduce the stress related to your restaurant payroll is to change from a calendar accounting bi-weekly payroll to a semi-monthly payroll schedule. You have pay periods of 1-15 and 16-last day of the month.

This does a couple of things for you. It makes sure you can pay your bills and your payroll because you can account for your payroll because there are just two every month. And then those two extra payroll cycles fit perfectly into a semi-monthly payroll schedule.

With a restaurant payroll service, you can focus on other areas of the restaurant that open up your profit margin while a professional payroll specialist manages the payroll.

If you'd like to learn more about reducing your stress with restaurant payroll, download this free report, Why Doing Your Own Restaurant Payroll Is a Waste of Time. Or watch this webinar on  The Largo Group's own restaurant industry expert David Scott Peters' YouTube channel.