Quick-service pay isn’t a tip-credit problem, it’s a wage-floor problem. Counter and drive-thru crews earn a straight hourly wage that has to clear a federal, state, local, and now fast-food-only minimum (California’s is $20 an hour), a teen-heavy roster runs into child-labor hour caps, and turnover past 130% means you onboard the same position more than once a year. WageTime processes the floor per store, hands managers scheduling guardrails, and onboards a new hire from their own phone before the first shift, across every EIN in the group from one login.
None of these is a tip question. They’re the standing conditions of running counter-service crews at the wage floor, and each one is either a manager’s second job or a penalty that now lands per violation.
QSR crews sit right at the floor, and the floor is federal, state, local, and in California a fast-food-only $20 an hour for chains with 60 or more locations. Run four stores across three localities and each one has its own number to clear on every single check.
14- and 15-year-olds can’t work past 7pm on a school night or more than 3 hours that day, and cooking and slicers are off-limits under 16. The DOL now assesses child-labor penalties per violation, not per employee, and fast-food franchisees have been fined into six figures for minors on the wrong machine at the wrong hour.
New York City’s law applies specifically to fast-food chains: post schedules 14 days out, pay a premium when you change them late, no clopenings without written consent plus a $100 premium, and offer open shifts to your crew before you hire. A dropped shift now carries a price.
At quick-service turnover the average position turns over more than once a year: a W-4, an I-9, a direct-deposit form, and a first check that has to be right, for a hire who might be gone by fall. Every January, W-2s chase people who left in March.
Multi-unit franchisees hold each store in its own LLC and EIN, with labor percentage squeezed under royalties and food cost. Generic payroll answers with an account per store and a spreadsheet the bookkeeper keeps by hand to see the group.
Punches sit in Toast, Square, Aloha, or Brink; schedules sit in Homebase or 7shifts. Every cycle someone exports, reformats, and re-keys, and every handoff is another chance to short a paycheck.
The floor, the teen crew, and the schedule each get a product screen or a straight answer below.
WageTime runs minimum-wage processing at federal, state, and local levels, so every check tests against the floor that applies to the store that earned it, not one company-wide number. Fast food now carries floors of its own: California set a $20 hourly minimum for fast-food chains with 60 or more US locations in April 2024, and 66 cities and counties set local minimums above the federal $7.25. When a crew member works the counter one shift and runs as shift lead the next, overtime computes on the weighted-average regular rate for the week. Tell us your states and cities on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact floors for your stores.
| Employee | Store | Local floor | Paid rate | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jalen R. | Riverside #12 | $16.50 | $16.50 | At floor |
| Mia T. | Downtown #04 | $17.50 | $18.00 | Above |
| Cody B. | Airport #21 | $20.00 CA fast food | $19.25 | $0.75 under |
| Priya S. | Downtown #04 | $17.50 | $17.50 | At floor |
Replaces the spreadsheet of per-city wage rates the bookkeeper updates by hand, and the underpayment nobody catches until the store lands in a new city.
WageTime gives managers the guardrails, not a promise the law runs itself. Shift scheduling carries conflict safeguards (double-booking checks, rest-period flags, and overnight-shift validation), so a schedule that would put a crew member on a clopening or a late overnight surfaces before it is published. Break and meal rules with rounding options live in the timesheets, and attestation and change logs keep the record audit-ready. The stakes are why this matters: the DOL assessed more than $15 million in child-labor penalties in fiscal 2024, up 89% from the year before, and now counts them per violation, so one bad schedule can multiply. The federal hour caps for 14- and 15-year-olds (no more than 3 hours on a school day, nothing after 7pm) stay yours to apply; the schedule does the watching so a late close surfaces early.
| Crew | Shift | Safeguard | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devon K. | Fri close, Sat open | Rest-period | 9 hrs, under 11 |
| Aisha M. | Wed 10pm-2am | Overnight-shift | flagged for review |
| Marcus J. | Sat 8am-2pm, 1pm-5pm | Double-booking | overlaps 1-2pm |
| Grace L. | Sun 10am-4pm | none | Clear |
Replaces the printed schedule a manager eyeballs for problems, and the clopening nobody noticed until the crew member did.
WageTime carries a schedule-change or predictability premium as a pay code on the run, the same way night, weekend, and holiday differentials and on-call pay ride as codes. Fair-workweek laws written for fast food (New York City’s covers chains with 30 or more locations) require posting schedules 14 days out, a $10 to $75 premium when you change them late, and a $100 premium for a clopening a worker didn’t consent to. You decide when a premium is owed; the code puts it on the check with the right taxes. Publishing the schedule in WageTime keeps the posted version and the worked version in one place.
| Employee | Code | Trigger | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mia T. | PREDICT-CHG | schedule changed 6 days out | $45.00 |
| Devon K. | CLOPEN | consented close-to-open | $100.00 |
| Aisha M. | NIGHT-DIFF | 4 overnight hrs | $12.00 |
| Priya S. | ON-CALL | Sat standby | $30.00 |
Replaces the premium someone calculates on a sticky note, or forgets, and the fair-workweek complaint that follows.
A quick-service roster is always half new, so onboarding and offboarding are the same weekly chore, and WageTime runs both in one place. A crew member enters their own details, signs tax forms, and clears the electronic I-9 (front-and-back capture, with the E-Verify case opened once requirements are met) from their phone before they touch a register. A summer wave comes on through bulk onboarding, last season’s crew rehire with their records still on file, and the ones who don’t come back close out through the bulk termination wizard. When a closer quits after Friday’s rush, unlimited runs cut the final check as a Monday off-cycle at no extra charge, every tax filed. Weekly pay costs nothing extra either, so “when do I get paid” stops being a reason someone walks.
| Person | Store | Move | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tariq H. | Riverside #12 | New hire, first shift Fri | Self-onboarded |
| Bianca F. | Downtown #04 | New hire, first shift Sat | Self-onboarded |
| Owen D. | Airport #21 | Rehire, summer crew | Records retained |
| Sofia N. | Riverside #12 | New hire, first shift Mon | Waiting on I-9 |
| Kyle M. | Eastgate #33 | New hire, first shift Mon | Self-onboarded |
| Reggie T. | Downtown #04 | Quit after Fri close | Final check off-cycle Mon |
| Dana P. | Airport #21 | End of season | Final check on Mar 13 run |
Replaces the new-hire clipboard by the fry station, the manager’s onboarding hour between rushes, and the “it’ll be on the next run” final check.
One login, many companies. A multi-unit operator keeps each store in its own EIN, and WageTime files each one’s federal, state, and local returns separately, deposits and all, while the group reports either per store or rolled up. Department and location controls keep one store’s numbers out of another’s, job costing carries labor cost by store so you can see which location runs hot, and 1099 crew (the overnight cleaners, the sign spinner) pay alongside W-2 staff. Finished payroll posts to QuickBooks mapped by department, so labor percentage per store is a report you pull, not a reconciliation you build. The next store is another company in the same login, not another vendor.
| Store | EIN | People paid | Labor % | Filings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downtown #04 LLC | ••-•••4021 | 38 | 27.4% | Filed |
| Riverside #12 LLC | ••-•••7788 | 41 | 29.1% | Filed |
| Airport #21 LLC | ••-•••3390 | 29 | 31.8% runs hot | Filed |
| Eastgate #33 LLC | ••-•••1265 | 24 | 26.9% | Filed |
Replaces a payroll account per store, four sets of year-end chaos, and the labor-percentage spreadsheet nobody trusts.
Yes. Fast-food crews are paid a straight hourly wage, so no tip credit is taken, and WageTime processes those wages against the applicable minimum-wage floor. If a location runs a counter tip screen, tip earning codes carry those tips into the run and onto the W-2; because you take no tip credit, they ride on top of the full hourly wage. Bring one pay period to the demo.
When someone works two rates in one week (crew one shift, shift lead the next) WageTime computes overtime on the weighted-average regular rate automatically. Crew who split time across two separate store EINs raise a joint-employment question that depends on your structure, so bring how your stores are set up to the demo and we’ll confirm how the hours total.
WageTime gives you the guardrails: scheduling conflict safeguards flag rest-period gaps, overnight shifts, and double-bookings before a schedule is published, and break and meal rules live in the timesheets. The federal hour caps for 14- and 15-year-olds (3 hours on a school day, nothing after 7pm) stay yours to apply. WageTime does not provide legal advice.
Yes. A schedule-change or predictability premium is a flat-amount pay code, the same as a night differential or on-call pay, so it posts on the run with the right taxes. You set when it is owed (a change inside 14 days, or a clopening), and WageTime carries the amount onto the check.
One login covers four companies. Each store is its own EIN, files its own returns, and keeps its own books, and you pull results per store or for the group at once. Labor cost lands by store, so a hot location shows up well before month-end. Store five is a new company in the same login, not a new payroll vendor.
$50 per month per company plus $10 per month per person paid that month, no long-term contracts. The four-store group in the screens, 132 people paid, comes to $1,520 for the month: $200 in company bases plus $1,320 in per-person fees. Runs are unlimited, so off-cycle final checks and bonuses cost nothing extra. Switching is full-service and paid; we’ll scope it on the demo.
Last week’s schedule, the two crew who quit after Friday close, and the store that sits in a $20 fast-food-wage city. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo store: you’ll watch a hire self-onboard, a wage-floor flag clear, and a final check run off-cycle.
Book a 20-minute demo