Hospitality turns over about two in three roles a year. On a fifty-person crew that’s thirty-plus W-4s, direct-deposit setups, and first paychecks that have to be right, then a January of W-2s chasing people who left in June. WageTime onboards a new hire from their own phone before the first shift, computes the tipped top-up when a slow week leaves someone under minimum, cuts a final check the week someone walks, and pays every LLC in the group from one login.
These aren’t bad-operator problems. They’re the standing condition of running a restaurant, bar, or hotel on hourly crews, and each one is either a manager’s unpaid second job or a liability quietly compounding.
Turn over two of three roles a year (faster in QSR) and every year is a hiring year. Each replacement is a W-4, a direct-deposit form, an I-9, and a tip-credit notice where it applies, keyed in by a manager between rushes, for a hire who might be gone by the holidays.
Tipped overtime has to be computed on the full minimum wage, not the $2.13 cash wage. Seven states ban the tip credit outright, and most of the rest set their own, higher floors. Get it wrong and the back-pay clock runs up to three years when the violation is willful. Food service is one of the DOL’s most-investigated industries for a reason.
Punches sit in Toast, Square, Clover, Aloha, or MICROS; schedules sit in 7shifts, HotSchedules, or Homebase. Every cycle someone exports, reformats, and re-keys, and every handoff is another chance to short a paycheck.
A cook quits after Saturday service. Now it’s a hand-cut check with guessed withholding, or “it’ll be on the next run.” Either answer costs you, in tax cleanup or in the ex-employee telling the whole group chat.
Paystub texts on payday, PTO-balance questions mid-shift, and every January, W-2 requests from people who left two jobs ago. The GM didn’t sign up to run a records department.
The tavern, the fast-casual spot, and the inn each sit in their own LLC with its own EIN and filings. Generic payroll answers with three separate accounts and a consolidation spreadsheet the bookkeeper maintains by hand.
Every card gets a product screen or a straight answer below. Tips first.
WageTime runs tipped payroll as configuration: tip earning codes carry reported tips into the run, tip-pooling structures are supported, and when a slow week leaves cash wage plus tips under the minimum wage, the top-up is computed by state. Tipped overtime rides the same overtime engine as everyone else’s, and the math it has to match is overtime owed on the full minimum wage. At the federal floor that’s $10.88 an hour minus the $5.12 tip credit: $5.76 in cash per overtime hour, never 1.5 × $2.13.
| Employee | Role | Cash-wage hrs | Reported tips | Top-up | Week gross |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maya R. | Server | 34.0 | $612.40 | - | $684.82 |
| Rob K. | Bartender | 30.0 | $505.00 | - | $568.90 |
| Dana C. | Server | 28.0 | $121.50 | $21.86 | $203.00 |
| Leo P. | Barback (pool share) | 32.0 | $214.70 | - | $282.86 |
Replaces the tip spreadsheet with the formula nobody remembers writing, and the quiet hope that no one ever checks the overtime rate.
When someone works two or more rates in one week (serving at one rate, bartending at another, a banquet pickup at a third), WageTime computes overtime on the weighted-average regular rate automatically, the blended-rate method federal rules describe for mixed weeks. Night, weekend, and holiday shift differentials for the hotel side (housekeeping, front desk, banquets) are pay codes inside payroll, not a side spreadsheet. And minimum-wage processing runs at federal, state, and local levels, which matters the day one of your locations lands in a city with its own floor.
| Line | Hours | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Server · dining room | 25.0 | $11.00 | $275.00 |
| Bartender · bar | 20.0 | $15.50 | $310.00 |
| Blended regular rate | 45.0 total | $13.00 | - |
| Overtime premium | 5.0 OT hrs | 0.5 × $13.00 | $32.50 |
| Reported tips · server shifts | - | - | $391.20 |
Replaces the OT column someone “fixes” by hand every other Friday.
New hires self-onboard from their own phones (personal details, tax forms, e-signatures), with the electronic I-9 captured front-and-back and the E-Verify case created once requirements are met. Rehires for patio season come back with records retained, not re-keyed. And when someone walks after Saturday service, WageTime’s payroll runs are unlimited: the final check goes out Monday as an off-cycle run at no extra cost, every tax withheld and filed automatically. The portal keeps paystubs and W-2s self-serve, so January stops being a phone tree.
| New hire | Role | First shift | W-4 & I-9 | E-signed | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tessa M. | Server | Fri Mar 13 | Done | Done | Ready |
| Jonah T. | Line cook | Fri Mar 13 | Done | Done | Ready |
| Marcus J. | Bartender | Sat Mar 14 | Done | Done | Ready |
| Priya S. | Front desk | Sat Mar 14 | Done | Done | Ready |
| Sam W. | Dishwasher | Mon Mar 16 | Done | Pending | In progress |
| Nora B. | Server | Mon Mar 16 | In progress | - | Waiting on documents |
Replaces the clipboard packet, the manager’s data-entry hour, and the first paycheck that bounces because a routing number was read off a voided check.
We import clock hours so there’s no double entry: the week lands in one review screen matched to the pay period, grouped the way you run the building (FOH, kitchen, bar, housekeeping). Tell us your POS and scheduler on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact flow for your setup. Prefer one system? WageTime builds and publishes schedules with conflict safeguards (double-booking checks, rest-period flags, overnight-shift validation), and break and rounding rules live in the timesheets. Finished payroll posts to QuickBooks mapped by department.
| Department | People | Reg hrs | OT hrs | PTO hrs | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front of house | 18 | 1,214.0 | 22.5 | 24.0 | Ready |
| Kitchen | 14 | 1,062.5 | 31.0 | 16.0 | Ready |
| Bar | 6 | 401.5 | 8.0 | 0.0 | Ready |
| Housekeeping | 4 | 296.0 | 0.0 | 8.0 | 2 awaiting approval |
Replaces the export-reformat-upload ritual, and the payroll journal the bookkeeper keys into QuickBooks by hand every cycle.
Hospitality groups hold each concept in its own entity: separate LLC, separate EIN, separate filings. WageTime treats that as the default: each company files under its own EIN with every federal, state, and local tax handled automatically, deposits included, while you run the whole group from one login with reporting per company or combined. 1099 contractors (the weekend DJ, the deep-clean crew) run alongside W-2 employees. And for variable-hour crews, ACA look-back measurement tracking runs from payroll hours, with 1094-C and 1095-C forms generated and e-filed at year-end.
| Company | EIN | People paid | Federal | State & local | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harbor House Tavern LLC | ••-•••2419 | 34 | Filed | Filed | Complete |
| HH Cantina LLC | ••-•••8065 | 27 | Filed | Filed | Complete |
| Anchor Inn Hospitality LLC | ••-•••3347 | 21 | Filed | Filed | Complete |
Replaces a payroll account per LLC, three sets of year-end chaos, and the consolidation spreadsheet nobody trusts.
Yes. Tip earning codes carry reported tips into the run, tip-pooling structures are supported, and top-ups are computed by state when cash wage plus tips fall under the minimum. Tipped overtime rides the same overtime engine, matching the math owed on the full minimum wage: federally $10.88 minus the $5.12 credit is $5.76 per overtime hour. Bring one real pay period to the demo.
We import clock hours so there’s no double entry; time lands in an approval screen and flows into the run. Tell us your POS and scheduler on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact flow for your setup. Finished payroll posts to QuickBooks mapped by department.
Under the federal rule it depends on the tip credit: pools including cooks and dishwashers are allowed only when everyone gets full minimum wage in cash and no tip credit is taken; credit-taking pools stay among customarily tipped roles, and managers and supervisors can’t take from the pool or keep other employees’ tips. In WageTime your pool is configuration; bring your split to the demo.
Starting with 2026 W-2s, employers separately report qualified tips plus a Treasury tipped-occupation code, and employees can deduct up to $25,000 of qualified tips on their returns (tax years 2025-2028), while Social Security and Medicare taxes still apply. Year-end W-2s are included with WageTime; bring your reporting questions to the demo.
One login, three companies. Each runs under its own EIN with its own federal, state, and local filings, deposits included, and reporting comes per company or combined. Adding the next concept means adding a company, not adding a vendor.
$50 per month per company, plus $10 per month per person paid that month. No long-term contracts, cancel anytime. The three-company group in the screens above, 82 people paid, comes to $970 for the month: $150 in company bases plus $820 in per-person fees. Runs are unlimited, and off-cycle checks and bonuses come at no extra cost. Switching is full-service and paid; we’ll scope it on the demo.
Last month’s new-hire packets, your tip structure, the two people who quit last week. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo restaurant: you’ll watch a hire self-onboard, a tipped week compute, and a final check run off-cycle.
Book a 20-minute demo