A restaurant payroll system is more complicated than it is for most small businesses and employers. That’s because the employee staff is typically composed of workers with very different pay guidelines and adjustments from the front-of-house hosts and servers to the back-of-house cooks, expos, and dishwashers, not to mention your managers and their more traditional package of employee benefits.
To successfully manage your restaurant payroll system, you need to lockdown your documentation and record keeping, as well as the dollar-and-cents calculations that come with regular paychecks. Today, there’s no two ways about it. You need versatile restaurant payroll software to help with this data management and record keeping.
Restaurant Employee Forms
There are a couple forms (I-9 and W-4) that you’ll want employees to fill out and return before employment begins. Then, in addition to basic quarterly returns and end-of-year filing forms, as a restaurant business, you’re going to have to file Form 8027 to account for tip income received by the restaurant and its employees. State tax agencies, too, may have special rules that apply to restaurants and other hospitality businesses. (Tip: When filing the end-of-year income tax for your restaurant payroll, you may be able to reduce your tax liability for FICA taxes paid on certain tip income. Use Form 8846.)
That said, apart from the various form filing requirements, there are other restaurant employee forms you may want to consider. You want to communicate the uniform and dress code standards. You may to record and file emergency contact information, paid time off, sick days and absentee policy, as well as switching shifts with another employee. Some employers choose to integrate this supplemental information with a comprehensive employee handbook.
Get a Restaurant Payroll System You Can Trust
It’s essential that you get the right restaurant payroll system from the start. No matter the industry, owners, managers, and employees do not respond well when there are disruptions to the payroll. But staff morale is even more important for restaurants in terms of customer satisfaction and the business’s overall performance.
When you ask servers to contribute a portion of their tips to the back-of-house staff and when that contribution goes through your internal payroll system, your employees have to be able to trust that the payroll system is getting it right. Learn about some of the key features that you’ll get with AMS below, or get even more information about AMS Payroll and what it can do for your business.
Payroll Processing and Paychecks
- Supports all 50 states plus the District of Columbia
- Support for up to 1,999 payers and up to 9,999 employees per payer.
- Easy payer and employee setup. Network and multiple PC installation.
- Excellent for meeting all small business payroll software needs.
- Automatically calculate federal, state and local payroll taxes.
- State and Federal tax tables are included and updated as needed.
- Up to 40 User Defined Fields can be set up for deductions/additions such as 401K or Health Insurance.
- Processes Employee Direct Deposit payroll information.
- Prints MICR checks – Software Generated Forms required.
- Over 30 different Check Types are supported.
Payroll Reporting
- Supports Federal payroll forms such as the 941, 940, 943, 944 and 1040 Sch H. See complete forms list.
- Includes SUI forms for all 50 states, the District of Columbia See complete forms list.
- Electronically file employer forms.
- Exports data to the W-2/1099 Forms Filer for year-end processing.
- Includes the ability to magnetically/electronically file 941, 944, and 940 forms as well as nearly 30 state quarterly returns.
- State and Federal Tax deposit information, as well as disbursements, can be recorded.