Does SurePayroll work for restaurants with tipped employees?

Yes. SurePayroll supports tipped employees and helps calculate FICA tip credits, which allow restaurant owners to offset a portion of payroll taxes on tips. You can track tip income separately from wages and run payroll for both hourly staff and salaried managers from one dashboard.

How much does restaurant payroll cost with SurePayroll?

SurePayroll offers two base plans: Full-Service Payroll at $29/month plus $7 per employee, which includes automatic tax filing and deposits, and No Tax Filing (Self-Service) at $20/month plus $4 per employee, where you handle tax filings yourself. For a restaurant with 10 employees, Full-Service Payroll typically costs $29 + $70/month = $99/month total.

Does SurePayroll handle overtime for restaurant employees?

Yes. SurePayroll automatically calculates overtime at 1.5x the regular rate for hours over 40 per week under the FLSA, and applies state-specific rules where applicable. This is critical for restaurants with variable shift schedules.

Can I pay both kitchen staff and delivery contractors with SurePayroll?

Yes. SurePayroll pays both W-2 employees and 1099 independent contractors from the same platform and generates all required year-end tax forms, including W-2s and 1099-NECs.

How does SurePayroll help restaurant owners avoid payroll tax penalties?

SurePayroll's Full-Service plan automatically calculates, files, and deposits federal and state payroll taxes on your behalf — including FICA, FUTA, and state unemployment — and backs this with a tax accuracy guarantee: if we make an error, we'll pay any resulting IRS penalties and interest.

Industries

Restaurants

Payroll services for restaurants and cafes

Running a restaurant, cafe, or coffee shop is a non-stop job. You've got staff to schedule, tables to turn, and tips to track. Payroll shouldn’t slow you down. SurePayroll can help restaurant owners and managers handle payroll,
taxes, and tipped wages without the guesswork.

Whether you're managing multiple roles or adding new hires fast, we help make it easy. It only takes a few taps to pay your people and calculate your taxes.
SurePayroll can help take the complexity out of payroll with an easy-to-use, full-service platform that handles W-2s, 1099s, tax filings, and direct deposits automatically.

No stress. No spreadsheets. Just payroll on easy mode.

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Small business owner carefully stirs food in a pot in the kitchen of his restaurant.

Payroll built for speed and accuracy—just like your restaurant or cafe

Support for tipped wages and FICA tip tax credits

From tipped wages to tax filing, we’ll help make sure your reporting is in order so you can manage your tax credits.

Multiple pay rates made simple

Pay employees different rates for different roles. No spreadsheets or manual overrides.

Payroll in your pocket

Run payroll in just three taps, right from your phone. You’re always in control, even on the go.

Restaurants

Payroll in restaurants isn’t simple—but it should be.

Between high turnover, variable schedules, tipped wages, and ever-changing labor laws, payroll in the restaurant world can feel like a second full-time job. You need more than just software—you need a payroll solution that understands how you actually work.

Here’s what most restaurant owners are up against:

Constant staffing changes

From front-of-house servers to back-of-house line cooks, onboarding never stops. You need tools that keep up.

Tipped wage challenges

Tip reporting, tip pooling, minimum wage alerts, and tip-to-wage reconciliation are high-stakes and high-effort. Get them wrong, and you risk costly errors.

Multiple pay rates

Bartenders picking up serving shifts? Line cooks working OT? Baristas covering shift-lead hours? If someone earns more than one rate in a workweek, that affects their overtime rate. You need flexible tools that don’t make payroll more complicated.

FICA tip tax credit confusion

The federal tax credit can help reduce your tax liability — but only if you calculate it correctly and file it properly.

Tight timelines

You don’t have time to sit at a desk for hours. You need payroll you can run from your phone — between the morning rush, and lunch and dinner service.

Our Solution

SurePayroll is payroll for the real world—your world.

We don’t just support your business…we get it. That’s why we’ve built a restaurant-ready payroll solution that’s simple, affordable, and stress-free.

Here’s what you get with SurePayroll

Payroll should be stress-free. So we make sure it is.

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Real stories from real SurePayroll customers

“Easy peezy! I was very fearful of changing from old payroll system, but I felt I had to get away from them. So did some research and arrived at SurePayroll. It was a breeze setting everything up ... I just processed my first payroll and it was great!”

Donna C.

SurePayroll Customer

“I have used SurePayroll for ten years. Their online program is excellent and very easy to use. It literally takes me one minute each week to enter my payroll data.”

Donald H.

SurePayroll Customer

25+ years

Trusted by small business owners across the U.S.

Make payroll easy for as little as $1 per day

Billed monthly. Cancel anytime.

Create your account in 30 seconds

You can get started right now! Just answer a few quick questions to get the ball rolling.

Set up your business (we can help!)

Add your company, employee, bank, and tax information. (Need help? We’ve got your back. And onboarding support is always free.)

Run payroll for free on alternate months

During your first 12 months with SurePayroll, every alternating month will be free. And since there’s no commitment, you can cancel anytime.

Frequently asked questions

Do employers pay taxes on tips?

Yes. Tips your employees report to you count as wages for federal payroll taxes. You withhold the employee's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes, plus income tax, on reported tips, and you pay the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare.

Employees who receive $20 or more in tips in a month must report them to you by the 10th of the following month. The federal "no tax on tips" deduction applies to employees' income tax. It doesn't change the Social Security and Medicare taxes owed on tips.

SurePayroll supports tip reporting in payroll, and the Full Service plan files and deposits your payroll taxes.

What payroll system do restaurants and cafes use?

Most restaurants, cafes, and coffee shops use payroll software that supports tipped employees, more than one pay rate per employee, and shift-based hours. Look for tip reporting, payroll tax filing and deposits, and payroll you can run between shifts.

SurePayroll is built for small businesses with tipped and hourly teams. You can run payroll from your phone, and the Full Service plan files and deposits your payroll taxes.

Can SurePayroll handle multiple pay rates for one employee?

Yes. If someone works as both a barista and a shift lead, or a host and a server, SurePayroll supports multiple roles and pay rates for that employee. You enter hours for each role and pay them together in one payroll run.

How does overtime work for tipped employees?

Under the FLSA, the overtime threshold is 40 hours in a workweek, not a pay period. If you pay biweekly, you run two separate 40-hour calculations inside one paycheck. You set your workweek: the day and time it begins.

Once set, it doesn't flex around your schedule or your busy periods. For tipped employees, you calculate overtime on the full minimum wage rate, not the tipped minimum wage rate. That means overtime for a tipped employee is at least 1.5 times $7.25 ($10.88) per hour. If someone earns more than one rate in a workweek, that affects their overtime rate.

Can I start using SurePayroll in the middle of the year?

Yes. You can switch payroll providers at any point in the year. For year-end forms, you'll need each employee's year-to-date wages, tips, and taxes withheld, plus a record of the payroll tax deposits and filings already made this year.

SurePayroll setup support includes entering prior wages, at no additional charge. Switching at the start of a quarter or at year end means fewer prior-quarter details to carry over.

Related resources

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Get fast, easy payroll for your restaurant

Let SurePayroll help you handle paperwork. From tips to tax filings, we’ve got your back—so you can get
back to the morning rush or dinner service.

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Payroll services for restaurants and cafes

Payroll built for speed and accuracy—just like your restaurant or cafe