Senior Payroll Specialist

Payroll Specialist In a house of fifteen children, nobody got skipped at the table. That is the whole job, restated in modern terms. Every person who works here trusts us with the most personal thing a company handles for them, which is whether they get paid correctly and on time. That trust is not a back office detail. It is the promise underneath every other promise we make to our team. We are hiring a Payroll Specialist to own that promise for six restaurants and one corporate office. This is a specialist seat, not a generalist one. Payroll processing is the center of the role, and you will run the full weekly cycle from timekeeping review through funding, reporting, and reconciliation. Beyond the cycle, you support the People team wherever payroll and HR overlap, because the two are never fully separate. This role sits at the intersection of People, Finance, and the restaurants themselves. You will work closely with the Director of People, the Director of Finance, the VP of Finance, and all six General Managers. What You'll Own The Weekly Payroll Cycle: Full processing for six restaurant locations and the corporate office in Toast Payroll. Timekeeping review, tips, adjustments, retro pay, terminations, funding, and post-processing verification. On time, every week, with no exceptions and no surprises. Extreme Attention to Detail: This is the non-negotiable of the role. Payroll is a job where being ninety-nine percent right is still wrong for somebody. You catch the misclassified punch, the duplicated adjustment, the rate that changed without paperwork, and the number that does not tie, before anyone downstream sees it. The Audit Trail: Track every addition and edit to payroll on a weekly basis. If a number changed, we know what changed, who requested it, when it was entered, and why. Nothing moves through payroll unlogged. Weekly Reporting to Finance and Ownership: Produce clean weekly summary reporting that Finance and Ownership can read and act on. Your reports become part of how leadership sees the business, so they need to be accurate, consistent, and delivered on schedule. Findings and Error Escalation: When you find an issue that traces back to a restaurant, you bring it to the Director of People with the detail and documentation needed to correct it at the store level. You are not the enforcement arm. You are the person who makes sure the right leader has the right information early enough to fix it. Labor Compliance: Working knowledge of current federal and Colorado wage and hour law as it applies to payroll. Overtime, tip credit and tip pooling mechanics, minimum wage rules, meal and rest period treatment, final pay requirements, and recordkeeping. When something in the file does not look compliant, you say so. Reading Labor Like an Operator: The best payroll people in this industry know when a schedule or a punch pattern does not make sense. Hours in a position that should not have been staffed that day, a salaried manager coded hourly, overtime that appeared without a reason. You notice it because you understand how a restaurant actually runs, not just how a spreadsheet looks. SOPs and Documentation: Build and maintain written standard operating procedures as your process solidifies. We are always setting ourselves up for expansion and for posterity. If the process only works when you are the one doing it, it is not built yet. Everything you own should be documentable, teachable, and repeatable. Support to the People Team, As Needed: Onboarding paperwork, benefits deduction accuracy, employment verifications, personnel file integrity, and the day to day places where HR and payroll meet. Payroll comes first and this is support work, not a second job. When the cycle is clean and current, you lend a hand as needed. The Line: Everything we do traces back to two kitchens in Jerez, Zacatecas. Most of the people whose paychecks you touch are supporting families with them. Treating that work as sacred rather than administrative is part of the job. What We're Looking For Minimum 2 years of hands on payroll processing experience: You have owned a cycle end to end, not just assisted with one. Toast Payroll and Toast POS experience highly encouraged: Multi-unit strongly preferred. We are looking for someone who already knows where the system helps and where it needs a human watching it. Restaurant industry experience: This matters more than it looks like it should. Tips, tip pooling, split shifts, overtime patterns, and seasonal swings behave differently in restaurants, and the person in this seat needs to recognize when labor positioning looks questionable rather than just processing it as entered. Current working knowledge of labor law as it applies to payroll: At both the federal and Colorado level, with the discipline to keep that knowledge current as rules change. A documenter by instinct: You write things down, you leave a trail, and you build the procedure while you are learning the process. Direct and kind: You raise the issue early, you raise it to the right person, and you do not let a discrepancy sit until it becomes a bigger one. Discretion: You will handle compensation, personnel, and confidential information every week. That information stops with you. Degree preferred but not required: What matters is what you've built and who you've developed, not what's on your wall. Compensation & Benefits Salary of $68,000. Benefits package including health insurance, PTO, and meal benefits at all LDP locations. Hybrid schedule: in office Monday through Wednesday, remote Thursday and Friday. A corporate team that treats support functions as essential, not as overhead.