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Payroll

OrderUp Payroll runs end-to-end inside the management app: time clock to disbursement to year-end forms. This page is the operator's tour.

Pay periods​

Set your cadence under Payroll → Settings → Pay Periods. You can run:

  • Weekly — period closes every 7 days; pay date typically 5–7 days after period end.
  • Bi-weekly — period closes every 14 days; same pay-date offset.
  • Semi-monthly — 1st–15th and 16th–end of month; common for salaried operations.
  • Monthly — full calendar month; rarely used for hourly staff but supported.

Choose the period start day (most operators pick Monday), the pay date offset (how many days after period end you pay), and whether overtime resets weekly or follows the period. Once set, OrderUp auto-generates each upcoming period and surfaces it on the Payroll dashboard.

Time-entry approval​

Every clock-in and clock-out from the POS turns into a time entry. Before a payroll run, you'll see them in Payroll → Time Entries, grouped by employee.

  • Green entries match the schedule and need no review.
  • Yellow entries have a discrepancy: missed clock-out, late clock-in, no break recorded on a shift that should have one.
  • Red entries are flagged as compliance violations or are missing required data.

Click any entry to edit the in/out times, add or fix breaks, attach a manager-approval reason, or merge a stray clock-in. Every edit is logged in the audit trail (visible under Payroll → Audit Logs) — you can see who changed what, when, and why.

When everything is clean, click Approve All at the period level. Only approved time entries roll into the pay run.

Tip distribution​

OrderUp's tip-pooling engine handles three common patterns. Configure under Payroll → Settings → Tips & Wages.

  • Direct. Each server keeps the tips on their own checks. Bartenders and bussers don't share. Simple.
  • Pooled by hours. All tipped employees on shift contribute a percentage of tips into a pool, which is divided proportionally by hours worked. Common for fine-dining and team service.
  • Tiered (point-based). Each role has a points value (server = 10, bartender = 7, busser = 4). Pool divides by points × hours. Used when contributions vary by role.

For each strategy you configure:

  • Sources — credit-card tips, cash tips, service charges that are tip-equivalent.
  • Contribution rates — what percent of a server's tips goes into the pool.
  • Eligible roles — who shares from the pool.
  • Tip credit — if your state allows applying tips against minimum wage, set the credit per hour and OrderUp does the math automatically and warns when the credit would push below minimum.

The pay run uses these rules to compute each employee's tip total. Nothing is hard-coded — change the rules mid-period and the next run recomputes.

Pay-stub preview​

Before you finalize a run, click Preview. You'll see, for every employee:

  • Hours: regular, overtime, double-time, holiday.
  • Gross wages by pay type.
  • Tips earned and pool share.
  • Pre-tax deductions (health, 401(k)).
  • Federal, state, and local taxes withheld.
  • Post-tax deductions and garnishments.
  • Net pay.

If something looks wrong — hours short, tips off — fix it now. Preview can be re-run as many times as you want; nothing is committed until you click Run Payroll.

Running payroll​

Run Payroll does five things in order:

  1. Locks the pay period (no more time-entry edits).
  2. Calculates final wages, tips, taxes, and deductions.
  3. Disburses funds — direct deposit via ACH for opted-in employees, or cash/check workflow for the rest.
  4. Generates and stores pay stubs (employees see them in the POS or staff portal).
  5. Files tax deposits with the IRS and state revenue agencies on the schedule each agency requires.

The audit log captures every step, so if a tax notice ever lands on your desk you can reconstruct exactly what was filed and when.

A run doesn't always end at disbursed. If processing fails partway through, the period is marked Failed and needs your attention before you can resubmit. Once funds do go out, the period moves to Paid. If a bank later rejects or claws back a deposit — a closed account, for example — the affected pay stubs and the period itself are marked Reversed (or Partially Reversed if only some employees were affected), and the change is logged like any other audit event.

W-2s and 1099-NECs​

At year end:

  • W-2s generate automatically for every employee paid through OrderUp Payroll. Find them under Payroll → W-2 Generation. Review, file electronically with the SSA, and distribute copies to employees by Jan 31.
  • 1099-NECs for contractors paid $600+ generate under Payroll → 1099 Generation (NEC = Nonemployee Compensation). Same review-and-file flow.

For 1099 contractors specifically: mark the worker as a contractor (not employee) on their staff record, capture a W-9 at onboarding, and OrderUp will track the running total per calendar year and produce the form when the threshold is met.

Audit logs​

Every time-entry edit, every payroll run, every tip-pool adjustment is logged with timestamp, user, and before/after values under Payroll → Audit Logs. Filter by employee, by date, or by event type when you need to answer "who changed this and when?"

For the time-clock side from the staff perspective, see the POS clock-in guide.