resources

Now Serving Flexible Solutions to Meet Growing Needs

July 31, 2019

Paylocity equipped The Boiling Crab Restaurant Group with the ability to efficiently onboard new franchisees, automate payroll, and simplify HR management when its mix of down-home Cajun recipes, lively environment, and happy employees resulted in explosive growth.
Case Study

The Challenge

In 2004, a fun-loving couple opened The Boiling Crab’s first location, combining their flair for having a good time, warm hospitality, and passion for excellent seafood. Customers can now enjoy the fun and flavorful backyard crab fest at 21 locations in California, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, and Texas. Despite achieving turnover rates significantly below industry average, the company needed a more automated and efficient way to handle payroll and HR. The ADP payroll solution they were using was neither scalable nor flexible to meet the unique needs of the restaurant group’s business structure.

The Approach

Unified Solution For a Multi-site Business

The Boiling Crab searched for an easy-to-use platform with the ability to meet its unique needs that would also set it up for future success, and ultimately selected Paylocity. ADP’s solution required payroll to be siloed by location, adding unnecessary complexity when an employee worked at multiple locations. Paylocity worked with The Boiling Crab to create one Company Set with six Company IDs for various parts of its business. This allows HR to run each entity as a standalone for day-to-day management, with the ability to roll up all data at a corporate level for reporting, tax filings, and more.

The restaurant group was also drawn to the simplicity of the Paylocity platform, conveniently providing all the functionality it required in one place. HR Manager Melissa Kill put it simply: “Paylocity just makes sense; whoever created it was an HR person.”

After working with a different customer service representative at ADP every time assistance was needed, The Boiling Crab desired more personalized account management. Kill really appreciates having one well-versed, main point of contact at Paylocity to provide guidance, help troubleshoot, set up new Company IDs, and more.

“You can see your labor costs, retention, turnover, and head count by location—and you can filter it. You don’t have to run a report. It just pops up.”

Melissa Kill, HR Manager

The Payoff

Simplified Data Management 

Another key advantage The Boiling Crab experienced in using Paylocity’s platform was the ability to upload payroll information into its accounting platform and general ledger. A Paylocity specialist built out a custom file that provides Kill and her team point-and-click access to any single line in the ledger across its entire pay history, which eliminated manual entry and saved time on various accounting tasks.

Paylocity also seamlessly integrated with The Boiling Crab’s healthcare and retirement vendors. Paylocity handles enrollment and payroll deductions automatically and transmits employee information to these providers, so employees are added or removed in a timely manner. Kill has noticed third-party vendors often prefer Paylocity to other providers due to its open architecture and integration capabilities.

Relief Big Payroll Headaches

Payroll processing has become much easier now that The Boiling Crab can use Company IDs for each separate entity. The Paylocity platform enables viewing costs by a single company—or even single location—while also providing an aggregate view that shows its entire estimated payroll for the period. Bringing together what used to be separate payrolls and separate processing is saving time for both HR and Accounting. Kill says that creating new IDs is “Really easy. Now that Paylocity has us set up, it’s literally just transferring the same data over.”

Reporting is greatly improved as well. The Boiling Crab uses a combination of Paylocity’s standard and custom reports, which are far superior to other providers, according to Kill. The ability to easily access this reporting through the Paylocity Data Insights Dashboard and drill down by location, employee status, manager, and more is providing vital insight the company can use to improve operations.

Personalized, Responsive Service

The Boiling Crab has been so impressed with the solution’s robust capabilities and Paylocity’s personalized, responsive customer service that it recently added two more modules—Benefit Administration and the Compliance Dashboard. By integrating benefit eligibility and enrollment into its existing system, the restaurant group is helping its small HR team save time by eliminating the need for manual work.

And though The Boiling Crab doesn’t require its franchisees to use Paylocity, it does recommend it—and so far, all have adopted Paylocity as their HCM platform. The Boiling Crab is continuously opening more franchises, and is even considering expanding globally. With Paylocity’s scalable and impactful solutions, The Boiling Crab is fully equipped and prepared for this growth.