About HR Foodies
HR Foodies is a specialized HR and payroll company built for the restaurant and hospitality industry. We partner with restaurant owners and multi-unit operators to provide hands-on HR, payroll, compliance, recruiting, and people operations support.
Restaurants move fast, and their HR and payroll support needs to move just as fast. Our team combines professional HR and payroll expertise with a practical, responsive, service-driven approach designed specifically for hospitality.
We’re building a team of professionals who are organized, responsive, resourceful, dependable, and committed to delivering first-class, white-glove service.
About the Role
The Payroll Assistant is an entry-level, backend administrative position responsible for supporting high-volume payroll processing and day-to-day payroll administration across multiple client accounts.
Schedule: Generally Monday–Friday, 9:30 a.m.–6:30 p.m. Occasional evening or weekend work may be required based on payroll deadlines and operational needs. Overtime opportunities may be available based on business needs and will be paid in accordance with applicable law.
This role is ideal for someone with a strong administrative foundation who is highly organized, comfortable working with numbers and detailed records, and interested in developing a career in payroll and HR operations.
The Payroll Assistant reviews employee timecards, identifies missing or inconsistent information, performs payroll data entry, maintains payroll records, tracks recurring workflows, and prepares accurate payroll documentation for final review and approval by senior payroll leadership.
The Payroll Assistant also reviews payroll and timekeeping information for potential California wage-and-hour issues and escalates exceptions to payroll or HR leadership. Final payroll approvals and compliance determinations remain with designated management.
Previous payroll experience is not required. We will train the right candidate. A minimum of one year of professional administrative or comparable experience is required.
Key Responsibilities
- Timecard Auditing: Review employee timecards across multiple client accounts for completeness and accuracy, including missing or incorrect punches, meal-period exceptions, overtime, double time, scheduling discrepancies, and other timekeeping exceptions.
- Timecard Follow-Up: Identify incomplete or inconsistent timekeeping information and follow established procedures to obtain corrections, approvals, or supporting documentation.
- California Payroll Compliance Support: Review payroll and timekeeping information for potential California wage-and-hour issues, including overtime, double time, meal-period premiums, rest-period premiums, paid sick leave, and other applicable payroll requirements. Flag and escalate potential issues to payroll or HR leadership for final determination.
- Payroll Data Entry: Accurately enter, import, update, and verify payroll information, including regular hours, overtime, double time, PTO, sick time, bonuses, commissions, tips, reimbursements, deductions, and other payroll data as applicable.
- Employee Data Verification: Review payroll-related employee information, including employee status, pay rates, departments, locations, job information, direct-deposit information, tax-related information, and other assigned payroll fields.
- New Hire Administration: Assist with entering and verifying new-hire payroll information and confirming employees are properly established in applicable payroll and timekeeping systems.
- Termination Payroll Support: Assist with gathering and preparing payroll information related to employee separations and final pay. Promptly escalate final-pay matters to payroll or HR leadership.
- Pre-Payroll Auditing: Perform assigned pre-processing checks to identify unusual or potentially incorrect payroll activity, including unexpected changes in hours, pay-rate discrepancies, duplicate entries, unusual overtime, missing deductions, or significant payroll variances.
- Payroll Submission Preparation: Compile audited payroll data, exception reports, timecard documentation, corrections, approvals, and supporting records for final review and approval by the Payroll Director or designated payroll leadership.
- Payroll Corrections: Assist with researching payroll discrepancies and preparing corrections, adjustments, or off-cycle payroll information under the direction of payroll leadership.
- Payroll Reporting: Run and organize weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, and other payroll reports as required. Assist with payroll summaries, labor reports, timekeeping reports, PTO/sick-leave reports, deduction reports, and other assigned reporting.
- Payroll Reconciliation Support: Compare payroll reports with timekeeping records, prior payrolls, approved instructions, and supporting documentation to identify discrepancies before final approval.
- Payroll Recordkeeping: Maintain accurate and organized electronic payroll records, reports, approvals, timecard documentation, corrections, and supporting materials.
- Workflow Management: Track, document, move forward, and update recurring payroll tasks using ClickUp and other company systems. Maintain accurate task statuses, notes, deadlines, and supporting documentation.
- Payroll Checklists & Controls: Follow established SOPs, processing checklists, quality-control procedures, and approval workflows for assigned client accounts.
- Internal & Manager Follow-Up: Professionally communicate with designated managers and internal team members regarding missing timecards, approvals, employee information, payroll changes, or documentation required to complete payroll.
- Deadline Management: Follow payroll calendars and internal deadlines to help ensure employees are paid accurately and on time. Immediately communicate issues that could impact payroll processing.
- Multi-Client Payroll Administration: Support multiple client payrolls with different schedules, systems, policies, and processing requirements while maintaining accurate and separate documentation for each account.
- Payroll Systems: Learn and work within multiple payroll, HRIS, timekeeping, scheduling, and POS platforms, which may include ADP Workforce Now, ADP RUN, Paychex, Toast, and other systems.
- Audit Support: Assist payroll leadership with internal audits, client audits, payroll research, documentation requests, reconciliations, and special projects.
- Confidentiality & Data Security: Protect employee compensation, Social Security information, banking information, tax information, personnel information, client records, and other confidential or personally identifiable information.
- Issue Identification & Escalation: Recognize incomplete, inconsistent, unusual, or potentially incorrect information and escalate concerns appropriately rather than making independent legal or compliance determinations.
- Process Improvement: Identify recurring payroll errors, missing information, workflow bottlenecks, or administrative inefficiencies and communicate them to payroll leadership.
- Perform other payroll-related administrative, clerical, reporting, and data-entry duties as assigned.
Must-Have Qualifications
- Minimum of one (1) year of professional administrative, clerical, office support, data-entry, bookkeeping, HR support, payroll support, or comparable professional experience.
- High school diploma or equivalent.
- Exceptional attention to detail and accuracy when working with numbers, records, spreadsheets, and detailed documentation.
- Strong organizational and time-management skills.
- Ability to work within strict, recurring payroll deadlines.
- Dependable attendance and punctuality.
- Ability to follow detailed SOPs, checklists, workflows, approval processes, and internal controls.
- Ability to identify inconsistencies, investigate basic discrepancies, ask questions, and appropriately escalate issues.
- Basic to intermediate proficiency with Google Workspace, including Sheets, Docs, Drive, Calendar, and Gmail.
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.
- Comfortable learning digital task-management systems such as ClickUp, Zendesk, Jira, Asana, Trello, or similar platforms.
- Comfortable working with spreadsheets, including sorting, filtering, reviewing, and organizing numerical data.
- Ability to learn multiple payroll, HRIS, timekeeping, scheduling, and POS systems.
- Strong written and verbal English communication skills necessary to perform the duties of the position and communicate effectively with internal team members.
- Ability to maintain strict confidentiality when handling payroll, financial, employee, client, and personally identifiable information.
- Ability to follow company cybersecurity, privacy, password, access-control, and secure document-handling requirements.
- High degree of professionalism, integrity, accountability, and discretion.
- Ability to work independently after appropriate training while remaining collaborative and responsive to supervision and feedback.
- Reliable transportation and ability to report consistently to the assigned Orange County work location.
Preferred Qualifications
These qualifications are helpful but not required. We encourage candidates with a strong administrative background who are interested in learning payroll to apply.
- Previous experience with ADP Workforce Now (WFN).
- Experience with ADP RUN, Paychex, Toast Payroll, Paylocity, or other payroll/HRIS systems.
- Experience reviewing timecards, schedules, employee records, invoices, accounting records, or other high-volume data.
- Previous payroll, bookkeeping, accounting, HR administration, or data-entry experience.
- Familiarity with basic California payroll and wage-and-hour concepts.
- Experience with Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, including basic formulas, sorting, and filtering.
- Experience with ClickUp or another digital project/task-management platform.
- Experience supporting multiple locations, departments, clients, or accounts.
- Restaurant or hospitality administrative experience.
- Experience working in a deadline-driven professional-services environment.
- Coursework or certification in payroll, accounting, bookkeeping, business administration, finance, or human resources.
- Bilingual English/Spanish skills.
Who We Can Train
You do not need to come into this position already knowing how to process California payroll.
We are looking for someone with a strong administrative foundation who is organized, dependable, comfortable with numbers, able to follow detailed procedures, willing to ask questions, and motivated to learn.
HR Foodies will provide training on our payroll processes, systems, workflows, client procedures, and California payroll fundamentals.
Benefits
- Medical Insurance Reimbursement: 50% employer reimbursement toward the employee-only medical insurance premium. Beginning in the employee's third year of employment, the company reimburses 100% of the employee-only medical insurance premium, subject to the terms of the applicable company benefit program.
- Paid Vacation: Employees accrue one week of paid vacation annually during their first and second years of employment. Beginning in the third year, employees accrue two weeks annually, subject to company policy.
- Paid Sick Leave: California paid sick leave provided in accordance with applicable state and local law.
- Training & Development: Hands-on payroll training and opportunities to develop additional payroll, HRIS, and California payroll knowledge.
- Growth Opportunity: Opportunity to develop into positions with increased payroll processing responsibility as knowledge, accuracy, and proficiency are demonstrated.
- Overtime: Overtime may be available based on business and operational needs and will be compensated in accordance with applicable law.
Background & Employment Verification
Employment may be contingent upon successful completion of job-related pre-employment screening and verification conducted in accordance with applicable federal, California, and local law.
HR Foodies will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in accordance with the California Fair Chance Act. Applicants are not required to disclose criminal-history information before a conditional offer of employment except as otherwise permitted or required by law.
Equal Employment Opportunity
HR Foodies is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit, business needs, and other job-related factors. We do not discriminate against applicants or employees based on any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Reasonable accommodations are available to qualified applicants and employees with disabilities and for other circumstances as required by applicable law.
Important Information
This job description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by employees assigned to this position. It is not intended to contain a comprehensive list of every responsibility, duty, qualification, or working condition associated with the position.
Duties and responsibilities may change based on business needs, client requirements, and applicable law.
How to Apply
Ready to join the HR Foodies team?
Please email your resume and desired hourly rate.
Subject Line: Payroll Assistant Application – [Your Name]
We’d also love for you to get to know who we are! Follow HR Foodies on Instagram and TikTok to learn more about our team, culture, events, and the restaurant industry we serve.
Qualified candidates will be contacted directly regarding next steps in the interview process.
HR Foodies is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Pay: $18.50 - $20.50 per hour
Work Location: In person
