Senior Payroll Specialist

Ramirez Hospitality Group•Highlands Ranch, CO

3d•$68,000 - $68,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are hiring a Payroll Specialist to own the promise of correct and on-time pay 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. 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. 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.

Requirements

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.
Restaurant industry experience: This matters more than it looks like it should.
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.

Nice To Haves

Bilingual English/Spanish.
Payroll experience, particularly payroll exports and the payroll to accounting handoff.
Experience building payroll journal entry mappings or supporting period close.
Multi-entity payroll experience across separate EINs.
Benefits administration or deduction auditing exposure.

Responsibilities

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.
Track every addition and edit to payroll on a weekly basis.
Produce clean weekly summary reporting that Finance and Ownership can read and act on.
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.
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.
Build and maintain written standard operating procedures as your process solidifies.
Onboarding paperwork, benefits deduction accuracy, employment verifications, personnel file integrity, and the day to day places where HR and payroll meet.