Overview

Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant was established in 1996, opening the first restaurant in Newark, Delaware.  During a ten year period, Iron Hill added five additional restaurants in Delaware and Pennsylvania and is planning to open a seventh restaurant in Lancaster, PA.  For the first ten years in business, Iron Hill outsourced its payroll administration to several companies that provided paper-based services.  As Iron Hill began to expand, it realized that it needed to streamline its payroll process and decided to search for a company that was an all-inclusive HR solution that could provide electronic, real time payroll processing and develop customized solutions for all HR needs.  Additionally, Iron Hill was losing money through improper tax return filing, which was a result of the systems put in place by its previous payroll administrator.  

Iron Hill felt that this HR outsourcing system offered one of the most comprehensive, paperless solutions that would help the company effectively manage payroll administration for its 450 employees. 

A Paperless Solution to a Taxing Issue

Prior to working with us, each Iron Hill restaurant had to physically mail their payroll reports to the corporate office.  This manual process could not be completed in real time and resulted in delays when terminating employees and addressing paycheck discrepancies.  These delays caused Iron Hill to lose money and created employee retention problems.

To solve this problem, we created a customized package that fit Iron Hill’s business needs and streamlined payroll process between its six restaurants and corporate headquarters.  Now, the manager at each restaurant handles their employees’ payroll online, which can be adjusted with the click of a mouse.  The managers then send their payroll to one central person in corporate who makes final alterations. Then, payroll for all 450 employees is sent to us for final and accurate processing. 

Additionally, Iron Hill was experiencing some problems related to employee taxes, and was losing a significant amount of money.  Iron Hill’s former payroll administration company set up post-tax deductions incorrectly, causing non-salaried employees to lose a pre-tax.  These employees were being taxed on their gross income, instead of their reduced income.  This mistake not only caused non-salaried employees to lose money, but Iron Hill to lose an average of $3,500 per month because the company was not receiving its portion of employee deductions.  The leading-edge technology that automates our electronic payroll processing connects employees and management to real-time data.  This ensures that pre-tax deductions are in place for all relevant employees, thus ensuring that each employee is being taxed appropriately.
We quickly jumped in and was able to seamlessly transition payroll online and clean up tax and termination issues that remained – resulting in a cost savings of $5,000 per month. 

The Benefit of Streamlining HR Processes 

Iron Hill was very pleased with the efficiencies we put in place.  The company soon looked to us for help with other human resource functions to streamline processes.  After a presentation, Iron Hill was impressed with the benefit management plan we offered.  Iron Hill felt confident in our network of professionals and licensed insurance advisors, who would be able to bring a complement of perspectives to identify alternatives, recommend plan design, negotiate carrier costs and provide superior customer service.  We worked with Iron Hill to implement an employee benefit management plan, which integrated the benefits program and provided tighter control of insurance, billing, open enrollment, and employee terminations.  Today, we handle employee vacation, open enrollment, and insurance, in addition to payroll and taxes for Iron Hill’s 450 employees.