Hospitality Payroll and Tronc Administration
Written and reviewed by the Hospitality Accountants editorial team. Last reviewed 27 July 2026.
This is the payroll engagement for hospitality. We run the weekly pay run, file the Real Time Information submissions, check every rate against the minimum wage, and set up and run a tronc that distributes tips lawfully under the Tips Act. Hospitality payroll is high-frequency and heavily rule-bound, so it repays being run properly.
This page is the doing. The mechanics of how a tronc stays free of National Insurance are laid out in our guide on tipping, tronc and the Tips Act. Handing us the weekly run and the tips distribution is the service here.
What Hospitality Payroll Covers
We process the pay run at whatever frequency you use, usually weekly for hourly staff, file the RTI submissions to HMRC on or before payday, handle starters and leavers, and manage pensions auto-enrolment. Hospitality churns staff quickly, so we build the joiner and leaver flow to absorb that without dropping a submission.
Running underneath every pay run is the minimum wage check. From 1 April 2025 the rates are £12.21 for workers aged 21 and over, £10.00 for 18 to 20, and £7.55 for 16 to 17 year olds and apprentices. We check pay against the right rate for each worker's age and status every time.
Where Tips and the Tips Act Get Awkward
Since 1 October 2024 the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 has required that 100% of tips go to staff with no deductions, backed by a statutory Code of Practice. You can no longer skim a card tip to cover the processing fee or hold tips back, and getting this wrong is now an employment law exposure, not just a payroll one.
A tronc handled correctly can pass tips to staff free of National Insurance, but only where the employer does not decide who gets what. That independence is the whole point, and it is easy to break by quietly steering the allocation. We set the tronc up so it meets the test and keep the distribution at arm's length from you.
Where Minimum Wage Traps Hospitality
Minimum wage breaches in hospitality rarely come from the headline rate. They come from deductions and offsets: charging for uniforms, docking tills for shortfalls, or unpaid time spent cashing up after clock-off can all pull effective pay below the legal floor. We check the effective rate, not just the rate on the payslip.
Live-in staff add the accommodation offset, which from 1 April 2025 is capped at £10.66 a day and £74.62 a week for minimum wage purposes. We apply that correctly so board and lodging does not accidentally tip a worker under the line. The wider rules sit in our guide to National Minimum Wage for hospitality.
What Payroll and Tronc Cost
You pay a fixed fee agreed before we start, based on your headcount and pay frequency, with the tronc set-up and running included rather than billed as an extra. No per-payslip creep and no charge for a mid-week starter.
We do not cold-call and we are not a directory. The practice is Tidy Money Ltd, run by Preetesh Parmar FCCA and regulated by the ACCA.