Biaggi's

Biaggi’s Saves Time & Money Switching to Branch for Cashless Tips

Biaggi’s is a popular Italian restaurant that opened its first location in 1999. They currently have sixteen locations operating across eight states. The restaurant group also owns Ancho and Agave, a restaurant concept with five locations open across three states and two more opening this year. For such a major restaurant group with continuous growth, ensuring their tipped staff gets paid promptly is no small feat. 

We spoke with Jamie Behrens, Payroll Manager for Biaggi’s, about what made them switch to Branch for cashless tips—and how their payments process works today.  

Looking for a Way to Solve Multiple Payroll Pain Points 

Prior to using Branch, Biaggi’s tipped out its employees in cash each night. This caused several headaches for the team, the biggest of which was the hassle of cash management.

Since the pandemic, many restaurants have seen a decrease in cash usage, meaning it now requires extra legwork to tip out employees in cash at the end of each night.

“We were having a lot of issues getting cash out to the restaurants to pay out tips,” Behrens notes. 

And when they couldn’t get enough cash to their locations, the required action was a costly one.

“For a long time, if we couldn’t get enough cash to our locations, we were FedExing checks and then they would get delayed. We would then have to overnight checks.”

Along with the cost of the paper check itself, mailing a check overnight can cost between $20 and $30 dollars per check—a pretty steep fee, especially if you have multiple locations full of tipped employees.

There were other issues that arose, too, including security concerns. Behrens and her team worried about the risk of theft, since her employees needed to take large sums of cash out at the bank multiple times per week. 

“We thought about the risk of having our managers go to the bank multiple times a week, taking out thousands of dollars the same time on the same days, and someone could have picked up on that pattern” Behrens says. “We didn’t feel comfortable about that.”

Biaggi’s also wanted a way to streamline the entire tip out process; instead of bartenders and managers crowding around the bar each night to tip out servers, they knew a cashless system would better suit the professional atmosphere Biaggi’s strives to create. 

Overall, they knew it was time for a change. Away from cash and expensive overnighted checks and towards a digital, streamlined solution. One that would also easily verify payments, in order to ensure accuracy for everyone involved. 

“There were a lot of different pain points from different departments,” says Behrens. “I also wanted to ensure that payroll numbers and tips were being reported accurately.”

Shopping for a Digital Tipping Solution—Seamless Integrations Included

Once they knew it was time for a change, Behrens and her team compared several different solutions.  While evaluating different vendors, they appreciated that Branch offered a fast, cashless tipping solution, allowing them to push tip payouts to employees at the end of each shift—eliminating the need for cash handling and security risks, and minimizing the potential for human error. They also appreciated Branch offered an easy integration, which made tip pooling a breeze. 

“What we liked about Branch was that at the end of the night, we were just pushing that button and sending tips out; it was that simple. Other options we looked at had import files and we thought that might be too complicated to deal with every single night,” says Behrens.

Biaggi’s was pleased with the implementation process and how easy the solution was to use. Though some level of change management is always expected with a new vendor, Behrens said most of their employees were more than happy to make the switch. 

“It was honestly a really seamless integration. Everything worked how we wanted it to. We just had to get our tipping rules set up and get the employees to activate their Branch Cards.”

Saving Time and Money with a Streamlined Tip Payouts Experience

Thanks to Branch’s smooth onboarding options, managers could hand out Branch Cards to employees right away to get them set up. Once Branch was up and running, Behrens and her team started getting immediate feedback that the new, digital tipping process was already a huge time-saver at the bar. 

“I got a lot of feedback that it was a real time saver for the bar and clocking out at night. They didn’t have to do all the steps they were doing before to tip out each server; the manager was just loading [employees'] Branch Cards with tips.”

Switching to Branch for cashless tipping also made it easier for servers to share tips, Behrens explains.

“If we had bussers or runners who were cut early, but still needed their portion of the tips, we used to have to put it in an envelope in the safe. Now, we can just load their tips onto their card that night,” she says.

Plus, without needing to make those bank runs for cash, Biaggi’s was able to save approximately 2-3 hours each week, freeing up managers’ time to focus on more important tasks, like improving the guest experience. And remember all those overnighted checks that Behrens and her team were dealing with? By switching to Branch—and ditching the need to overnight checks—she estimates it’s saved her $13k.

All in all, Behrens and her team have been able to streamline the tip payout process, save time and money, and offer their employees fast access to their tip payouts—creating a win-win for everyone involved.