Paying staff in a restaurant is rarely one number per person. Cashiers and kitchen staff work split shifts, someone covers a sick colleague, a waiter forgets to clock out on a busy Thursday night, and overtime has to follow the rules you agreed with your team. When the hours live in a notebook and the salaries live in a spreadsheet, every month ends with the same argument about who worked what.
Wink You keeps the whole chain in one place: the clock in on the phone, the hours a manager approves, the pay rate in force on the day, and the payroll run that posts salaries into your books. This guide walks through how payroll works in Wink You today, step by step with the real screen names, and it is clear about what the system does not do.
What restaurant payroll has to handle in the Gulf
- Hourly and monthly staff in the same team, often across more than one branch.
- Overtime, night overtime and rest day hours, counted the way the law and your own rules say.
- Corrections: a missed clock out, a late punch, a shift nobody planned.
- Allowances and deductions, such as a bonus or a salary advance.
- A clean entry in the accounts, so salaries appear in your profit and loss without retyping.
- A salary file your bank can use, for UAE businesses paying through the Wages Protection System.
How payroll works in Wink You, step by step
1. Set each person's pay rate
In Business Admin, open Staff, find the team member, click More actions and choose Employment and pay. Under Pay rate history choose per hour or per month, type the amount and the date it starts, then click Add rate. The currency comes from the branch. When you add a new rate, the old one ends the day before, and shifts already worked keep the rate that applied on the day.
2. Set your work rules once
Open Shifts and time, then Work rules. The overtime, night overtime and rest day values start from UAE labour law, and every number is yours to change, for the whole business or for one branch. For example, overtime starts by default after 480 minutes a day, which is eight hours, at a rate of 1.25. Add public holidays under Public holidays so leave and overtime count them. Work rules have no start date, so lock earlier pay periods before you change a rule.
3. Approve attendance and correct timesheets
Staff clock in on the staff app. In Shifts and time, Attendance lists every clock in and clock out, and Approve sends a completed shift to payroll. Timesheets shows the payable hours and the labour cost for the dates you pick, and Needs attention lists only the people with something to fix. Click Correct, enter the real time and a reason, then Save correction. The reason is kept for your records.
4. Close the pay period
Under Pay periods in Timesheets, open a period for the branch and the dates. A branch manager clicks Submit, the business owner clicks Approve, then Lock so nobody can change those hours. Nobody can approve a period that includes their own hours, except the business owner.
5. Prepare the payroll run
Open Wink Accounting, then Payroll runs, and click Prepare run. Choose the month and the currency. The run needs approved timesheets that cover the whole month for every branch in it, and it will not start while a shift still has a missing clock out or an open break. It is added as a draft with gross and net pay.
6. Check, adjust and post
Open the run. Each employee shows basic pay, overtime and net pay, worked out from their pay rate and approved hours. Use Add allowance or deduction for a bonus or an advance, save, then click Approve and post. The salaries go into your books as a journal entry and the source timesheets are locked. Runs post in date order, and hours clocked after a month was prepared are added to the next month.
7. Pay, then match the transfer
Wink You records payroll; it does not send money. You pay from your bank as you do today. For UAE businesses there is an Export WPS file button on a posted run, marked Beta, which our WPS guide covers in detail. When the salary transfer shows on your bank statement, you can match it to the payroll run in bank reconciliation.
What is included, and what is not
| Feature | In Wink You today |
|---|---|
| Hourly and monthly pay rates with history | Included |
| Overtime, night and rest day rates from your work rules | Included |
| Allowances and deductions on each run | Included |
| Posting salaries to the books | Included |
| CSV export of approved hours for an outside payroll | Included |
| UAE WPS salary file (beta, export only) | Limited |
| Sending salary payments to staff | Not available |
| Payslips for staff | Not available |
Payroll in Wink Accounting is open only to business administrators and accountants. If you run salaries in another system, use Export payroll in Timesheets instead: it gives a CSV with one row per employee showing regular, overtime, night overtime and rest day hours, base pay, premium pay, the total and the currency. The staff app shows each person their hours, not a payslip.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate overtime for restaurant staff?
You do not calculate it by hand. Set when overtime starts per day and per week, and the rates, in Work rules. Timesheets then splits each person's approved hours into normal, overtime, night overtime and rest day hours, and the payroll run prices them with the pay rate in force.
Can I run payroll for several branches together?
Yes. One run can cover more than one branch, as long as each branch has approved timesheet periods for the whole month. Posting writes the journal entry per branch.
What happens if someone forgot to clock out?
The run will not prepare until it is fixed. Open Timesheets, find the shift under Needs attention, click Correct and enter the real time with a reason.
Does Wink You pay salaries into staff bank accounts?
No. It prepares and records payroll, and for UAE businesses it can export a WPS file in beta. The transfer itself is made from your bank or exchange house.
Learn more
See how the team side works at winkyou.com/products/staff-management and the books at winkyou.com/products/accounting-reports. The video guides are at winkyou.com/support/finance-and-reports/how-to-prepare-a-payroll-run and winkyou.com/support/staff-and-shifts/how-to-export-payroll.
