A pizzeria’s payroll isn’t the dining room’s, it’s the driver’s. A delivery driver supplies their own car, earns a tipped wage on the road and full minimum wage folding boxes in the store, takes a dollar or two per run, and keeps cash tips, so one paycheck blends four kinds of pay and still has to clear the minimum-wage floor after that driver’s gas and mileage. WageTime carries mileage and per-delivery pay as pay codes, computes overtime on the blended rate, tops up tipped wages by state when a slow night leaves someone short, and files every tax, across every shop in the group from one login.
These aren’t dining-room problems. They’re the standing conditions of running delivery on hourly drivers who use their own cars, and each one is either a manager’s second job or a wage claim quietly compounding.
Delivery drivers supply their own cars, and the FLSA treats that car as a tool of the trade: a floor-wage driver’s un-reimbursed gas and mileage can’t cut into the minimum wage. In 2024 a federal appeals court rejected both the IRS mileage rate and a flat “reasonable approximation” as automatically enough, and a franchisee with more than 300 pizza restaurants settled a driver suit for $4.75 million. The reimbursement line is a payroll problem now, not a footnote.
A driver earns a tipped wage while delivering and full minimum wage for in-store work: making boxes, prepping, answering phones, cleaning. Pay one low rate for both and the in-store hours are a wage claim waiting to happen, because the tip credit only rides the delivery hours and the two have to be split.
One driver’s week can carry an in-store hourly rate, a tipped delivery rate, a dollar-or-two-per-delivery amount, cash and card tips, and mileage reimbursement. Overtime has to compute on the blended rate across all of it, and the driver-pay spreadsheet with five columns is exactly where the shorted check lives.
Volume lives on Friday and Saturday nights, so you staff up for the rush, run late-night closes, and cycle through drivers and counter crew who leave for the next thing. Every one is a W-4, an I-9, a first check that has to be right, and a final check that shouldn’t wait for the pay calendar.
The second location, the catering arm, and the ghost-kitchen brand each sit in their own LLC and EIN. Generic payroll answers with an account per shop and a spreadsheet the bookkeeper keeps by hand to see labor cost across the group.
The driver’s car, the two rates, and the four-part check each get a product screen below.
WageTime carries driver reimbursement as a pay code and processes every wage against the federal, state, and local minimum-wage floor, so the rate a driver is actually paid is tested before the run, not after a demand letter. Mileage and per-delivery reimbursements are configurable as non-taxable earning types and ride on the same check as wages, with a clean per-driver record kept run by run. The legal bar is why this matters: the FLSA treats a required personal car as a tool of the trade, and in March 2024 a federal appeals court held that neither the IRS standard mileage rate nor a flat “reasonable approximation” is automatically enough (Parker v. Battle Creek Pizza), sending pizzerias back to defensible, per-driver numbers. How much to reimburse stays your decision with your advisor; WageTime keeps the record that makes it defensible.
| Driver | Deliveries | Miles | Reimbursement | Rate vs floor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rosa M. | 31 | 176 | $79.20 | $12.50 above |
| Sam D. | 25 | 142 | $63.90 | $11.00 above |
| Tyler B. | 27 | 168 | $48.60 | $7.25 at floor |
| Nina P. | 0 | 0 | — | $12.00 in-store |
Replaces the mileage guess on a sticky note, and the class action that reads it back to you.
WageTime keeps a driver’s two jobs as two rates and codes the hours to each, so the tip credit only rides the delivery hours and the in-store hours are paid full minimum. Delivering is a tipped occupation; making boxes, prepping, and answering phones is non-tipped work owed the full floor, and the dual-jobs rule the DOL restored in December 2024 is occupation-based, so separate lines are exactly what the run needs. Tip earning codes carry reported tips into the run, and when a slow night leaves cash wage plus tips under the minimum, the top-up is computed by state. Work both rates in one week and overtime rides the weighted-average regular rate automatically.
| Line | Hours | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-store: boxes, prep, phones | 13.0 | $12.00 | $156.00 |
| Delivery: tipped | 25.0 | $8.00 | $200.00 |
| Reported tips (delivery) | — | — | $286.00 |
| Tipped top-up: Tue, slow night | — | to state min | $12.00 |
Replaces one flat rate stretched across two jobs, and the in-store hour nobody paid full minimum for.
A pizzeria driver’s paycheck has more moving parts than anyone else’s in the building, and WageTime builds it from pay codes instead of a spreadsheet. A per-delivery amount is a per-unit pay code, the tipped delivery wage and the in-store rate are their own hourly lines, mileage reimbursement is configurable as a non-taxable earning type, and reported tips carry through, all onto one check that files its own federal, state, and local taxes. Overtime rides the weighted-average of the rates worked, and night and weekend differentials for the rush are pay codes too. Finished payroll posts to QuickBooks mapped by department, so delivery labor and kitchen labor land in lines you can actually read.
| Code | Type | Quantity | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| IN-STORE | Hourly | 12.0 hrs | $144.00 |
| DELIVERY-TIP | Tipped hourly | 26.0 hrs | $208.00 |
| PER-DELIV | Per unit | 25 runs × $1.50 | $37.50 |
| MILEAGE | Reimbursement non-tax | 142 mi | $63.90 |
| NIGHT-DIFF | Differential | 6 hrs × $1.00 | $6.00 |
| TIPS | Reported tips | — | $291.00 |
Replaces the driver-pay spreadsheet with five columns and one formula nobody remembers writing.
WageTime runs a pizzeria group’s shops from one login while keeping each one its own company. The second shop, the catering LLC, and the ghost-kitchen brand each keep their own EIN, and WageTime files each one’s federal, state, and local returns separately, deposits included, while the group reports per shop or combined. We import clock hours from your POS and online-ordering system so nobody re-keys the Friday rush; tell us your setup on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact flow. Job costing carries delivery and in-store labor by shop, and 1099 help (the weekend event driver, the deep-clean crew) runs alongside W-2 staff. The next shop is another company in the same login, not another vendor.
| Shop | EIN | People paid | Federal | State & local |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vesuvio Pizza Downtown LLC | ••-•••5182 | 19 | Filed | Complete |
| Vesuvio Pizza Eastside LLC | ••-•••7734 | 15 | Filed | Complete |
Replaces a payroll account per shop, and the labor-percentage spreadsheet nobody trusts.
Enough that a floor-wage driver’s pay doesn’t fall below the minimum after their own vehicle costs, which the FLSA treats as a tool of the trade. A 2024 federal appeals court rejected both the IRS mileage rate and a flat “reasonable approximation” as automatically enough. WageTime carries the reimbursement as a pay code and keeps the per-driver record; how much to reimburse is your call with your advisor.
Yes, and WageTime keeps them as two rates. Delivering is a tipped occupation, so the tip credit can ride those hours with tips bringing the driver to the minimum; in-store work is non-tipped and owed full minimum wage. The hours are coded to each rate, and a top-up is computed by state when tips fall short. Bring one driver’s week to the demo.
When someone works two or more rates in a week, WageTime computes overtime on the weighted-average regular rate automatically. Per-delivery pay and other earnings fold into that regular-rate math, so the overtime premium is right without a side spreadsheet. Night and weekend differentials for the rush ride the same run.
Yes. Reported tips carry into the run through tip earning codes and onto the W-2, whether they came in cash or on a card. Tipped overtime rides the same overtime engine, and where cash wage plus tips miss the minimum, the state top-up is computed for you. What the driver takes home nightly doesn’t change; the reporting does.
A pizzeria group usually grows sideways: a second shop, a catering LLC, a ghost-kitchen brand, each its own EIN. WageTime runs them all from one login, files each entity’s returns separately, and reports delivery and kitchen labor per shop or combined. When one location’s driver hours run hot, it surfaces before month-end. Adding the catering arm means adding a company, not a payroll vendor.
$50 per month per company plus $10 per month per person paid that month, no long-term contracts. The two-shop group in the screens, 34 people paid, comes to $440 for the month: $100 in company bases plus $340 in per-person fees. Runs are unlimited, so off-cycle final checks and bonuses cost nothing extra. Switching is full-service and paid; we’ll scope it on the demo.
Last week’s delivery log, the mileage you’re paying now, and the two drivers who quit after Saturday close. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo shop: you’ll watch a driver’s two rates split, a per-delivery check build, and a final check run off-cycle.
Book a 20-minute demo