Automated Tip Payouts and Payroll Integration Across Multiple Concepts
Gjelina Group connected Toast POS directly to ADP with PayDay Portal — tip and sales data from every revenue center across four locations flows straight into payroll, with ADP Essential Time hours reconciled in the same pipeline.
About Gjelina Group
Ingredient-driven, community-rooted food — and a multi-concept operation behind it.
Gjelina Group is a Venice, CA-based hospitality company operating multiple dining concepts, including Gjusta Bakery, across four locations in multiple states. Since Gjelina opened on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in 2008, the group has built its reputation on locally-sourced, produce-forward food and long-standing relationships with Southern California farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and co-ops.
Behind the food is a growing, multi-concept workforce. The group relies on Toast POS to run its revenue centers and ADP to manage payroll, with ADP Essential Time as the system of record for hourly staff — three systems that all have to agree before anyone gets paid.
The Challenge
Distinct concepts, one payroll — and a manual pipeline in between.
Running distinct concepts under one group means distinct menus, service styles, and revenue centers — but payroll still had to come together as one accurate, compliant process. Before PayDay Portal, that meant someone manually pulling tip and sales data out of Toast, sorting it by location and revenue center, and re-entering it into ADP for each pay cycle. Slow, error-prone, and hard to scale.
Distinct Concepts, Distinct Revenue Centers
A bakery counter does not ring like a dinner service on Abbot Kinney. Each concept runs its own menus, service styles, and revenue centers in Toast — but every tip dollar still had to land in one payroll, correctly.
Manual Re-Entry, Every Pay Cycle
Someone had to pull tip and sales data out of Toast, sort it by location and revenue center, and re-enter it into ADP for each pay cycle — a slow process with plenty of room for error.
Time and Attendance in Its Own System
ADP Essential Time was already the system of record for hourly staff. Hours worked lived in one place, tips earned in another — and the two had to be brought together reliably before payroll could run.
Growth Across State Lines
The manual process did not scale well across concepts operating in different states with different rules. Every new location meant more sorting, more re-entry, and more exposure to error.
"Running distinct concepts under one group means distinct menus, service styles, and revenue centers — but payroll still had to come together as one accurate, compliant process."
The Gjelina Group Challenge
The Solution
Four PayDay Portal capabilities, connecting Toast to ADP the way Gjelina Group actually operates.
Direct Toast-to-ADP Payroll Integration
What it solves: tip and sales data trapped in the POS, and a payroll system that needed it re-keyed by hand every cycle.
Since 2025, PayDay Portal has fully automated the connection between Toast and ADP for Gjelina Group. Tip and sales data from every revenue center across all four locations flows directly into payroll — no exports, no spreadsheets, no re-entry. The pipeline that used to depend on someone pulling and sorting data now runs on its own, every pay cycle.
- Tip and sales data flows from Toast into ADP automatically
- Every revenue center at every location feeds the same pipeline
- No manual reconciliation between the POS and payroll
Data Normalization Across Concepts and Revenue Centers
What it solves: no two concepts run Toast the same way — and payroll cannot care.
PayDay Portal's data normalization handles the variation between concepts and revenue centers automatically, so each location's numbers land correctly in ADP regardless of how its Toast setup differs from another's. A bakery, a take-away counter, and a full-service dining room all resolve into one clean, consistent payroll feed.
- Concept-to-concept Toast differences absorbed automatically
- Each location's numbers land correctly, every cycle
- One consistent payroll feed from very different operations
ADP Essential Time, Reconciled Before Payroll Runs
What it solves: hours in the time clock, tips in the POS, and a gap between them that someone had to close by hand.
The integration also connects ADP Essential Time for timekeeping, so hours worked and tips earned are reconciled together before payroll runs. The gap between the POS, the time clock, and the paycheck is closed inside the platform — not in a spreadsheet the night before payroll.
- Hours worked and tips earned reconciled in one pipeline
- ADP Essential Time stays the system of record for hourly staff
- Payroll runs on data that already agrees with itself
Tips Paid Through Payroll, Built to Scale
What it solves: tips and wages moving through separate processes, and an automation that had to keep up with a growing group.
Tips are paid out to employees through ADP on a standard payroll cycle, so every tip dollar moves through the same trusted pipe as wages. And as Gjelina Group continues to operate across multiple states and concepts, the automation scales with them — each new location plugs into the same platform without adding administrative overhead.
- Tips paid through ADP on the standard payroll cycle
- One pipeline for tips and wages, not two processes
- New locations plug in without new admin overhead
The Results
No spreadsheets and no manual entry between a shift and a paycheck.
Operational Efficiency
- The manual work of moving tip and sales data from Toast into ADP is eliminated
- No spreadsheets and no manual entry standing between a shift and a paycheck
- Payroll prep no longer depends on someone pulling and sorting POS exports
- Toast, ADP, and Essential Time behave like one system instead of three
Accuracy and Compliance
- Payroll reflects real tip activity from every revenue center and every concept
- Hours and tips are reconciled together before payroll runs
- Data normalization lands each location's numbers correctly, however its Toast is set up
- One accurate, compliant process across states with different rules
Built to Scale
- Each new location plugs into the same platform without added overhead
- New concepts onboard without rebuilding the payroll pipeline
- The automation grows with the group across states and concepts
- A repeatable model for every opening still to come
Why It Works
Three things that make the Gjelina Group setup hold up across concepts and states.
One Pipe From POS to Paycheck
Tip and sales data moves from Toast into ADP through a single automated pipeline — no exports, no sorting, no re-keying. The fewer hands data passes through, the fewer places it can go wrong.
Normalization Absorbs the Differences
Every concept runs Toast its own way, and PayDay Portal does not ask them to change. Data normalization resolves the variation between concepts and revenue centers automatically, so payroll sees one consistent feed.
Timekeeping Lives in the Same Pipeline
ADP Essential Time stays the system of record for hourly staff, and its hours are reconciled against tips before payroll runs. The POS, the time clock, and the paycheck agree by design, not by someone checking.
Running Toast and ADP yourself? See how the Toast payroll integration works, or explore the ADP partnership.
