TaxFactory™ Stories

Company Profile

Luby’s Fuddruckers Restaurants has been in the food service business since 1980. The company prides itself on making “The World’s Greatest Hamburgers®” and having the best brand awareness for a burger chain of its size.

Based in Texas, Fuddruckers operates and franchises restaurants that specialize in high-quality, upscale hamburgers in a variety of sizes, cooked to order. Providing an array of farm-fresh produce and condiments, the company encourages guests to garnish their own entrees.

Over the years, Fuddruckers has evolved into a fun, fast-casual dining destination, focusing on great food and friendly, attentive guest service. The company employs almost 8,700 people with 202 locations in 27 states.

Challenge

Implementing payroll tax regulatory updates can be a challenging task for any organization. Receiving and applying updates in a prompt manner typically requires time and effort on the part of Payroll and IT departments. Luby’s Fuddruckers Restaurants was devoting a considerable amount of resources to maintain taxes as part of their payroll process. Furthermore, having operations in multiple states presented additional challenges. Fuddruckers wanted to increase operational efficiency and receive assistance managing the complex payroll tax process. They also needed a payroll tax system that would work seamlessly with their payroll system. Finally, they wanted a solution that offered ongoing maintenance in the form of automatically applied regulatory updates.

Solution

Adopting the TaxFactory SaaS Support Option brought tremendous benefits to the Payroll and IT departments of Luby’s Fuddruckers Restaurants. Benefits to the payroll department included a streamlined, efficient payroll tax calculation process via automated timely maintenance. The team no longer had to spend time and manpower to make sure the regulatory changes were received and implemented properly. This allowed staff to perform other important tasks, lowering the risk of non-compliance fines. Also, there was less concern about last-minute tax changes and less time spent researching pending tax legislation. The accuracy of payroll tax calculations improved, since the team now had the latest information from tax authorities.

“With the TaxFactory SaaS Support Option, we no longer have to maintain the bulletin and software upgrades,” explains Debra True, Application Manager.
Other benefits included deferred income tax changes, as well as maintaining address updates for tax lookup. The IT team also benefited from cost savings due to reduced IT development costs, reduced workload, and decreased stress related to implementing regulatory changes in time. This growing food service organization finally has the payroll tax solution that works to help simplify the payroll tax process.

Challenge

High Point, NC, located in the Piedmont Triad region is known as “North Carolina’s International City™” and the “Home Furnishings Capital of the World.” Drawing visitors from 50 states and 110 countries bi-annually, High Point, which hosts the International Furniture Market, provides a diverse landscape with a population of 105,000 and growing. The city employs 1459 individuals. They include police, fire, electric, water, sewer, garbage, streets, library and museum workers as well as park rangers and the staff for services, such as 911 Telecommunicators and customer service representatives, yielding a full spectrum bi-weekly payroll. The 1459 workers employed by the City, including approximately 477 fire and police employees, work around- the-clock shifts, 365 days a year. Many of them are mobile or work in multiple locations. Being a public sector employer, payroll tax calculations must comply with federal and state regulations as soon as they are effective. Prior to utilizing TaxFactory, payroll tax processing was handled manually through a custom in-house application. The process was time-consuming and staying abreast of ever-changing regulations was a burden for the city.

Solution

Tom Spencer, Systems Project Administrator, is part of a steering committee that reports directly to the Assistant City Manager Mr. Pat Pate. CHAMPS (City of High Point Advancing Municipal Programs and Services) is the team that makes decisions about all major projects that affect the city. TaxFactory was presented as the tax calculation component that is integrated with the Lawson Software™ Payroll system. After the payroll system was installed, implementation of TaxFactory didn’t take a lot of effort for Spencer’s team. “The set up was straight-forward, only took an hour and we were off and running,” notes Spencer. Immediately the system eased implementation of regulations, handled required calculation changes and relieved the burden from the city. Spencer notes the solution “is so comprehensive that we don’t even have to touch it except to load regulatory updates. I don’t spend hours training employees on the system or send them to yearly training and that saves us money.”

Results

The results have been incredible. “TaxFactory solved our challenges with staying abreast of payroll tax regulations. We didn’t have to understand and track new changes to the law. BSI did all the research for us and handled the calculations. It took minimal effort on our part,” says Spencer. “In the five years we’ve been utilizing TaxFactory, we’ve never had a calculation issue or problem.” Spencer notes that maintenance is simple as well. When there is a change to the law they are notified immediately. “There’s no way to miss a change to the law and my team doesn’t have to worry about errors.” Data containing regulatory changes is uploaded to the system once a month and that’s the extent of his investment. “I have a vendor I don’t have to manage. Compliance issues are obsolete. I can focus my time and efforts elsewhere. It’s very refreshing. I love TaxFactory. It’s a simplified solution with great flexibility for the end user.”