How to Choose the Best HR and Payroll Software for Your Restaurant

Managing restaurant HR isn’t just about paying salaries. It’s about keeping your team efficient, compliant, and motivated. It’s about optimizing your costs and keeping data aligned across all systems, like sales, accounting, payroll, and HR. Here’s how to choose the right HR software that does it all, and why Polaris ERP is the top choice for restaurants across the UAE.

The Best HR Software for Restaurants UAE

Key Challenges for Staff Management in Restaurants

When it comes to managing your staff, we feel your struggle.

• Manually calculating salary to correspond to each employee’s shifts, taking into consideration lateness or overtime. 
• Entering staff’s personal information and documents into an outdated excel spreadsheet that does not communicate with accounting or sales. 
• Tracking attendance by calling in to verify clocked hours, or manually entering dozens or even hundreds of staff’s data, when you’re handling multiple branches…it’s all too much!

Why should it be this way, when you can have a clean, easy to use platform that automates these tasks?

The best HR and payroll software for restaurants allows you to automatically upload all employees’ data and instantly connects it with sales and accounting. Through the Point of Sales (POS) system you can see their attendance (log in and log out), and each staff’s performance. Through Accounting, also connected with the POS, you can accurately calculate their salaries based on the 

Must Have Features for HR & Payroll System for Restaurants

WPS – Compliance

A system with built-in WPS compliance (crucial in the GCC/MENA region) automatically generates the required Salary Information File (SIF) and ensures every employee payment is traceable and meets governmental regulations. This is non-negotiable for avoiding legal penalties and ensuring transparent, timely wage delivery to all staff.

End to End Payroll

Look for an HR and Payroll system that handles the full payroll cycle, from automatically pulling POS attendance and calculating complex wages (tips, service charges, overtime) to generating pay slips and processing bank transfers. This eliminates outsourcing, guarantees accuracy across all pay structures, and gives you total control over labor costs.

HR Core

This feature is your single source of truth for staff. It centralizes Recruiting, Employee Records, and Leave Management. For restaurants, it’s critical for automatically tracking document expiry (visas, work contracts) and simplifying compliance, keeping your team operational.

Native Connection with Accounting

Having your HR and payroll natively connected with accounting ensures every salary, overtime, and deduction is calculated and recorded automatically, reducing manual work, avoiding errors, and saving time. It also gives managers real-time visibility into labor costs, making payroll faster, more accurate, and easier to manage.

Native Connection with the Point of Sales (POS) System

A native POS connection automatically records staff logins and logouts for attendance and payroll, links performance data (like upselling and cross-selling) to real sales, and removes the need for manual entries, double reporting, or endless follow-ups.

In the absence of a native connection between the POS, Accounting and your HR and Payroll modules, you will need to invest in separate systems, which raises two big problems: 

1. It’s very expensive. The cost of a basic POS starts at AED 250 per month. A good accounting system like Zoho starts at AED 146 per month per user for enterprise, while an HR system alone, can add extra expenses of around AED 7 per employee. This all changes when using Polaris ERP, which natively connects all three (HR, accounting and POS), among others, for a much more affordable package.
2. Separate systems mean constant double work. Your team must manually enter the same data multiple times to align reports across the three systems. This high-risk manual entry is the leading cause of payroll errors and costly compliance mistakes.

Top HR and Payroll Software Providers in the UAE

Polaris ERP

Polaris ERP is UAE’s only all-in-one restaurant management software, with all operational modules (sales, inventory, purchase, accounting, delivery, and HR & payroll) connected to each other in a unified platform. Its HR & payroll software natively connects with accounting and sales for a strong automation of tasks. It’s been in the UAE market for over a decade, with over 1,000 cafes, restaurants, and other food and beverage (F&B) businesses using it.

Main Features of Polaris ERP HRMS:

• Core HR (including easy employee set-up, employee records, leave management, document expiry tracking, recruitment).
• Payroll Management (with end-to-end payroll processing, WPS and UAE labor law compliance, loan management and split payroll scheduling).
• Staff Scheduling (including secure clock in and clock out, POS-linked attendance, overtime tracking).
• ERP-Powered HRMS (comprising real-time sales performance insights, native accounting link, real-time reporting & analytics and multi-factor authentication).

PROS:

The native connection with sales (POS system) and accounting is one of the greatest advantages of Polaris ERP over other players in the market. Not only does each individual module communicate with each other, but data available in one system is automatically captured by the others. 

For instance, when the employees are set-up in the HR module, they automatically are transmitted to the payroll for salaries payments, and to the POS for attendance tracking.

Another advantage of Polaris ERP is that it is AI-powered, which helps to automate tasks as well as to deliver customized reports anytime and anywhere.

CONS

Polaris ERP features its HR & Payroll module as part of the whole ERP solution for restaurants. Purchasing it as an individual solution would not bring the full advantages of the full ERP package.

Bayzat

Bayzat is one of the most popular HR software in the region, trusted by clients across multiple industries. While its HR features work for hospitality, Bayzat is a generalist HR solution. It typically requires integration with separate POS and accounting software, as it is not built around specific F&B operational needs like detailed inventory tracking or native POS connectivity for real-time sales data.

PROS

• It consolidates core HR, payroll, and insurance/benefits into a single platform.
• Manages full payroll and SIF file generation, then transfers the necessary bookkeeping data to your external accounting software.
• Integrated insurance and benefits, offering a unique value proposition in the UAE market.

CONS

• Not a Unified ERP: It is a specialized HRMS. It requires integration with your separate POS and external Accounting software.
• Generalist Focus: Lacks the deep operational F&B specialization needed or native connectivity with your sales data.
• Advanced options may add up to the costs of using this software.
• It’s best suited for medium to large F&B businesses. 

Yomly

Yomly is a high-end, cloud-based enterprise HR and Payroll solution built for large companies and multi-country operations in the GCC. It serves the F&B sector by offering strong compliance and scalability, but operates primarily as a specialized HRMS. It requires integration with your external POS and accounting systems, making it an integration point rather than a unified F&B operational platform.

PROS

• Multi-Country and Compliance: Strong focus on multi-country payroll and specific compliance with WPS and regional labor laws (UAE/GCC).
• Integration Support: Connects with over 50 ERP and business systems (via API) to ensure data synchronization with your external accounting and operational tools.
• Comprehensive HR Suite: Includes a full range of HR functions, including ATS and robust Shift Scheduling.

CONS

• Generalist Platform: Lacks the deep F&B operational specialization.
• Requires Integration: It is not natively connected to a Point of Sale (POS) or a full Accounting system. All data flows must be handled through separate integrations.
• Target Market: Best suited for large enterprises; it may be less cost-effective for Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs).
• Custom Pricing: Offers modular pricing based on features, which can be less transparent than package pricing.

GreytHR

GreytHR is a generalist HR solution that excels at statutory compliance and highly scalable HR administration. It lacks native F&B operational modules and requires external integration with your POS and accounting software.

PROS

• Comprehensive core HR, payroll, leave, and attendance modules.
• Trusted by over 30,000 companies, suitable for both SMBs and large firms.

CONS

• Lacks native F&B specialization for smooth operations.
• Not natively connected to POS or full Accounting systems; requires third-party integration for data synchronization that means extra manual work for HR pros.
• Core strength is HR automation, not linking labor cost directly to sales profitability.
• Costs start at USD 50 (~AED 184) for 10 employees, with extra USD 2 (~AED 7.4) per each extra employee minimum, which can add up to a costly software.

Zimyo

Zimyo is a cloud-based AI-powered HRMS that offers a full suite of HR, payroll, and employee engagement tools to the Middle East market. It is fundamentally a broad HR solution focused on global compliance and administrative automation. It requires external API integration to synchronize labor data with specific F&B systems like POS, Accounting or Inventory.

PROS:

• Comprehensive solution, covering HR, payroll, performance, recruitment (Applicant Tracking System – ATS), and employee engagement (survey/recognition).
• Strong focus on statutory compliance (WPS, etc.) and leveraging AI to automate administrative tasks.

CONS:

• Lacks native F&B operational tools, which means that for running a cafe, restaurant, or franchise business you need to invest in another restaurant software to handle your sales, inventory, accounting or delivery operations.
• Not natively connected to Point of Sale (POS) or full Accounting systems; data alignment relies on integration, which can often be faulty, resulting in more manual work for corrections.
• The platform offers numerous modules, which may be overwhelming or overly complex for smaller F&B businesses that only need the core HR functions.

Why Choose Polaris ERP for Your Restaurant’s HR and Payroll Needs

Choosing Polaris ERP isn’t just about selecting an HR tool; it’s about investing in a unified system that drives restaurant profitability and efficiency. Here is why Polaris is the top choice over generalist HR platforms:

1. True Unification: Eliminating Silos – Unlike competitor platforms that require external API integrations, Polaris ERP provides a single, unified system where every module is natively connected. This translates into automation due to native data flow between systems, hence increased efficiency.

2. Cost Control and Savings on Redundant Software: Instead of paying multiple subscriptions for separate POS, Accounting, and HR platforms (which are often very expensive when combined), Polaris ERP provides an all-in-one package at a fraction of the total cost, significantly reducing your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

3. Specialized focus on the F&B industry: You get a single solution that covers your entire operation, including Inventory, Purchase, and Delivery, with HR included. A single, affordable solution for all restaurant needs eliminates system-switching and data misalignment. This frees your team from administrative tasks, allowing a complete focus on growth and profitability.

Frequently Asked Questions

You may also be interested in:

Book a free demo