How Gusto helps Prix Fixe Accounting drive revenue growth, while helping restaurants thrive

Prix Fixe Accounting, founded by Chris Macksey, is an accounting firm based in North Adams, MA that specializes in serving restaurants, hotels, and food-based retailers. The firm provides full-service bookkeeping, payroll and accounting, and financial advisory services. Chris has deep experience in the restaurant industry, having worked there throughout high school and college, starting as a busser and moving to back-of-house positions.

The hospitality industry faces significant challenges that directly impact Prix Fixe's clients. Restaurants operate with very narrow profit margins, making compensation decisions critical. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospitality industry has been rocked with labor shortages and high turnover, forcing businesses to boost employee compensation. However, restaurants need to carefully balance competitive wages with their tight margins to avoid financial failure.

Additionally, workers' compensation management is a significant burden in the hospitality industry. Before partnering with Gusto, it was incredibly challenging and time-consuming to determine what clients would need to pay for workers' compensation. Incorrect class code setup could result in large true-up payments at year-end that could cost clients thousands of dollars. End-of-year workers' compensation audits required 5 to 10 hours of work per client.

Benefits administration has historically been a pain point for restaurants. The administration burden has been so significant that many restaurants haven't offered benefits as an industry standard. However, in the modern labor market, offering benefits is becoming a necessity to attract and retain talent. Restaurants needed guidance on choosing the right health insurance policies, as selecting the wrong policy could be financially devastating for a restaurant.

Prix Fixe Accounting partnered with Gusto in January 2018 to provide comprehensive solutions to its restaurant and hospitality clients:

1. User-Friendly Payroll Platform: Gusto's simple, user-friendly all-in-one platform for payroll and benefits became vital to Prix Fixe's clients' success. The platform is designed to be accessible for employees who may be experiencing their first job, have limited English proficiency, or have never been on payroll before. This ease of use is critical in an industry with high turnover.

2. Streamlined Onboarding and Offboarding: Gusto made onboarding and offboarding employees significantly easier, addressing one of the single largest pain points for Prix Fixe's clients. The platform provides a consistent "steps of service" approach that allows restaurants to deliver the same service experience to every employee.

3. Compensation Benchmarking Tool: Gusto's compensation benchmarking tool enables Prix Fixe to strategically advise clients on wages. The tool allows Prix Fixe to zero in on specific compensation data, such as how much an executive chef makes in rural areas versus urban environments. This granular data helps restaurants set competitive wages while maintaining profitability in an industry with narrow margins.

4. Integrated Workers' Compensation: Gusto's integrated workers' compensation feature allows Prix Fixe to set up exact class codes for each client, eliminating the need for large true-up payments at year-end. Workers' compensation is paid every single week when payroll is run, reducing the mystery and stress around year-end audits.

5. Benefits Administration and Enrollment: Gusto makes it easy for employers to add benefits and manage enrollment and unenrollment of insurance. The platform provides real expense range information per employee during the enrollment process, helping employers understand the actual costs of offering benefits. This transparency helps restaurants make informed decisions about which benefits to offer.

6. Strategic Advisory Support: Through Gusto, Prix Fixe helps clients calculate the costs of offering benefits and makes it easy to administer them. Prix Fixe can advise clients on which benefits make sense for their business and help them understand the financial impact of their decisions.

Prix Fixe Accounting has achieved significant growth and operational improvements:

- Driven 25% year-over-year revenue growth over the past six years
- Serves 30 clients on Gusto platform
- Saves 5 to 10 hours of work per client during end-of-year workers' compensation audits
- Eliminated large true-up payments at year-end by setting up correct class codes from the start
- Provides proactive, strategic guidance on wages and benefits to ensure clients succeed in an industry with tight margins
- Enables clients to make informed decisions about compensation and benefits offerings
- Reduces administrative burden of benefits enrollment and management
- Helps restaurants offer benefits to employees, reducing turnover and improving employee retention
- According to Gusto research, when hospitality businesses offer retirement benefits, they reduce an employee's likelihood of quitting by 54% in their first year