When building a restaurant group, the #1 driver for sustainable success is your people. It's the most strategic differentiator today—what separates industry leaders from those who merely survive. Unfortunately, HR teams and managers can't find the time for strategic people work. That's because they're struggling with multiple tools that are hard to use and are prone to error.

Soigné is a single, easy-to-use tool to recruit, manage, schedule, pay, and develop restaurant teams. A seamlessly integrated product that gives you back the time to foster flourishing cultures and build dream teams.

Traditional HR tools suffer from three core problems:

👉 They're not built for restaurants.
👉 They're disconnected.
👉 They're hard to use.

As a result, teams slow down and lose morale. To regain momentum and operate with speed and focus again, companies are switching to Soigné.

1. Soigné is built for restaurants

Most HR tools are created as all-market solutions ("Scheduling for SMEs"). They offer endless configurations and customization options but are unable to deliver best-in-class, industry-specific workflows.

Soigné is different. It specializes in restaurants, so the software "gets you" and takes the lead in what needs to be done.

2. Soigné is an integrated platform

Juggling multiple tools means different logins, environments, workflows, and support contacts. But more importantly, you know how disconnected these tools are. You're entering the same data in multiple tools, integrations aren't working, or need to be checked constantly. You have just enough automation to operate, but not enough to scale.

Soigné streamlines the entire employee lifecycle—from recruitment to managing contracts to paying your team. Every aspect is fluidly integrated, so teams can operate with speed and focus at any scale.

"Soigné is the only way to scale operations. I highly recommend it to all HR teams"

Bartel — Switched to Soigné in October 2024

3. Soigné is enjoyable to use

While it's often overlooked in other tools, we've found that user experience really matters. Making Soigné fast, simple, and enjoyable to use pulls people in and excites them to use it. This higher level of engagement translates to better employee experiences, which in turn leads to a better employer reputation and brand.

When people don't use—or actively dislike using—their HR tools, it holds back an industry already facing numerous challenges.

The problem with outsourcing payroll:

👉 It assumes incompetence.
👉 It undermines team culture.
👉 It's expensive.

While outsourcing might avoid short-term headaches, you're still managing third parties while paying premium rates. More importantly, you're not building the internal capabilities that drive long-term competitive advantage.

1. Soigné is self-serve

Soigné brings all your HR tools onto one integrated platform. It's purpose-built for restaurants for simplicity and to prevent mistakes. With Soigné, anyone can run payroll. We've seen restaurant owners run their own payroll within a month of switching.

2. Soigné builds team culture

From quick candidate responses, to smooth onboarding, to thoughtful promotions—every touchpoint shows your people you care. Restore the fundamental relationship, and in return, employees go above and beyond for your guests and for you.

3. Soigné charges a fixed fee

With a transparent, fixed fee per employee, you'll finally see your actual profit margins. No hidden costs, no surprises. Read the RGB Silent Disco Bars case to see how much they saved by switching.

"I had to double-check with my accountant: is this really this month's profit? I couldn't believe how much we gained by switching to Soigné Pay."

RGB — Switched to Soigné in August 2025

The salary admin industry is structured around friction, as complexity pays better than simplicity ("Hourly-billing mentality"). Whether you're switching from various tools or from a payrolling service, the outcome is the same: you now handle your HR and pay run independently from third parties. You've gained more control, deeper insights, and stronger internal capabilities—all while cutting costs and bringing back the fun in HR work.

And the service? Soigné includes free, unlimited chat and phone support with our salary specialists. We guarantee a flawless pay run every month.

Soigné is the tool of choice for more than 100 restaurants, from ambitious newcomers like Flora, to major groups, like 3WO. They choose Soigné to accelerate their people & culture.

Request a demo to connect with our product specialists. You'll leave with a clear picture of what switching looks like, and full access to explore on your own terms to see if Soigné is the right fit for your team.

Once you've got a good feeling about Soigné, it's time to see it in action. A Soigné pilot involves one to three locations over four to six weeks, covering a complete pay cycle. This gives your team enough time to experience the full product and see how Soigné streamlines operations.

Choosing the right pilot location
Pick a location that's eager to try something new and has influence within your group. Look for locations that spend significant time on recruitment, contracts, and pay runs—they're most likely to feel the friction in their current processes and will be your biggest fans when the pilot succeeds.

Importing data
Once you've identified your pilot location(s), share the timeline and coordinate the data import process. We'll guide you through exporting employee records, historical payroll data, and contract information from your existing systems. Most imports are completed within a few days, allowing your team to start working in Soigné immediately.

What does pilot success look like?
Most teams define success as users genuinely enjoying Soigné—finding it faster, easier, and more reliable than their previous setup. When managers say "I wish we'd switched sooner" or "I actually look forward to running payroll now," you know the pilot has worked. Success means your team feels more in control, makes fewer mistakes, and has more time for what actually matters: building great teams.

Pitch to owners

Today, progressive restaurant groups rely on Soigné to turn HR from an administrative burden into a competitive advantage. By eliminating friction and fragmentation, Soigné allows HR teams to focus on what drives long-term success: building flourishing cultures. This matters because culture is the soil in which dream teams grow: teams that work more effectively, stay longer, and ultimately deliver better profit margins. In an industry where people make or break your business, Soigné ensures your HR infrastructure supports growth rather than holding it back.

Pitch to finance

Soigné dramatically reduces payroll errors and corrections, the hidden cost drain that compounds every month. Pre-payroll gives you instant visibility into labor costs. Journal entries integrate directly with your accounting software (Exact, Twinfield), eliminating manual data entry. Clean data, accurate numbers, faster month-end close.

Pitch to restaurant managers

Soigné puts recruitment, contracts, and scheduling in one simple tool. No more waiting on HR for basic tasks. You'll handle more of your own people management, learning modern HR practices that make you more valuable and give you more control over your location. Less dependence on others, more ownership of your location.

When planning your switch, start by picking a month. What works best differs per group, but by nature, certain periods have their own dynamics. Some are easier to switch than others:

January

The best month to switch. Apart from accrued hours, there are no major data imports. January gives you a clean connection with the previous book year and a fresh start for your new system.

February - May

Great period to plan your switch. Minimal historical data to import, and you're still ahead of the busy spring hiring season. This gives your team time to get comfortable with Soigné before peak operations.

June - August

Depends on how your group is organized. For most, summer at HQ is quieter and provides the breathing room needed to switch systems without disrupting daily operations.

September - October

Good period if you want to catch your late-season hiring wave. More data to import from the year so far, but definitely manageable if planned properly.

November - December

Depending on the size of your locations, this could get challenging with year-end processes and holiday rush. Might be better to wait until January for a smoother transition.

You've made the decision to use Soigné as your tool of choice. Now it's time to get your locations onboard. In this section, we outline the migration steps for each part of the product, how to best prepare your teams, and how our product specialists step in to make it a smooth transition.

Salary admin

Export and import data
The first step when switching is getting access to your current salary admin system.

• Analyzing payslips
  We run a analysis of your payslips to fully understand your setup. We look for unusual wage components, non-standard configurations, and compliance issues. Many teams use the migration to Soigné as an opportunity to audit their salary administration and start fresh with a clean setup.
• Import employees
  After we've analyzed your payslips and everything is aligned, we'll import your employees into Soigné. This includes all employment data, salary information, contract details, and historical records you need.

Decide on a shadow run
Most customers find Soigné's payslip analysis and validation sufficient to switch directly. However, some groups choose to run their current solution alongside Soigné for one to two months as a safety net. While this creates extra work for your HR team, it can provide peace of mind for management and help move the migration forward with confidence. Once you see both systems producing identical results, you can confidently switch over completely.

Replacing support
As Soigné becomes your single point of contact, it also means replacing your current salary administration office. There are two scenarios:

• If your bookkeeper handles salaries
  Only the salary admin part of your relationship changes. Your bookkeeper continues handling your books while Soigné handles salary admin.
• If you have a dedicated salary admin office
  We replace that service entirely.

Wage journal entries
After the switch, Soigné generates your wage journal entries for bookkeeping. You can download them after each pay cycle, or use our Exact integration to sync them automatically to your accounting ledger.

HR core & contracts

Migrating to Soigné employee profiles
After we've imported your employee data into Soigné it becomes your central hub, and single source of truth, on all employee data, from tasks,to files, notes, messages, hours, leave and contracts. As most restaurant groups use a combination of their scheduler and salary admin system for employee data, this part of the migration will feel like a breeze. You'll instantly get overview.

Migrating to Soigné contracts & addenda
Soigné comes with integrated contracts & addenda, including digital signing. No need for other, disconnected, digital signing tools anymore.

Migrating to Soigné tasks
With Soigné as your single source of truth, we you'll get an overview of every recurring HR tasks that needs to be done. We'll set you up with email and Whatsapp reminders, so nothing falls through the cracks. Fully compliant and no more switching between systems. To give you an idea, here's some of the tasks we generate:

👉 Renew or end contract
👉 Confirm or end probation
👉 Sign contract
👉 Raise salary (birthdays under 21)
👉 Raise salary (CAO)
👉 Offer fixed hours (WAB)
👉 & many more...

Recruitment

Soigné comes with a next-gen recruitment suite. Here's how to active it:

Update website

• Edit Jobs page - often your jobs page needs a few tweaks to align with Soigné's way of recruiting. Most importantly, we have an always be hiring philisophy and don't work with vacancies. You can remove these from your jobs page. Also, check if the tone & style match next generations expectations. Explain what's in it for them to apply.
• Install recruitment widget - replace your current recruitment form with Soigné's widget. Here's a link to the SDK for your web developer, but we're happy to help out here as well. Just send us your websites CMS loging and we'll do the installment fo you.
• Run recruitment banner - to finish your recruitment setup, activate Soigné's recruitment on the top of your website. Think of a catchy phrase, sometghing unbique to your restaurant, and see 3x to 5x more applications roll in!

Migrate to Soigné ATS

Our product specialist will help you transfer pending candidates to Soigné's ATS.

Switching from a payroll service

If you're switching from a payroll service, you start with a complete new set of tools. Two things that need to happen:

• Import employees
• Change of employer addenda

After running a pilot, aligning internally, and picking your start month, it's time to onboard the rest of your team. This means your HR team, business owners, location managers, and finance (everyone who'll use Soigné day-to-day):

Roles & permissions

When inviting users, Soigné offers flexible roles and permissions to match how your team works:

• Recruitment - Manage candidates and applications: send messages, schedule interviews and trial shifts, move to talent pool, or disqualify.
• Employee management - Access and edit employee info (personal details), send messages, schedule check-ins, and edit worked hours.
• Employment - Create and sign contracts, access and edit salaries and benefits.
• Account admin - Manage the entire account including all locations, settings, and user invitations.

Training

Now that you've assigned roles and invited all teammates to Soigné, it's time to schedule training. Our product specialists are here to help! Invite everyone to a video call and share helpful resources beforehand so they can come prepared with questions.

Email template

Subject: Soigné training - [Date & Time]

Hi team,

We're switching to Soigné as our new HR platform, and I've scheduled a training session to get everyone up to speed.

Training details
📅 Date: [Insert date]
⏰ Time: [Insert time]
🔗 Meeting link: [Insert video call link]

What we'll cover
Platform overview and navigation
Managing recruitment and candidates
Creating contracts and handling employment changes
Your specific role and permissions
Q&A

Before the training

Please take 15 minutes to review these guides so you can come with questions:
- Recruitment guide
- Contracts guide

You should have already received your Soigné login invite. If you haven't, let me know and I'll resend it.

Looking forward to getting everyone comfortable with Soigné!

Best,
[Your name]

When everyone is onboard, review your existing contracts to understand notice periods and cancellation terms. Notify your current service providers of your cancellation. Be professional and clear about your timeline as you may need their support during the transition period.

👉 Soigné can help cover any overlap costs if you need to run both systems in parallel during migration.

Email template

Subject: Ending contract - [Restaurant name]

Dear [Provider Name],

We are writing to inform you that we will be transitioning our payroll operations to a new platform and will no longer require your services after [end date - typically end of current contract or notice period].

Our last payroll cycle with your service will be for the period ending [date]. Please confirm receipt of this notice and the steps needed to complete our offboarding.
Thank you for your assistance during this transition.

Best regards,
[Your name]
[Title]

Soigné offers an employee app with interactive payslips—a simple, clickable version that explains every aspect. Once migrated, send a message letting employees know you're now running on Soigné and how to access their new app.

Email template

Subject: New app for payslips & more

Hi everyone,

Quick update: we've switched to Soigné for HR management. What this means for you:

1. Your payslips are now in an easy-to-use app (no more confusing PDFs!)
2. Access your contracts and personal info anytime

You'll get an invitation email to download the app soon. Takes 2 minutes to set up. Everything else stays the same - just better tools behind the scenes.

Questions? Let us know!
[Your name]