CS / 04Services & Retail

Automated Payroll Cuts Hours of Manual Work for a Multi-Location Salon

Eliminated 5 hours of weekly manual payroll, redirecting ~$5K a year into higher-value work.

5 hrs

saved per week

~$5K

refocused on the business

< $10/mo

infrastructure cost

§ 01 / Overview

A salon and spa with complex, multi-tier compensation structures was spending hours every week on manual payroll, exactly the kind of costly, repetitive work that keeps small teams from focusing on their business. We identified the most time-consuming steps, automated the entire calculation workflow, and built in reporting dashboards that turn payroll data into clear financial insights every pay period. That is roughly $5K a year of administrative time redirected from payroll math to higher-value work.

§ 02 / Challenge

What was getting in the way.

The business had four distinct pay structures (tiered commission, flat commission, hourly plus commission, and hourly only), each with its own rules and edge cases. Every hour spent on manual spreadsheet calculations and repetitive reporting was an hour not spent on the business. There was no audit trail, no easy way to catch errors, and no visibility into payroll trends over time. As the business grew, the process became unsustainable.

§ 03 / Solution

What we actually shipped.

We mapped the full payroll process, identified where manual effort was highest, and built a serverless web application on AWS: Lambda for compute, S3 for storage, and CloudFront with authentication for secure access. The tool integrates with the salon's existing software through CSV upload, applies the correct pay structure to each team member automatically, and generates detailed reports with a complete audit trail. Built-in dashboards connect compensation data to business KPIs, giving ownership clear visibility into labor costs and trends across pay periods.

Services & tools

AWS LambdaS3CloudFrontPayroll AutomationCustom Software

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