Italian Fiesta Pizzeria partnered with Insperity to turn a year and a half of payroll errors, manual corrections and vendor breakdowns into a fast, reliable routine, cutting payroll from two days to two hours and freeing leadership to focus on growth.
The Challenge
- Payroll errors, incorrect tax calculations and missing PTO tracking created operational chaos
- Manual payroll corrections for 150+ employees consumed weeks of administrative effort
- Poor vendor support left the business managing compliance and payroll issues alone
The Solution
- Implemented the Insperity HRCore™ solution
- Streamlined payroll administration and HR compliance support
- Access to responsive customer service
The Result
- Payroll now takes two hours instead of two days
- Trusted HR Partnership
- Reduced administrative burden
“It’s pretty amazing to not have to worry about certain avenues of payroll, like not having to do everything manually or print checks.”
Christine Mikulec
Owner-operator
Italian Fiesta Pizzeria
Christine Mikulec of Italian Fiesta Pizzeria is a fourth-generation pizzeria owner-operator in and around Chicago. Founded by her great-grandfather in 1947, the tavern-style pizzeria business was taken over by Christine, her siblings, and her cousins from her parents in early 2025. Prior to that, Christine was still involved in day-to-day operations. The company boasts 160 employees, most of whom are part-time throughout their five locations.
Wrong W-2s, Missing PTO, and a Vendor Who Disappeared
Italian Fiesta Pizzeria stuck to its roots in more ways than one. That’s why, when Christine helped take over operations in 2025, managers were still using fax machines to send overtime sheets and run reports. The HR solution the business had in place had been implemented a few years earlier and was a cloud-based system. According to Christine, there were many “major issues.” This came to a head in February 2024 when something began to seem “very wrong” with their payroll data. Employees began to notice something was wrong too. Reports and messages came in from employees stating that their W-2s were incorrect, tax tables were incorrect, and sick and PTO time were not being tracked properly. “It was one thing after another for a full year or year and a half,” Christine recalls. “It never got back to good.” Twice, Christine had to go into the system and manually update the time sheets of over 150 employees. Desperate for help, Christine flagged a support team member from the old vendor. The former vendor’s employee tried to take over but abruptly cut off all communication without any explanation. She later discovered that he had left the company, and no one had picked up where he left off.
As a result, a great deal of her time was wasted. The time Christine spent going back and forth to manually calculate and enter pay information amounted to a few weeks of work. This meant late nights, taking work home, and loss of her leisure time. Beyond the personal time lost, the business paid nearly $14,000 to right the wrongs caused by their old vendor. Two silver linings, however, were that the pizzeria’s employees stuck around despite the problems with their pay and other HR blunders brought on by the old vendor. The other was that, in part due to her hard work, the pizzeria never incurred delinquent fines from the city or state.
How a Personal Connection Became a Business Decision
After venting about this period of struggle to a friend who coincidentally worked at Insperity, he suggested that she look into outsourcing payroll duties. While she looked into other vendors, the personal connection she had with Insperity helped her gravitate towards it as her solution of choice.
The First Payroll That Just Worked
By spring 2025, the implementation of the Insperity HRCore™ solution had begun. This process took a few weeks to complete, and “Insperity is with you essentially every step of the way,” according to Christine. “They answered any questions I had.”
The first big moment came when she ran her first payroll, which took about 2 hours. “It was just easy,” said Christine. “‘Wait, this is it?’ I asked myself. It was just a good day.”
Two Hours Instead of Two Days
One year into using Insperity HRCore, the main benefit Christine has felt is that running payroll now takes two hours instead of two days. This has allowed her to devote extra time to the business, including future expansion plans. For the business, it’s primarily seen in benefits related to tax compliance and operational costs. Efficiencies have also emerged, allowing her to reduce in-office staff from five to two, reducing salary costs. Now Christine and her sister have taken over all day-to-day business administration. “It’s just the two of us,” she boasts. And while Insperity HRCore is a bigger investment than their old vendor, the two platforms are not comparable according to Christine, and Insperity HRCore is worth it. With Insperity HRCore, customer service is always “very responsive” to her needs, so she values the time savings and reduced stress more than anything. “It’s pretty amazing to not have to worry about certain avenues of payroll, like not having to do everything manually or print checks.”