Premier Payroll Solutions Named to the 2023 Inc. 5000

LONG ISLAND, NY | August 24, 2023 | Premier Payroll Solutions has been named to the 2023 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies, ranking No. 4,083 in the company’s first appearance on the national list.

The recognition arrives eight years after Premier opened its doors in 2015. In that time, the payroll, tax, and workforce management provider has grown almost entirely through the businesses it already serves and the accountants, benefits advisors, and industry contacts who vouch for it, rather than through any significant advertising spend.

“Making this list the first time is not something we set out to chase,” said Michael D’Onofrio, Managing Partner and President of Premier Payroll Solutions. “It reflects the businesses that trusted us with something they cannot afford to get wrong. We got here by showing up every pay period, for every client, and letting that add up.”

See Premier Payroll Solutions on the 2023 Inc. 5000

Nearly a Decade in the Making

The Inc. 5000 ranks privately held American companies by revenue growth across a three year period, which means a first appearance represents work that started long before the year the list was published.

Premier built its client base in the least dramatic way available. Owners told other owners. A restaurant group that had a clean payroll year mentioned it to a colleague opening a second location. An accountant who watched a client’s tax filings stop generating problems began recommending the company by name. That pattern has produced a steady stream of new business without the company ever leaning on broad advertising to create it.

It has also brought in employers coming off a bad experience elsewhere. Many arrive from larger, software first providers, having decided that a lower price is not worth a support line where nobody knows their name.

Payroll That Understands Restaurants

Restaurant and hospitality businesses make up the core of Premier’s client base, and the company chose that focus deliberately.

Payroll in those businesses is rarely simple. Tipped wages, split shifts, overtime across multiple roles, seasonal swings in headcount, and New York’s spread of hours rule each add a layer that generic payroll software was never designed to handle cleanly. Getting any one of them wrong creates a compliance problem that surfaces months later.

Premier built its expertise around that complexity instead of treating it as an exception to work around.

“Payroll in a restaurant is not the same job as payroll anywhere else. Tips, split shifts, spread of hours, a staff that turns over with the season,” D’Onofrio said. “Most software treats all of that as an edge case. We treat it as the actual work.”

A Person, Not a Hold Line

Every Premier client is assigned a dedicated payroll expert who knows the business, rather than a general support queue that routes each call somewhere new.

That decision shapes how the company hires. Premier brings on payroll specialists and account managers ahead of demand rather than after clients begin to feel the strain, which keeps the model intact as the client list grows. It is a slower way to scale and a more expensive one, and it is the reason clients stay.

The value tends to show up on the worst days rather than the ordinary ones. A payroll run that does not look right on a Thursday afternoon. A new hire who has to be onboarded before a Friday night shift. Those are the moments that decide whether an employer keeps a provider.

“Owners do not want to explain their business again to a different department every time they call,” D’Onofrio said. “They want the one person who already knows it. That is the company we set out to build, and it is the part we will protect as we grow.”

Where Premier Goes From Here

Premier plans to keep investing in its people, its technology, and the relationships that carried the company to this point. Leadership treats the recognition as evidence that the approach works rather than as a conclusion.

“We started this because we kept watching businesses get let down by providers who never understood what they actually needed,” D’Onofrio said. “This tells us the idea was right. It does not tell us we are finished. There is a version of this company that serves far more businesses than we do today, and still answers the phone the same way.”

About Premier Payroll Solutions

Premier Payroll Solutions is a payroll and workforce management company headquartered on Long Island, New York, serving employers across the New York metro area and nationwide. Its services include payroll processing, payroll tax filing and management, employee self service, time and attendance, benefits administration, and related workforce solutions, with particular expertise in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

By combining workforce technology with direct, personal support, Premier helps employers reduce administrative work, stay ahead of compliance requirements, and keep their attention on running the business.

More information is available at premierpayrollny.com.