Back of House Ops (BOHO): Services, Pricing and How It Works

What is Back of House Ops?

Back of House Ops, which brands itself as BOHO, is a service that takes on the people paperwork of a restaurant: the payroll inputs that have to be gathered every pay cycle, new-hire forms, personnel and disciplinary records, the employee handbook, and hiring-credit screening. Its home page describes it as "the back-of-house HR department you can't justify hiring full-time."

The company is specific about what kind of service it is. It calls itself a client-directed administration service. That means BOHO does the preparation and record-keeping, while the restaurant keeps every decision: who is hired, what people are paid, who is disciplined or let go, and whether each payroll run is right. Payroll is not run in a BOHO system. It is prepared on "your approved payroll platform," the payroll software or provider the restaurant already uses or chooses, and submitted there.

The company explains its reason for existing this way: restaurant HR work "has no natural home. It is not a kitchen job, it is not a floor job, and it is rarely anybody's actual job." Its about page lists the kind of small failures it aims to prevent: an I-9 that was started but never finished, a new hire never reported to the state, a payroll approved in the middle of a Friday dinner service without a real look, and a termination with nothing written down at the time.

BOHO's published target customer is the owner-led room: restaurants, bars and counter-service concepts in Massachusetts with roughly:

• 1 to 3 locations
• about 15 to 75 active employees
• tipped and non-tipped staff on the same payroll
• an owner or general manager currently doing HR paperwork between shifts

Its pricing tiers stretch further than that, to groups of up to 10 locations and 300 employees, with a custom quote above that.

Who owns or runs BOHO?

The site names one person: Dan Murphy, Founder. According to the team page, Dan Murphy runs Murphy Accounting, an accounting practice based in North Easton, Massachusetts, and founded Back of House Ops "to do one specific job well: keep the payroll and people paperwork of independent restaurants organized on a weekly cycle." The company says the idea came from accounting work with restaurants, where "the books are rarely the first thing to break. What breaks first is the paperwork around the people."

The site does not list professional credentials for Dan Murphy, so this guide does not state any. BOHO describes itself as "deliberately small," and says clients work with "a named person who knows your restaurant's pay cycle, not a rotating support queue," and that the fit call "is with the person who would do the work." The resource articles on the site carry Dan Murphy's byline.

Is BOHO legit?

BOHO does not publish a founding year, client counts or reviews, so the usual shortcuts are not available. Here is what you can check for yourself:

• A named, accountable founder. The team page names Dan Murphy and ties the service to his accounting practice in North Easton, Massachusetts.
• Published prices. All three tiers are listed with monthly prices on the pricing page and repeated on several other pages, which is unusual in this field.
• A published boundary. A line-by-line service scope page lists who does what and what sits outside the service, before you become a client.
• Written terms. The site terms say services are governed by a signed service schedule and proposal, and that the website terms are governed by Massachusetts law.
• Clear limits. The site repeats on almost every page that BOHO "is not a PEO, a staffing agency, or legal counsel," and it flags every regulatory figure with an official source and a "last reviewed" date.
• Honest coverage claims. It states that Massachusetts is the only state it serves, and labels New England and New York City pages as "not a current service area."

What is not published: a phone number, a street address, a founding year, client testimonials or review figures, a set-up fee and a contract length. If any of those matter to your decision, ask on the fit call and get the answers into the written proposal.

Is BOHO a PEO or the employer of record?

No. This is the single point the site repeats most. A PEO (professional employer organization) enters a co-employment relationship with your business and takes on some employment obligations alongside you. BOHO does not. In the company's words, "Your restaurant remains the employer of record and approves payroll and employment decisions."

In practice that means your restaurant:

• stays the sole employer of every worker,
• funds its own payroll and tax liabilities ("Your restaurant funds its own payroll, always"),
• makes every hiring, scheduling, pay, discipline and termination decision,
• approves every payroll run before it is submitted, and
• keeps the relationship with tax agencies and its payroll platform.

The company's own advice is direct: "If you want somebody to take the employment relationship off your hands, a PEO is the right product and you should buy one. If you want the paperwork handled while you stay the employer, that is this." BOHO also offers no benefits program and takes on no employment risk, which are two common reasons owners choose a PEO.

What BOHO does, service by service

The home page lists six services, all covered by one monthly retainer at the tier you choose.

The HR administration page groups the recurring work into six areas: personnel files, onboarding, offboarding and separations, documentation and records, handbook maintenance and WOTC screening. For offboarding, the company says final pay is "flagged for your decision," access and property recovery are tracked, and separation documentation is "written the day it happens rather than reconstructed under pressure." For documentation, disciplinary records, incident notes and policy acknowledgements are kept in one consistent format "so a pattern is visible while you can still act on it."

The company explains why it focuses on restaurants: turnover turns onboarding and offboarding into "a standing weekly workload," and tipped pay touches HR as much as payroll, because tip policies belong in the handbook and changes to them have to be given to staff in writing.

How payroll coordination works

BOHO describes the same five steps every pay cycle:

1. Inputs assembled. Hours pulled from timekeeping, declared tips reconciled against POS and card records, tip-pool distributions applied, rate and role changes picked up from the date they took effect, new hires and terminations added.
2. Exceptions surfaced. Examples the company gives: a missing clock-out, an employee under the tip-credit floor for the period, a new hire with incomplete paperwork, an unexpected overtime spike. Each is raised as a specific question while there is still time to answer it.
3. Review sent to your approver. A summary "with enough detail to actually be checked," with exceptions at the top.
4. You approve. Your named approver signs off or sends corrections back.
5. Submitted and recorded. The approved run goes through your payroll platform and the cycle's records are filed.

The company calls this the approval gate and says it "is not a courtesy step and it is not waivable." Nothing is submitted until someone at your restaurant says so.

The payroll page lists what the service covers:

• Tipped payroll inputs: declared tips, tip pools and shares, tip-credit tracking, and staff who work several roles at different rates in one period.
• The payroll calendar: published cutoffs, reminders before each one, and a stated rule for changes that arrive late.
• Corrections and off-cycle runs: prepared with the cause documented. Your restaurant approves the correction and decides whether an off-cycle run is needed.
• New hires and terminations: added to the run, with state new-hire reporting handled "on the payroll clock" and final-pay timing flagged for your decision.
• Deductions and authorizations: checked against a current signed authorization every cycle. "A deduction without one is an exception, not a default."
• Tax notices: logged, evidenced and routed to the right party. The tax relationship stays with your restaurant, and BOHO "does not represent your restaurant before a tax authority."

For tipped staff, the company stresses that the hard part is not knowing the tipped wage but assembling four sets of inputs correctly: hours split across several rates for one person, declared tips versus POS records, the per-person check that cash wage plus tips reaches the full minimum wage for the period, and making the pool calculation match the policy you published to staff.

Onboarding and the I-9 line

BOHO's onboarding page lays out the sequence it runs for every hire:

1. Offer accepted: the onboarding packet goes out the same day, not on the first shift, and every document is tracked.
2. Before day one: tax forms, direct-deposit authorization, policy and handbook acknowledgements and any role-specific certification are collected and checked.
3. Day one: the I-9 is completed on schedule, with your manager examining documents in person.
4. First payroll: the employee record exists before the first run, and state new-hire reporting is handled.
5. Ongoing: re-verification dates, certification expiries and probation or review milestones are tracked.

The company is careful about the I-9, which it calls "the most commonly overstated item in restaurant HR marketing." BOHO issues the form, tracks the deadline, keeps the file and the re-verification calendar, and flags incomplete forms. Your restaurant must physically examine the employee's documents, complete the employer attestation, decide whether a document is acceptable, and handle any question about an individual's work authorization. The scope page says this "cannot be delegated to a vendor."

BOHO also coordinates background checks with a vendor you choose. Your restaurant selects the vendor, obtains consent and makes every decision based on the results.

Handbook support

The handbook page describes six steps and then a yearly cycle: read what you have, compare it to what actually happens on the floor, customize and draft, coordinate legal review with your counsel where a policy warrants it, issue the handbook and collect signed acknowledgements, then review it every year with a flag whenever something changes mid-year.

The company says the most useful output is often "the list of places where what you wrote down and what your rooms do have quietly come apart," such as shift swaps arranged in a group chat when the handbook says a manager must approve them. Topics it lists for a restaurant handbook include scheduling and attendance, meal and rest breaks, tip handling and pooling, dress code and hygiene, alcohol service and refusal, harassment and the complaint route, leave, discipline, technology and social media, and safety reporting.

Two limits are stated plainly: BOHO drafts and coordinates, but legal review is done by your own counsel, and "a BOHO-prepared handbook is not a legal opinion on your policies." The Growth tier adds a customized handbook with an annual update, and the Group tier adds handbook consistency across locations.

WOTC screening

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a federal hiring credit for employers who hire people from certain groups. Screening has to happen at the point of hire, which is why the company says restaurants often miss it. BOHO includes Form 8850 screening and workforce-agency coordination in every tier, and the Group tier adds cross-location WOTC program management.

The site is unusually cautious about this service. Its WOTC article says no provider, BOHO included, can guarantee that a hire will qualify, that certification will be granted, that the credit will be available in a given year, that your business can use it, or a dollar amount. Its advice: "Do not buy an HR service for WOTC." BOHO screens and documents; your tax preparer claims any credit on your return.

On the program's status, the site's reference note (last reviewed 12 August 2026) says the federal program lapsed as of 1 January 2026 and was pending reauthorization by Congress, and that BOHO keeps screening and documenting so that retroactive capture stays possible if it is reauthorized. The company calls this "a monitored benefit, not a guaranteed current-year credit." Check the current status with the U.S. Department of Labor or your tax adviser. This guide is not tax advice.

How much does BOHO cost?

BOHO publishes its prices. These are the figures shown on 19 October 2026. The site's terms describe them as "indicative of the retainer structure," and say the written proposal sets the actual fees.

No per-employee fee. Each tier is a flat retainer. The company's reasoning is that restaurant headcount swings with the season, and "a per-head model punishes you for a good summer." Tiers are reviewed periodically, not monthly, so a busy stretch inside your band does not change the bill.

What is not on the price list. Set-up or implementation fees, contract length and billing cycle are not published. The site says these, along with any third-party or payroll-platform costs, are written into your proposal "before you sign, not discovered later." Your payroll platform's own fees are separate, since it is provided under its own terms between your restaurant and that provider. The terms also note that a correction caused by late or inaccurate data "may carry additional cost."

Not included at any price: payroll funding, legal or tax advice, benefits brokerage, recruiting and the other exclusions listed below.

What moves a restaurant between tiers

Tiers are set by location count and employee band, but the pricing page names six things that drive the actual workload and decide where a restaurant lands:

• Active employees, counted at onboarding and reviewed each quarter. Seasonal swings inside a band do not move you.
• Locations, since each room adds onboarding volume, manager intake and posting requirements.
• Legal entities. "Two locations under one EIN is a different workload than two EINs."
• Pay frequency. Weekly payroll is "roughly twice the approval cycles of biweekly."
• Hiring and offboarding volume, since a room turning 90% of its staff a year creates far more file work than one turning 30%.
• Tipped workforce, since tip reporting, several pay rates and tip-credit tracking add inputs every cycle.

The site's own comparison page adds a cost point worth knowing: it cites Bureau of Labor Statistics data via O*NET putting median annual pay for a human resources specialist in Massachusetts at $85,630 (2025 data), before employer taxes and benefits. The company's point is that most independent restaurants never hire one, and the cost of the work is hidden in a manager's or owner's time.

What happens step by step

1. Fit assessment (20 minutes). A call about locations and legal entities, active headcount, pay frequency, tipped staff, your current payroll platform, your next pay date and any open tax notices or known problems. No employee data changes hands, and the company says it will tell you honestly if BOHO is not the right shape for you.
2. Scoped proposal (a few business days). A written scope covering the workflows BOHO will run, the decisions that stay with you, the tier and retainer, and anything outside the service, including named third-party or platform costs. You confirm who at your restaurant will approve payroll. "The proposal is where scope lives. Nothing on this website overrides it."
3. Implementation (time varies by entity and platform). Secure collection of year-to-date wage detail, tax account registrations, active deductions and authorizations, the employee roster with rates and roles, and the pay calendar. Then configuration, a test cycle and a go-live checklist. Records move "through a secure channel, never email." Go-live "is confirmed after a successful test cycle," not promised before one.
4. The weekly rhythm (every pay cycle). Inputs assembled, exceptions raised, review sent, your approval, then submission and record-keeping. "The cycle looks the same in month eighteen as in month one."

If you are switching payroll providers at the same time, the site's transition checklist recommends switching at a quarter or year-end boundary where possible, gathering full year-to-date history (including staff who have left) before giving notice, running a test cycle, and writing down which party files which return for which period.

Who does what: the responsibility split

The service scope page sets out the split line by line. A shortened version:

The scope page notes that the signed service schedule in your proposal is the version that governs.

What BOHO does not do

The scope page lists eight exclusions, "stated explicitly, because an unstated exclusion is discovered at the worst possible moment":

• Employer-of-record or co-employment services (BOHO is not a PEO)
• Legal advice, representation, or an opinion on whether an employment decision is lawful
• Tax advice, tax representation, or a guarantee that any filing or credit will be accepted
• Benefits brokerage, insurance placement, or workers' compensation claims handling
• Recruiting, staffing or candidate sourcing
• Immigration advice, or deciding an individual's work authorization
• Scheduling and labor-cost management inside your POS or scheduling system
• Funding payroll

The how-it-works page sums it up as three things BOHO "deliberately does not do": become your employees' employer, make employment decisions, and give legal or tax advice.

Where does BOHO operate?

Massachusetts only. The site states this on every coverage page: "Massachusetts is the only state BOHO currently serves." Restaurants anywhere in the Commonwealth, including Boston and Greater Boston, are served "from the same Massachusetts practice as the rest of the state."

There is no storefront or Boston office, and the company says there is no reason for one: the work is done "through your systems and your records, not across a counter." No street address is published.

Expansion plans, not service areas. The site lists Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine as "near-term expansion, not yet available," and the New York City metro as a "longer-term expansion corridor." Its NYC page says plainly that BOHO "cannot serve you and has no near-term date for doing so." Before adding a state, the company says it needs the state's wage, sick-leave and reporting rules well enough understood to administer, payroll tax workflows set up, contract terms reviewed, enough capacity, and a genuinely state-specific handbook and onboarding template. Operators outside Massachusetts are invited to get in touch for "a straight answer about timing."

How employee data is handled

The security page describes operating practices, and says clearly that they are "not a security certification, an audit result, or a compliance attestation." The practices it lists:

• Secure exchange, never email. Payroll files, personnel records and identity documents move through a secure channel set up at implementation, not email or text, "in either direction, including by us."
• Least-privilege access, reviewed when scope or staffing changes on either side.
• Multi-factor authentication on accounts and platforms that hold your data, wherever the platform supports it.
• Nothing sensitive in public forms. The contact form asks only for business details and "actively rejects submissions that look like they contain identifiers."
• Documented retention and removal, set out in your service schedule.
• A named incident contact in your service schedule.

The page also asks clients to keep their payroll platform credentials private (BOHO says it will never ask you to email them), to report departing managers promptly, and to confirm any request to change bank details through a different channel from the one it arrived on.

Free templates, calculators and answers

A large part of the site is free material that anyone can use, client or not:

• 16 templates (forms, shift sheets and policies), including an employee write-up form, staff and manager performance reviews, a termination letter and checklist, a time edit approval form, a tip-out sheet, a tip pooling policy, and attendance and no-call/no-show, cell phone, dress code and employee meal policies. Each can be read on the page, printed or downloaded as a Word file. The site says they are "starting drafts, not legal advice."
• 9 calculators for labor cost percentage, prime cost, tip pool splits, tipped wage make-up pay, the FICA tip credit, turnover cost, Massachusetts earned sick time, Massachusetts PFML contributions and blended overtime. The site says "Nothing you type leaves your browser."
• 144 answers to Massachusetts restaurant HR and payroll questions across 10 topics (wages, tips and service charges, overtime and breaks, sick time and leave, hiring, final pay, payroll taxes, teen workers, records and posters, wage complaints), each linked to the official rule it comes from.
• Comparison guides and checklists, such as what payroll and HR help costs, in-house versus outsourced HR, questions to ask a payroll provider, a payroll approval checklist, a tipped-payroll workflow and a year-end payroll checklist.

The site labels all of this "general information, not legal or tax advice," and shows the date figures were last checked.

How it compares with other options

The company's own decision test: if you want to stop being the employer, choose a PEO. If someone reliably prepares payroll properly every cycle, software alone may be enough. If you want to stay the employer and nobody has the time, that is the gap BOHO says it fills. The site notes that its comparison pages are "written by a service that is one of the three," and that it does not quote other providers' prices.

Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere

Questions to ask before you sign

1. Which tier would my restaurant fall into, given my locations, entities, headcount, pay frequency and turnover?
2. Is there a set-up or implementation fee, and how long is the contract term? (Neither is published.)
3. What will my payroll platform cost on its own, and is anything else billed outside the retainer?
4. How long would implementation take from my next pay date, and when would the test cycle run?
5. Who exactly will prepare my payroll each cycle, and who covers when that person is away?
6. What is the payroll cutoff, and what happens to a change that arrives late?
7. Which secure channel will we use for employee data, and how is data returned or removed if we end the service?
8. When a question needs a lawyer or tax adviser, who do you refer us to, and is that cost separate?

How to get started

1. Read the service scope and pricing pages to check the boundary and your likely tier.
2. Have five facts ready: number of locations and legal entities, roughly how many people are on payroll, how often you pay and your next pay date, whether you have tipped staff and on how many rates, and what you use today for payroll.
3. Request a 20-minute fit call through the contact form or email dmurphy@murphyaccounting.com. The site says it replies within one business day.
4. Do not send Social Security numbers, bank details, medical or disciplinary details, or copies of I-9s or W-4s through the form or by email.
5. If it fits, review the written proposal, confirm your approver, and plan implementation around your pay calendar.

Visit Back of House Ops

Terms you'll see on the site

• Employer of record: the business legally responsible for employing a worker. With BOHO, that stays your restaurant.
• PEO (professional employer organization): a company that enters co-employment with your business and shares some employer obligations.
• Approval gate: BOHO's term for the step where your named approver signs off before any payroll is submitted.
• Approved payroll platform: the payroll software or provider your restaurant uses, where BOHO prepares and submits the run.
• Tip credit / tipped cash wage: paying a tipped employee a lower cash wage, provided wage plus tips reaches the full minimum wage. The site lists Massachusetts' 2026 figures as a $6.75 tipped cash wage and a $15.00 minimum wage.
• I-9: the federal form verifying identity and work authorization; the employer must examine documents and attest.
• State new-hire reporting: reporting each new employee to the state directory by a deadline tied to the hire date.
• WOTC and Form 8850: the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit and the pre-screening form used to request certification.
• PFML: Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave, funded by contributions on eligible wages.
• EIN: a federal Employer Identification Number; each legal entity has its own.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

All pages checked on 19 October 2026.

1. Back of House Ops, home page: backhousehr.com
2. Pricing: backhousehr.com/pricing/
3. How it works: backhousehr.com/how-it-works/
4. Service scope: backhousehr.com/service-scope/
5. About: backhousehr.com/about/
6. Team: backhousehr.com/team/
7. Contact: backhousehr.com/contact/
8. Security and data handling: backhousehr.com/security/
9. Terms: backhousehr.com/terms/
10. Service pages: Payroll coordination, HR administration, Onboarding, Handbook support
11. Coverage pages: Massachusetts, Boston, New England, NYC metro
12. What restaurant payroll and HR help costs: compare page
13. Other comparison pages: In-house vs outsourced HR, HR consultant vs HR administration service, Questions to ask a provider
14. Restaurant HR support vs a PEO vs payroll software: resource article
15. WOTC for restaurants: resource article
16. Payroll transition checklist: resource article
17. Holiday season to year-end: backhousehr.com/restaurant-holiday-season/
18. Free tools: Templates, Calculators, HR & payroll answers, Resources