7,000-Employee Applebee's Franchisee Addresses Hospitality-Specific Employee Management Challenges with UltiPro[R].

WESTON, Fla. -- Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today that Thomas & King, owner and operator of 89 Applebee's and 6 Carino's Italian Grill restaurants employing approximately 7,000 people, has improved its human capital management since deploying UltiPro. Thomas & King selected UltiPro in 1999 to help handle its fluctuating workforce, complex payroll requirements, and sophisticated reporting needs.

Because it has a large employee base coupled with a turnover rate of 120%--a figure not unusual in the hospitality industry--Thomas & King's payroll staff manages nearly 300 hires and terminations each week. This equates to more than 17,000 W-2s issued each year, followed by approximately 6,000 requests for reissued W-2s. With the payroll service bureau that Thomas & King previously relied on, the payroll staff would have to sift through boxes of hard-copy W-2s to find the individual form, copy it, and then refile the original. Because this information is now stored within UltiPro, the payroll staff can simply push one button and print a copy. With 50 W-2 reprint requests per day for four months, the time savings has been significant, allowing Thomas & King to reduce its payroll staff by one full-time position.

"UltiPro has increased our efficiency and allowed my department to reduce staff while keeping up with the workload," said Amber Meuller, payroll manager for Thomas & King.

Another business improvement the franchisee has experienced using UltiPro is more accurate handling of tip management, a complex process that is carefully monitored by the Internal Revenue Service. Like many restaurateurs, Thomas & King includes tips as part of servers' wages. According to federal laws, companies can pay employees who receive tips an hourly rate of $2.13, even though minimum wage is $6.55, because tipped income is expected to make up the difference. When gratuities are low and the hourly minimum wage isn't met, employers have to pay workers the difference. Referred to as makeup pay, this type of compensation must be carefully monitored. UltiPro streamlines this process for Thomas & King and handles all of its other tip-related issues, such as tracking directly/indirectly tipped employees, calculating overtime, and correctly compensating employees who work in multiple jobs where tips are collected differently within a single pay period.

"It's not uncommon to have one employee work in several areas within one pay period at different pay rates, collecting overtime in one job and needing makeup pay in another. UltiPro takes care of it all," said Mueller. "The solution manages the unique payroll challenges of the restaurant industry very well."

Thomas & King has found UltiPro's reporting tools can deliver metrics and analytics that are valuable to the business at large. Mueller explained that she uses the UltiPro solution to easily generate point-in-time reports on tips and to carefully monitor tipped income to gather information about individual employee and restaurant performance.

"We know approximately how much our waitstaff should be making every day. If an employee consistently fails to earn a minimum amount in tips, a number we can track with UltiPro, his manager will speak with him to find out if there's a problem," said Mueller. "On a broader level, UltiPro gives us the figures we need to address critical issues like the performance of a particular restaurant. For instance, we may monitor the tips at a restaurant that has gone through a change--such as becoming a nonsmoking facility--to gain valuable insight into the short- and long-term effects of that policy."

Thomas & King runs weekly reports through UltiPro relating to employee training and certifications presented at its TKU (Thomas & King University) program. For example, with the franchisee's substantial number of weekly hires, the company must stay on top of which employees have been trained in the program's Serve Safe class on proper food-handling techniques. Previously, it was up to the individual managers to remember who had been through the training and who had not.

"Overall, UltiPro is giving us access to relevant information to build our business, which we never had available before," said Mueller.

"Thomas & King is representative of the many restaurants around the country that have purchased UltiPro to leverage UltiPro's strong industry-specific advantages, like flexible tip management, along with strategic reporting and analytical tools that provide insight into business performance," said Greg Swick, senior vice president of sales for Ultimate Software.

About Ultimate Software

A leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, Ultimate markets its award-winning UltiPro products as on-demand services through -Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and as on-premise software. Based in Weston, FL, the Company employs more than 900 professionals who are focused on developing the highest quality products and services. In 2008, Ultimate was the first HR/payroll SaaS provider to be audited and awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Certification for security management, was named the #1 "Best Product Development Team" in the nation by the American Business Awards, and was ranked the #1 best medium-size company to work for in America by the Great Place to Work[R] Institute. Ultimate has more than 1,700 customers representing diverse industries, including such organizations as The Container Store, Elizabeth Arden, Major League Baseball, The New York Yankees Baseball Team, Nintendo of America, Ruth's Chris Steak House, and Sony Music Entertainment. More information on Ultimate's products and services can be found at http://www.ultimatesoftware.com

UltiPro and Intersourcing are registered trademarks of The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.