How Ember Cigar Lounge runs two locations without a back-office team.
Ember brought OneCo in before opening their second location. What took three people and two weeks now takes one afternoon.
3 hrs
Saved per new hire
vs. previous manual process
100%
On-time payroll
every pay period since launch
$0
Payroll errors
in first 12 months
1 login
For everything
banking, payroll, and HR
Ember Cigar Lounge
Miami, FL · Est. 2021 · 2 locations · 28 employees
Growing faster than their back office could handle.
When Ember opened their first location in Miami's Brickell neighborhood, ownership handled payroll manually in a spreadsheet, sent new hire paperwork over email, and kept business banking in the same account they used for their personal expenses. It worked. Barely.
By the time they signed a lease on a second location in Coral Gables, the system broke. Two locations meant double the employees, double the payroll runs, double the compliance surface, and double the banking complexity. The owner was spending every Sunday manually running payroll and dreading the weeks when new hires started.
They needed a platform that could handle growth without requiring a dedicated HR or finance hire. OneCo was the answer.
From chaos to clarity in three weeks.
Banking set up in a day.
Ember opened their OneCo business checking account before their second location's lease was even signed. No branch visit. No minimum balance. Funds were accessible the same afternoon.
Payroll running before opening night.
The team configured payroll for 14 employees, tip reporting, and state tax withholding in a single afternoon. OneCo calculated everything automatically, including tipped minimum wage rules for Florida.
New hire onboarding down to 15 minutes.
Every new hire completes their W-4, direct deposit setup, and ID verification through one OneCo link sent to their phone. No paperwork. No scanning. No back-and-forth.
Full visibility across both locations.
With two lounges now running on OneCo, ownership sees consolidated payroll, cash position, and tax liability for both locations in one dashboard, refreshed in real time.
"I was doing payroll on Sunday nights until midnight. Now I click one button on Friday afternoon and it's done. OneCo gave me my weekends back."
Marcus L.
Owner, Ember Cigar Lounge · Miami & Coral Gables
What running on OneCo actually looks like.
New hire onboarding
Before
2 hours of back-and-forth paperwork per person
After
15-minute digital flow, completed from their phone before the first shift
Bi-weekly payroll
Before
3-4 hours manually calculating wages, tips, and withholdings across two locations
After
One click. OneCo handles federal and state tax withholding, direct deposit, and tip allocation automatically
Business banking
Before
Mixed personal and business accounts, no visibility into real cash position
After
Dedicated business checking for each location, consolidated view in the dashboard, no fees
Ready to run your business like Ember does?
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