Restaurant accounting: A simplified recipe

Restaurant accounting is also made up of essential bookkeeping processes that keep your business running. While you’ll most likely hire an accountant or bookkeeper to handle most of these processes, here’s what you need to know so you’re at least speaking the language. Your financial forecast gives you a rough estimate of how much revenue you’ll generate in the future.

Accounting mistakes happen just like overcooking a steak or delivering the wrong order. By tracking your financial statements and recording transactions daily, you can catch them early on and avoid making mistakes in the future. For example, you can set a goal to reduce expenses or increase revenue. You can use your financial data to budget and plan your restaurant’s long-term success. The last step is analyzing your financial data to budget and plan for the future. Plan to analyze your financial data weekly and for each period, and work with your accountant (if you have one) to set financial goals and develop strategies to achieve them.

Should restaurants use cash or accrual accounting?

Outsourcing your bookkeeping is more affordable than you would think. We save you money the moment you hire us by cutting out the expensive cost of hiring an in-house CFO. Now you can type in profit and loss or find it under the business overview section.

• According to the National Restaurant Association, there are 14.7 million people in the restaurant industry.
• You can then upload your invoices to Bill.com to allow your accountant to code them properly.
• The pricing is much simpler, cheaper, and easier to understand than ADP.
• Restaurants have KPIs, reports, and business and tax structures that are unique to the restaurant industry.
• As they say in the business industry, leverage your strengths and outsource your weaknesses.

Not all industries have to deal with tips, weekly reporting periods, and hyper-sensitive labor and inventory metrics. Since accounting is complicated and the restaurant industry is unique, the professional you choose should be an expert in both. The next step of an effective restaurant bookkeeping process should be to set up accounts payable correctly. Keeping your vendors happy will be important if you want them to continue to do business with you. If your restaurant has more than $1 million in revenue, switching to accrual is best.

Restaurant Accounting Basics: What You Need to Know and Why

Accounting software helps you and your accountant stay on the same page. By connecting seamlessly with your POS, accounting software automates the collection and organization of financial data and transactions. Because recording income ahead of expenses makes your restaurant seem more profitable than it is. At first blush, cash-based accounting might seem like the best kind for restaurants. It records income as it enters your bank account and records expenses when they’re paid.

• Obviously, you run into a lot fewer issues when two sister systems integrate together.
• Will your wait staff work for tips, or will you add gratuities to every bill?
• That may include newspaper ads and billboards, in addition to social media.
• Once you can anticipate your busy times, you can schedule your staff members accordingly.
• You’ll also want to know enough about accounting to monitor financial KPIs that will help you make business decisions on the fly.

This ratio ensures that you’re making a profit from each menu item. Just as there is a right way to do restaurant accounting, there is definitely a wrong way. We’re going to assume you’re not an accountant (if you are, you’re probably not reading this article), and so we’re going to tell you some common mistakes to avoid, restaurant bookkeeping too. Prime costs account for all the costs required to produce and distribute your product. For every dollar that comes in, your prime cost is the amount of that dollar that goes to people (your staff) and product (your menu items). Finally, your restaurant’s success will be measured against key performance indicators.