Top 5 Must-Have Ingredients of Restaurant Bookkeeping

 

The recipe for success when it comes to restaurant bookkeeping is quite simple. The five ingredients are: a clear, concise plan, accurate records, timely updates, professional guidance and proper attention.

A clear plan will help your business thrive in the long run and make sure that you're on track with what needs to be done while also helping you avoid costly mistakes. Accurate records are essential if you want to know where your money goes - whether that's expenses or profits! Updating those records as soon as possible can help save you from errors down the line like double-charges or missing deposits.

1. Record Sales Daily:

It’s dangerously easy to fall behind on recording your sales. In fact, one of the reasons that bookkeeping for restaurants is often a mess is simply because owners and managers fall behind on basic tasks. To stay up to date, make a habit of copying or importing the sales from your POS system into your accounting software each day. What you’re aiming for are books that correlate with your bank statements. If you save up all those credit card charges for a weekly or monthly deposit, you’ll have a hard time doing analysis later.

2. Reconcile Bank Statements Every Month:

Yes, your bank statements should be reconciled every month. No, it’s not a good idea to let them sit around for 3, 4, 5, or more months. If you’ve forgotten to enter a payment or a sale in your books, but that payment or sale has been processed by your bank, it will be easier to correct the error if you catch it quickly. In an extreme case, not knowing how much you really have in the bank could lead to bounced checks.

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Tips for Solving Your Restaurant Bookkeeping Problems

 

Restaurants tend to be either wild success stories or dramatic failures. Statistics show that 25% or restaurants end up closing after being open for less than a year. When a restaurant fails this quickly, it usually is not because of the quality of the food or the service. When this happens, the problems are much more likely to have something to do with the restaurant bookkeeping services. Running a successful restaurant involves much more than preparing high quality food and offering top notch service.  Just because a chef has mastered their craft in the kitchen, it does not mean that they have a strong grasp of restaurant accounting practices.

Start Off With a Business Plan

The first step to getting your restaurant on track is to come up with a business plan. Many people start their restaurant thinking primarily of the food and the front end organization, a but a real business plan must include cost control measures. These cost control measures involve figuring out the ideal cost for each menu item and then setting up clear portion sizes to keep your actual costs in line with your ideal costs.

Keeping Accurate Records of Expenses is an Essential Part of Your Success

All restaurants, all businesses for that matter, measure their success in terms of profit. Even if you are incredibly busy and have amazing gross sales, if your costs are too high you will fail to make a profit. This is usually what happens when a really good restaurant fails to stay open for business. Keeping accurate records means taking a constant inventory of your supplies, tracking waste and implementing an ordering system that prevents you from wasteful over-ordering. Once you have your food costs under control, you will have to take a close look at your other operating expenses including occupancy costs, labor percentage and any other operating expenses you can think of.

Develop an Accurate Restaurant Bookkeeping System

One of the best ways to do this is by using a P&L or profit and loss report. A profit and loss report is a concise document that will allow you to see all of your restaurant operating expenses at a glance. Your P&L report will break down all of your operating costs so you can tell immediately if some of your expenses are getting out of hand.

Restaurant accounting systems, also known as POS or point of sale systems, can be set up that keep track of sales, inventory and operating costs automatically. But there are many other accounting issues that still need to be dealt with, including managing payroll, calculating sales tax and actually paying all of the bills.

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