The restaurant owner looks at the sales and then at the bottom line before closing the report.
Sounds familiar?
It may be a perfectly accurate report, but in focusing on just two figures, it leaves the majority of its worth in the dust.
Good restaurant bookkeeping shouldn’t make owners more dependent on an accountant. It should provide them with confidence in their own financials. It’s not necessary to stay up in the dark putting together invoices or know every accounting rule. It is important to know how profit moved, what happened to food and labor costs and what questions need the attention of next week.
That’s the philosophy behind Bookkeeping Chef: Automate the bookkeeping task that doesn’t need an owner’s time and gives restaurant managers greater financial transparency that they can actually utilize.
You Should Start By Looking at Weekly Numbers and Not Just Month-End
Restaurants don’t run on per month. This week, the managers plan their schedules. Chefs order food right now. Vendors change prices now.
Bookkeeping Chef offers weekly flash reports on prime costs as well as monthly financial statements.
Prime cost is the sum of two major areas that can be swiftly moved in a food service establishment: the cost of goods sold, and labor. The information provided by the Bookkeeping Chef reveals that the prime cost typically accounts for 60 percent of the sales in restaurants.
Consider a situation where sales are not changing at all and the costs of primary production are growing. The percentage alone does not offer the answer. This gives the owner an opportunity to conduct some research.
Has the hourly wage increased? Did overtime happen? Has the cost of food increased? An invoice from a vendor appeared unusually large? Has the mix of sales changed?
That is far more useful than identifying the same issue several weeks later.
Automate the repetitive Work
DIY bookkeeping doesn’t need to require manual transfer of POS totals into spreadsheets after the service.
Automating the bookkeeping of restaurants can assist with the frequent movement of financial information. This service can be connected to POS systems such as QuickBooks, QuickBooks, vendor platforms as well as recipe management and inventory management, as well as Payment instruments/AP.
The goal is not automation for its own sake.
It is to reduce manual data entry and ensure that the financial records current enough that the owner can spend time reviewing information instead of creating it.
It creates a completely different accounting model for restaurants. Technology handles the mechanics and the owner stays engaged in the financial side.
P&L Questions: Find out to Ask Better Questions
A P&L can be a lot less intimidating when you stop thinking of it as an accounting test.
Begin with the sales. Next, look at the expenses required to produce those sales. Compare the food and drink performances. Study the cost of labor. Keep working to cut down your operating expenses.
And, most importantly, compare times.
If profit increased but sales rose, did not, something in between those two lines changed. What changed when the cost of food rose? If the percentage of labor changed in the past, look at sales and staffing activity. If a number looks strange look into it rather than thinking that the restaurant had an awful month.
Bookkeeping Chef will send monthly P&Ls that are completed in five business days, allowing owners the opportunity to look over the performance of their business, rather than getting accounts long after the operational period has passed.
For owners searching bookkeeping restaurant solutions, speed is important however understanding is the greater objective.
It’s not necessary to take on everything by yourself by doing it yourself
It is not necessary to be your own full time bookkeeper if you want to avoid handing the complete financial responsibility over to another person.
Owners can remain involved without manually performing each accounting task.
This could mean making use of automated systems to manage information flow, looking over a monthly P&L and a weekly report regarding prime expenses and asking questions in the event that there is an unplanned event.
Services for bookkeeping in restaurants that focus in restaurant bookkeeping can help proprietors to understand the purpose of reports by organizing the books and keeping them in order.
This does not mean that the bookkeeper will be able to perform all bookkeeping functions.
An owner can engage in a dialogue with a P&L regarding the business.
Financial independence isn’t just to write more reports, but rather to be able to live a life of financial freedom.
Restaurants already produce huge quantities of data. A different dashboard might not be useful.
Real value is when an employee can open a P&L report, recognize that there has been a change, and then go through the report on the primary cost.
Bookkeeping Chef’s plan incorporates automation of bookkeeping in restaurants weekly reports monthly P&Ls, as well as restaurant-specific financial support to enable this.
Automate repetitive tasks. Review prime costs every week. Learn to speak the language of your P&L.
There is no need to be an accountant professional.
It is important to understand the financials of your restaurant before you take over as the owner.