The owner of a restaurant opens the monthly P&L examines sales, then jumps to the bottom line, and closes the report.
Do these sound like familiar?
It might be a completely accurate report, but by only examining those two figures, you leave the bulk of its worth in the dust.
Bookkeeping for restaurants that is efficient shouldn’t leave proprietors more dependent on accountants. They should be more confident about their numbers. You don’t need to know all accounting rules or spend nights entering invoices. You do need to understand how profit moved from costs for food and labor and what issues need the attention of next week.
This is the concept Bookkeeping Chef’s mission: to Automate the bookkeeping task which doesn’t require the owner’s time and gives restaurant managers clearer financial information they can utilize.
Begin With the Weekly Numbers, Not Just Month-End
A monthly P&L is crucial, but restaurants don’t run monthly. This week, managers are planning their labor. Chef orders food today. Vendors change prices now.
That’s why Bookkeeping Chef provides weekly prime-cost flash reports, along with monthly financial statements.
The principal cost includes the cost of labor and the purchase of goods as well as the cost of labor. These are two areas in which a restaurant can make rapid progress. The information provided by the Bookkeeping Chef indicates that prime costs typically represent about 60% of sales in restaurants.
If sales haven’t changed much however the price of prime is increasing. This alone won’t be the solution. It gives the person in charge a reason to look into the issue.
Did hourly labor increase? Was overtime a factor? The cost of food increased? The invoice of a vendor was unusually high. Have the sales mix changed?
This is far more beneficial than locating the same issue after a few weeks.
Automate repetitive tasks
DIY bookkeeping doesn’t have to be a manual process of transferring POS (point of sale) amounts onto spreadsheets.
Modern bookkeeping automation for restaurants can handle much of the repeated movements of financial data. The service can connect to systems such as POS and QuickBooks, payroll vendors, vendor platforms inventory management, recipe and recipe management, as well payment and AP tools.
The goal is not automation for its own sake.
This is to decrease the time spent on manually entering data. Additionally, it keeps accounts of financial transactions up to date so that the owners can spend time on studying data, not gathering it.
It provides a completely new bookkeeping process for restaurants. Technology manages the mechanics and the proprietor remains involved in the financial aspect.
Learn to Ask the P&L Better Questions
Stop looking at your P&L as like an accounting test.
Start with the sales. Next, examine the costs of production. Compare the food and beverage industry’s performance. Take into consideration the labor. Take a look at the labor.
The importance of comparing periods.
When sales improve but profits don’t, there is an alteration between them. What did happen when prices for food were rising? Review sales and staffing numbers to determine if the labor percentage has changed. Examine if the number appears strange, instead of assuming that the restaurant went through a bad period.
Bookkeeping Chef provides monthly P&Ls which are completed within five business days. Business owners can look over the financial performance of their business without waiting for months to receive financial statements.
Understanding is more important than speed for those who are looking for solutions to bookkeeping in restaurants.
It’s not necessary to take on everything by yourself by doing it yourself
There is no need to be your own full-time bookkeeper If you’d like to avoid handing the complete bookkeeping responsibility to a different person.
A business owner can be in the loop without manually completing each accounting task.
This could mean making use of automated system connections to maintain information flow by reviewing a weekly prime-cost report, studying the monthly P&L, and asking questions when something is happening unexpectedly.
The specialization in restaurant bookkeeping can assist with this approach by maintaining the books in order as well as helping the owner be aware of what they represent.
The result is not an owner who is skilled enough to perform every bookkeeping function.
The owner should be able to sit down with a P&L and have an intelligent discussion about the company.
The aim is financial independence, Not More Reports
Restaurants already generate massive amounts of information. Another dashboard may not be beneficial.
If an operator is able to look at the weekly report on prime costs and notice that something has changed, they are able to then access their P&L to determine what requires an investigation.
Bookkeeping Chef’s approach combines restaurant bookkeeping automation, weekly reporting, monthly P&Ls, and restaurant-specific financial support to make that possible.
Automatize repetitive tasks. Check the primary cost every week. Be aware of the language used within your P&L.
You don’t need to be a professional accountant.
It is important to understand the financials of your restaurant before you can become a proprietor.
