The owner of the restaurant looks at the sales and then at the bottom line before closing the report.
Does this sound familiar?
It may be an extremely exact report, but just by examining two numbers, it leaves most of its worth left to chance.
A good restaurant bookkeeping system shouldn’t increase the dependence of restaurant owners on accountants. It should give them confidence in their own numbers. It doesn’t require an expert in accounting, or to spend your entire night completing invoices. It is important to know the reason why profits moved, what happened to costs for food and labor and what questions need attention next week.
Bookkeeping Chef’s mission is to automate bookkeeping tasks that don’t require the time of restaurant owners, while providing the restaurant owners with better financial data they can utilize.
Begin with the Weekly Numbers Instead of just the month-end
While restaurants don’t operate according to a calendar, they must still have a P&L. This week, the managers plan their work. Chef has ordered food. Vendors change prices now.
Bookkeeping Chef offers weekly flash reports on top costs and monthly financial statements.
The prime cost comprises two crucial areas that can be swiftly transferred in a food service establishment: the price of the food that are sold, as well as labor. According to information offered by Bookkeeping chef, prime cost accounts for about 60% of sales in restaurants.
Imagine that sales barely changed but the price of production grew. The percentage by itself does not offer the answer. It gives the owner a reason to investigate.
Was there an increase in hours worked? Did overtime occur? Was the cost of food increased? A vendor invoice seemed unusually large? Did sales mix changes?
It’s far more beneficial than finding the same problem several weeks later.
Let Automation Handle the Repetitive Work
Bookkeeping for DIY isn’t just about manually transposing POS figures into spreadsheets.
Modern restaurant bookkeeping automation can manage a lot of the repetitive movement of financial data. The service connects systems including POS, QuickBooks, payroll, vendor platforms inventory and recipe management and Payment and AP tools.
The goal isn’t to automate to achieve its own ends.
This helps to cut down on the amount of manual data entry. It also keeps accounts of financial transactions up to date so that the owners have time to spend reading information rather than collecting it.
It creates a completely different bookkeeping model for restaurants. Technology takes care of the mechanical aspects while the proprietor is involved in the financial aspect.
If you have more questions, you can ask them regarding P&L
When you stop treating the P&L as a test, it will become less daunting.
Begin by taking a look at the numbers of sales. Then, take a look at cost of production. Compare the food and beverages performances. Consider the labor. Continue to reduce your operating expenses.
Check out the various periods.
Somewhere between these two lines has changed if sales have increased, but profit has not. If food prices increased, inquire about what changed operationally. If labor percentage moved by a significant amount, you can compare sales and staffing activity. Examine any figures that appear strange, rather than assuming that a restaurant has had a bad week.
Bookkeeping Chef can provide monthly P&Ls which are completed in five days. Owners can review the financial performance of their business without waiting for months to receive financial statements.
For owners searching bookkeeping restaurant solutions, speed is useful but understanding is the main goal.
It’s not necessary to build everything.
There’s a compromise between delegating the entire financial responsibility to another and becoming your own bookkeeper full-time.
You are able to be a business owner without performing all accounting duties by hand.
This may mean the use of automated systems to keep track of the flow of information, examining a monthly P&L and weekly reports on prime costs or asking questions when there is an unplanned event.
Specialized restaurant bookkeeping services can support that approach by keeping the underlying books organized while helping the owner understand what the reports mean.
It’s not an owner who can perform every bookkeeping function.
It’s an owner who can sit down with the P&L and engage in a thoughtful discussion about the company.
The objective of financial independence isn’t to create more reports, but to be able to live a life of financial freedom.
Restaurants create a lot data. A dashboard may not always make sense.
The real value is when an operator is able to look at a weekly prime-cost report and recognize that something occurred, then open the P&L and know where to investigate further.
Bookkeeping Chef’s strategy integrates restaurant accounting automation with daily reports, monthly P&Ls and specific financial assistance for restaurants to make this process possible.
Automate the repetitive work. Review prime costs every week. Be aware of the language that is used within your P&L.
You don’t have to become an accountant.
Owners who know the financial aspect of their own restaurants will be able to make better choices.