Restaurant books that keep up with service
Restaurants run on thin margins and daily deposits. We reconcile POS sales, card batches and delivery payouts every month, run tipped payroll correctly, file sales tax and report food and labor cost so you see problems while you can still fix them.
Where do restaurant books go wrong?
Most of it comes down to money arriving net of something.
Deposits that don't match sales
Fees, tips, refunds and delivery commissions come out first. We record sales gross.
Tips handled wrong
Card tips, cash tips and tip pools all have payroll rules.
Food cost you can't see
One "supplies" line hides it. We split food, beverage and alcohol.
How do we set up a restaurant?
One location or several, tracked separately in the same books.
| Section | Accounts |
|---|---|
| Income | Food, beverage and alcohol sales, catering, delivery at full menu price |
| Cost of sales | Food, beverage and alcohol cost, packaging |
| Labor | Front and back of house wages, payroll taxes, benefits |
| Operating | Delivery commissions, card fees, rent, utilities, smallwares, repairs |
- Reported tips run through payroll as wages
- The FICA tip credit on Form 8846, when it applies
- Qualified tips reported in box 12, code TP, on 2026 W-2s, so your staff can claim the new tips deduction
- Form 8027 for larger restaurants where tipping is customary
- Tip reporting your staff can rely on for their own returns
- Prepared food is taxable in most states, often with a city rate on top
- Alcohol often carries its own tax, filed separately
- Delivery platforms collect some tax for you, and we check what's left
- Each liability kept separate in your books
Illustrative example, not a client story. A two-location taco restaurant records delivery deposits as sales, so commissions vanish and sales look 22% lower than they are. We gross up delivery sales, book commissions separately and find delivery barely breaks even. The owner raises delivery prices, and the monthly report now shows prime cost by location.
Which numbers decide your month?
From books that tie to your POS and your bank.
Prime cost
Food, beverage and labor as a share of sales.
Food cost percentage
Purchases adjusted for inventory, against food sales.
Labor cost percentage
Wages and payroll taxes against sales.
Average check
Sales per guest or ticket, by daypart.
Delivery net margin
What delivery leaves after commissions and packaging.
Sales per labor hour
How well scheduling matches traffic.
Restaurant owners ask us.
Ask anything else on a free 30-minute call.
Book a callSources: IRS tip reporting, Form 8846
Free tools: Overtime calculator, No tax on tips and overtime, Sales tax calculator, Profit margin calculator
Do you work with Toast and Square?
Yes. We work from their sales and payout reports and use their QuickBooks Online or Xero connections where they make sense.
Do you count our inventory?
No, we work fully online. You or your manager count at month end, and we use the count to calculate food cost properly.
Can you report by location?
Yes. We track each location separately in the same books, so you can compare them month by month.
Tell us what's messy. We'll tell you what it takes.
Tell us what you need and get a fixed price before any work starts. No pressure and no contract.