Restaurant owners open their monthly P&L reports, look at the sales, and then go to the bottom of the report and close the report.
Does this sound familiar?
The report may be perfectly accurate, but if those are the only two numbers reviewed the bulk of its value is ignored.
Bookkeeping for restaurants that is efficient shouldn’t leave owners more dependent on accountants. They should feel more secure of their financials. It’s not required to sit in the dark putting together invoices or master every accounting rule. It is important to know the reasons why profit fluctuated and what happened to food and labor costs and which issues require the attention of next week.
This is the premise behind Bookkeeping Chef: automate the bookkeeping tasks which doesn’t require the owner’s time and gives restaurant managers clearer financial information they can utilize.
You should begin by looking at the Weekly Numbers and Not just Month-End
Although restaurants do not operate according to a calendar, they must still have an P&L. This week, managers are planning their activities. The chef has ordered food for today. Vendors change prices now.
That’s the reason Bookkeeping Chef provides weekly prime-cost flash reports in addition to monthly financial statements.
The prime cost combines the cost of goods and labor as well as the cost of labor. These are two areas in which an establishment can achieve rapid growth. Bookkeeping Chef’s supplied information notes that prime costs typically represent about 60% of the sales at restaurants.
Suppose sales have barely changed however, the cost of prime increases. The percentage alone does not answer the question. It gives the owner the reason to conduct an investigation.
Was there an increase in the amount of time working? Did there occur overtime? Did food cost move? Did a vendor invoice seem excessively high? Has the mix of sales changed?
It is much better to identify the issue now rather than later.
Automate repetitive tasks
Bookkeeping for your own needs doesn’t have to involve manually transferring POS amounts into spreadsheets after the service.
Modern restaurant bookkeeping automation is able to take care of a large portion of the repeated movement of financial data. It connects to various systems, including POS Payroll, QuickBooks, POS vendor platforms inventory management and recipe management and Payment and AP tools.
Automatization is not the aim.
It is to reduce manual data entry and keep the financial records up-to-date so that owners have the ability to spend time reviewing data rather than gathering it.
That creates a different model of bookkeeping for restaurants: technology handles more of the mechanics while the owner remains engaged with the financial meaning.
If you have more questions, you can ask them about P&L
Stop treating your P&L as like an accounting test.
Begin by looking at sales. Next, look at the expenses that are required to generate those sales. Compare the food and beverage industry’s performance. Take a look at the labor. Look at operating expenses. and examine what’s left.
Comparing periods is important.
Something that lies between these two lines has changed in the event that sales have increased, but profit has not. If food costs has increased, find out what was happening operationally. If the percentage of labor changed by a significant amount, you can compare sales and staffing activity. If you notice a strange number examine it instead of thinking that the restaurant had a bad month.
Bookkeeping Chef will send monthly P&Ls that are completed in five business days. This gives owners the opportunity to look over recent performance rather than receiving financial statements after the operating period is completed.
Understanding is more important than speed for owners seeking bookkeeping solutions for restaurants.
It’s not required to make everything.
There’s a middle way between handing the entire accounting function to a third party and becoming your own bookkeeper full-time.
You can be involved as a business owner without performing the entire accounting process manually.
This could mean connecting to automated systems to keep information flowing through, examining a weekly prime cost report, analyzing the monthly P&L and posing queries when something moves unexpectedly.
Specialized bookkeeping services for restaurants can assist in maintaining the book’s structure and helping the restaurant owner know what the reports mean.
However, this does not mean the bookkeeper is competent to handle all bookkeeping tasks.
An owner is able to have a discussion with a P&L regarding the business.
The objective is financial freedom and not the need for more reports
Restaurants already produce huge amounts of information. A dashboard may not always make sense.
Value is realized when an operator can open an P&L report, recognize the change and then look at the reports on the cost of prime.
Bookkeeping Chef’s method combines restaurant financial support, weekly reporting and automated bookkeeping for restaurants to achieve this.
Automate the repetitive work. Review the prime cost each week. Understand the language employed within your P&L.
There is no need to be an accountant.
You can be an owner who is aware of the financial story of your restaurant.