The restaurant’s owner will look at the sales and then the bottom line prior to closing the report.

Are you familiar with the situation?

The report may be perfectly exact, but if those are the only two figures being reviewed the bulk of its value is left on the table.

A good restaurant bookkeeping system won’t make it more dependent on owners on accountants. They should become more confident in their own financials. You don’t have to be an accounting expert or spend in the dark completing invoices. You must understand the way profit has fluctuated as well as what’s changed with labor and food costs, and the questions that should be answered next week.

Bookkeeping Chef’s philosophy is to automate bookkeeping chores that don’t require the time of restaurant owners while also providing the restaurant owners with better financial data that they can make use of.

Do Not Stop at the Month-End Numbers. Begin by calculating Weekly Numbers

Restaurants don’t run on a monthly basis. Managers plan the labor for this week. The chef has ordered food for today. Vendors change prices now.

This is why Bookkeeping Chef provides weekly prime-cost flash reports along with monthly financial statements.

Prime cost brings together price of the goods sold and labor, two sectors that can quickly move in an establishment. According to information published by the Bookkeeping Chef prime costs account for around 60% of the sales at restaurants.

Take a look at a scenario where sales aren’t even changing, but prime costs are growing. This percentage alone isn’t enough to provide the solution. It gives the owner reason to conduct an investigation.

Was there an increase in hours was worked? Was there extra work? The cost of food changed? Was a vendor invoice unusually high? Have the sales mix changed?

This is much better than having the same issue after a few weeks.

Automate repetitive tasks

DIY bookkeeping doesn’t have to mean manually transferring POS totals to spreadsheets following the service.

Modern bookkeeping automation in restaurants can manage a lot all the repetitive flow of financial data. The system integrates with systems like POS, QuickBooks payroll, vendor platforms and inventory management.

Automating for the sake automation is not the objective.

This helps to cut down on the amount of manually entering data. It also keeps accounts of financial transactions up to date so that the owners are able to focus on reviewing information, rather than gathering it.

This creates a new model of bookkeeping in restaurants: technology takes care of more mechanical aspects, while the restaurant owner is focused on the financial implications.

You can ask better questions about P&L

A P&L becomes much less intimidating when you don’t treat it as an accounting exam.

Start with the sales. Then, you can look at the cost of production. Compare the performance of drinks and food. Consider labor. Reduce your operating costs.

Compare periods.

If sales improved but profit wasn’t, something else between those two lines occurred. What changed within the organization as food prices increased. Examine sales and staffing levels to see if labor percentage has changed. Investigate if a number seems odd, rather than assuming that the restaurant was in poor performance.

Bookkeeping Chef can provide monthly P&Ls, which are finished within five days. Owners can review the financial performance of their business without waiting months to receive financial statements.

Understanding is more crucial than speed when it comes to owners who are looking for solutions to bookkeeping in restaurants.

DIY Doesn’t Have to Mean doing everything yourself.

There’s a compromise between delegating the entire accounting function to a third party and having your own full-time bookkeeper.

You are able to be a business owner and not be required to complete every accounting task by hand.

That might mean connecting to automated systems to keep information flowing, reviewing a weekly prime-cost report, studying the monthly P&L and posing queries in the event of an unexpected change.

A specialist in restaurant bookkeeping can aid in this manner by making sure the books are in order as well as helping the owner comprehend what they mean.

This does not mean that the owner will be in a position to complete all bookkeeping tasks.

An owner is able to have a discussion with an P&L regarding the business.

The Goal Is Financial Independence not More Reports

Restaurants already produce huge amounts of information. Dashboards don’t always make sense.

If an operator is able take a look at their weekly prime cost report and discover that something has changed, they may then access their P&L to find out what is in need of additional investigation.

Bookkeeping Chef’s approach combines restaurant bookkeeping automation, weekly reporting, monthly P&Ls, and restaurant-specific financial support to make that possible.

Automate repetitive tasks. Examine your prime cost each week. Learn the language of your P&L.

You don’t have to be an accountant to be an.

It is important to understand the finances of your restaurant before you can become a proprietor.