Restaurant owners will open their monthly P&L reports, check the sales, and then go to the bottom of the report and close the report.
Sound familiar?
If only those two numbers are examined, the report’s true value is not realized.
Good restaurant bookkeeping shouldn’t make owners more dependent on an accountant. They should feel more secure about their numbers. It is not necessary to be aware of each accounting rule, or do a lot of work in the evenings completing invoices. You need to understand the way profit has fluctuated, what’s happened to food and labor costs and the issues that need to be addressed next week.
Bookkeeping Chef’s ethos is to automate tasks in bookkeeping that don’t require the time of restaurant owners, and provide customers with more precise financial information they can use.
It is recommended to begin by looking at the Weekly Numbers and Not Just Month-End
Restaurants don’t run on the basis of a monthly. Managers set up their work schedules for the week. The chef has ordered food for today. Vendors change prices now.
Bookkeeping Chef’s weekly Prime-cost reports are available alongside the monthly financial statements.
The prime cost combines the cost of the goods and labor as well as the cost of labor. These are two areas in which restaurants can achieve rapid growth. The information provided by the Bookkeeping Chef indicates that the prime cost typically accounts for approximately 60% of sales in restaurants.
Imagine that sales barely grew, yet the prime cost rose. The percentage alone does not give the answer. This gives the owner an excuse to do some study.
Is the hourly wage increasing? Was there overtime? Was the cost of food fluctuating? Did a vendor invoice seem unusually high? What changes have occurred in the sales mix?
This is far more beneficial than locating the same issue after a few weeks.
Automate the repetitive Work
The DIY bookkeeping process doesn’t have to be limited to manually transfer of POS numbers into spreadsheets.
Automating restaurant bookkeeping can help with repetitive financial data movements. The service is connected to POS systems such as QuickBooks, QuickBooks, vendor platforms Recipe and inventory management, AP/payment instruments.
Automating just for the sake of automating is not the main goal.
The goal is to eliminate the manual entry of data, and to ensure that financial records are kept up-to date so that managers are able to spend more time looking over the information instead of assembling it.
This creates a brand new method of bookkeeping for restaurants. The software takes care of more of the mechanics, while the proprietor is still involved in the financial aspects.
Ask more questions regarding P&L
When you stop treating a P&L as a test it becomes less intimidating.
Begin with the sales. Examine the costs that are required to generate the sales. Compare the food and beverages performance. Think about the labor. Make sure you reduce your operational costs.
Compare periods.
If the sales increased, but the profit did not, something in between those two lines changed. Ask what changed within the business when food costs grew. Compare the staffing levels and sales activities if the labor percentages changed. If a number looks strange take a look instead of assuming the restaurant just had poor month.
Bookkeeping Chef’s monthly P&Ls are that are completed in five business days, giving owners the chance to examine recent results rather than receive financial statements long after the period of operation has passed.
Speed is important, but the objective is to learn.
DIY Doesn’t Need to Mean Doing Everything Yourself
It’s not necessary to become your own full-time bookkeeper If you’d like to avoid giving the entire accounting responsibility to another person.
A business owner can be engaged without having to manually complete every accounting job.
That might mean the use of automated system connections in order to keep information flowing and analyzing a weekly prime-cost report, looking at the monthly P&L and posing queries in the event of an unexpected change.
Specialized bookkeeping for restaurants can help with this approach by making sure the books are in order and helping the restaurant owner be aware of what they represent.
However, this does not mean the bookkeeper will be in a position to complete all bookkeeping tasks.
Owners who are able to sit down and talk intelligently about their company with the P&L will be more successful.
The goal is Financial Independence not More Reports
Restaurants already generate massive amounts of data. The dashboards aren’t always making sense.
The real value comes when an employee can look at the weekly report of prime cost and realize that something has was different, then look at the P&L and know the next steps to take.
Bookkeeping Chef’s approach to bookkeeping combines restaurant accounting automation, weekly reports, monthly P&Ls, and special financial assistance for restaurants, making this feasible.
Automate repetitive tasks. Check your top costs each week. Learn the terminology that is used in your P&L.
You do not need to be an accountant to be an.
It is important to understand the financials of your establishment before you become an owner.