Restaurant owners open their monthly P&L reports, look at sales, then scroll down to the bottom of the report and close the report.
Does this sound familiar?
The report might be 100% accurate, but if those are the only two numbers that are being examined, most of its value is left on the table.
This shouldn’t force them to be more dependent on an accounting company. They should be more confident about their numbers. There is no need to spend all night entering invoices or master every accounting rule. You must understand the way profit has fluctuated in relation to labor and food costs, and the other questions that must be addressed in the coming week.
Bookkeeping Chef’s goal is to automate bookkeeping chores that don’t require the time of restaurant owners while also providing users with better financial information they can access.
Begin With the Weekly Numbers, Not Just Month-End
Restaurants don’t operate on a monthly basis. Managers schedule labor for the week. Chefs order food right now. Vendors change prices now.
Bookkeeping Chef’s weekly Prime-cost reports are published alongside the financial statements for the month.
Prime cost includes cost of goods sold and labor. These are two main areas that can be swiftly moved in a restaurant. The Bookkeeping Chef’s information notes that prime costs usually comprise roughly 60% of restaurant sales.
Imagine that sales barely grew, yet the cost of production increased. The percentage by itself does not provide the answer. It provides the person with an incentive to look into the issue.
Did you notice an increase in hours employed? Did you have extra work? Has the cost of food increased? Was the invoice of a vendor abnormally high? Did sales mix changes?
This is much more helpful than locating the same issue several weeks later.
Automate the repetitive work
DIY bookkeeping doesn’t have require manual transfer of POS totals into spreadsheets, after the service.
Modern bookkeeping automation for restaurants can manage a lot of the routine movement of financial data. It integrates various systems like POS, QuickBooks payroll, vendor platforms and inventory management.
Automating just for the sake of automation is not the objective.
It’s a way to streamline data entry and ensure that the financial records current enough that owners can spend their time looking through information rather than gathering it.
This has created a new form of bookkeeping in restaurants. The software takes care of more of the mechanics, while the proprietor is still involved with the financial implications.
You can ask better questions regarding P&L
Stop thinking of your P&L as something that could be an accounting test.
Start by studying the sales. Then, take a look at cost of production. Compare the food and beverage industry’s performance. Take into consideration the labor. See the work.
More importantly, compare periods.
If profit increased but sales rose, didn’t, something between those two lines occurred. Find out what happened within the organization as food prices increased. Examine the staffing levels and sales activities if the labor percentages have changed. Check if the percentage seems strange, instead of assuming that the restaurant had poor times.
Bookkeeping Chef provides monthly P&Ls on five working days. This lets the owners look at recent performance without waiting for financial statements which often arrive months later than the conclusion of an operational period.
If you are a restaurant owner looking for bookkeeping solutions, speed is a must however understanding is the greater objective.
You don’t need to do everything yourself by doing it yourself
You don’t have to become the sole bookkeeper in order to avoid handing over the whole bookkeeping responsibility to a different person.
You could be a part of an owner of a business without having to perform all accounting tasks by hand.
The process could be as simple as using automated system connections in order to ensure that the information is flowing. However, it could be as intricate and complicated an analysis of the monthly P&L or even a review of a weekly Prime-cost Report.
A specialist in restaurant bookkeeping can aid with this approach by making sure that the books are organized and helping the owner to understand what they mean.
It is very unlikely that you’ll find an accountant that can do all of the tasks.
An owner can have a conversation with an P&L about the business.
The goal is financial independence, not more reports
Restaurants already generate huge amounts of data. Dashboards don’t always make sense.
Real value is when an employee can open a P&L report, and see that there was a shift and then examine the report on the primary cost.
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. Review your primary costs every week. Learn to speak the same language as your P&L.
You do not have to be an accountant.
You should become a restaurant owner who is aware of the financials of your restaurant.
