Restaurant owners open their monthly P&L reports, examine sales, then go down to the bottom and close the report.
Do these sound like familiar?
The report may be perfectly exact, but if those are the only two figures to be reviewed, the majority of its worth is being ignored.
The proper bookkeeping of a restaurant shouldn’t force proprietors more dependent on accountants. They should feel more confident about their numbers. It is not necessary to be aware of all accounting rules or do a lot of work in the evenings completing invoices. It is important to know how profit has changed and what’s happened to food and labor costs and what questions should be addressed in the coming week.
Bookkeeping Chef is an application that helps automate bookkeeping so users can focus in other activities while receiving more clear financial reports.
It is recommended to begin by looking at the Weekly Numbers and Not Only Month-End
Although restaurants are not operating in a calendar month, they must still have an P&L. Managers set up their work schedules for the week. Chefs order food today. Vendors change prices now.
This is the reason Bookkeeping Chef provides weekly prime-cost flash reports along with monthly financial statements.
Prime cost is the sum of two crucial areas that can be swiftly relocated in a food service establishment: the price of the food sold, and the cost of labor. According to the data published by the Bookkeeping Chef prime costs represent approximately 60% of the sales at restaurants.
Imagine that sales barely changed but the cost of production increased. The percentage alone does not provide the answer. It provides the person with an incentive to look into the issue.
Have the hourly wages increased? Did overtime happen? Did food costs change? A vendor’s invoice was unusually high. Have the sales mix changed?
This is a lot more helpful than identifying the same issue several weeks later.
Automate repetitive tasks
Bookkeeping for your own needs doesn’t have to require manual transfer of POS totals to spreadsheets following service.
Automating the process of bookkeeping for restaurants can reduce repetitive data movement. The service is able to connect systems like POS, QuickBooks, payroll, vendor platforms inventory and recipe management, as well as Payment and AP tools.
Automating solely for the sake automation is not the objective.
It’s to cut down on manual data entry, and keep accounting records up to date so that owners can spend their time looking through information rather than creating it.
This has created a new form of bookkeeping for restaurants. The technology takes care of more of the mechanical aspects, but the owner is still involved with the financial implications.
Learn to Ask the P&L More Questions
If you stop thinking of a P&L as a test, it becomes less intimidating.
Start by looking at sales. Start with sales. Compare the food and beverage performance. Examine the cost of labor. Look at operating expenses. and then look at what’s left.
In addition, it is important to compare timeframes.
When sales improve but profits do not, there is an alteration between the two. What changed in the operation in the event that food costs went up. Examine sales and staffing levels to see if the labor percent has changed. Check if the percentage seems odd, rather than assuming that the restaurant went through a bad period.
Bookkeeping Chef provides monthly P&Ls completed within five business days. This gives owners the opportunity to evaluate recent performance, not receiving accounts long after the operating time is completed.
If you are a restaurant owner looking for bookkeeping solutions, speed is useful but understanding is the bigger purpose.
It’s not necessary to handle everything on your own by doing it yourself
You don’t have to become your own full-time bookkeeper if you want to avoid transferring the entire accounting responsibility to another person.
Owners can continue to be involved in the accounting process, without needing to do everything manually.
This may mean making use of automated systems to manage the flow of information, examining an annual P&L and weekly reports on the primary costs, or asking questions if something unexpected happens.
Specialized restaurant bookkeeping services could aid in this process by organizing the books while helping the proprietor know what the reports mean.
It is unlikely that you will have an accountant that can do all the functions.
Owners who are able to take a seat and converse intelligently about their business to the P&L will be more successful.
Financial independence is not to produce more reports, but rather to reach financial freedom
Restaurants already generate enormous quantities of data. Another dashboard doesn’t have to be a necessity.
If an operator is able to examine the weekly prime cost report and see that something has changed, they are able to then access their P&L to determine what requires additional examination.
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. Check the primary cost every week. Learn to speak the language of your P&L.
You don’t need to be an accountant professional.
You must be a successful owner who knows the financial story behind your restaurant.
