Restaurant owners open their monthly P&L reports, check sales, then scroll down to the bottom and close the report.
Do these sound like familiar?
If only these two numbers are examined the true value of the report is gone.
They shouldn’t be more dependent on a accounting firm. It should give them confidence in their own financials. You don’t have to know every accounting rule and spend nights entering invoices. It’s important to understand why the profit changed, what happened with labour and food and which areas require consideration next week.
This is the concept Bookkeeping Chef’s mission: to automate the bookkeeping work that doesn’t require a proprietor’s time, while providing restaurant owners with clearer financial information they can actually use.
Do Not Stop at the month-end Numbers. Start by calculating Weekly Numbers
Restaurants aren’t operating on a monthly basis. This week, managers are planning their schedules. The chef ordered food today. Vendors change prices now.
The weekly reports on Bookkeeping Chef’s prime-cost report are included with the monthly financial statements.
Prime cost is the sum of two crucial areas which can be quickly transported in a restaurant establishment: the price of the food that are sold, as well as labor. The Bookkeeping Chef’s information notes that the prime cost typically accounts for roughly 60% of sales in restaurants.
Imagine the sales remained static, however the price of production grew. This percentage doesn’t provide an answer. This gives the person in charge an excuse to do some research.
Did the hourly wage increase? Did overtime happen? Did the price of food changed? A vendor invoice seemed unusually large? Have the sales mix changed?
That is far more useful than discovering the same issue two weeks later.
Automate repetitive tasks
Self-bookkeeping doesn’t mean manually transposing POS numbers into spreadsheets.
Automating the bookkeeping processes of restaurants can help eliminate repeated data movement. It connects to various systems, including POS as well as QuickBooks, payroll, vendor platforms inventory and recipe management as well as Payment and AP tools.
The aim is not to automate to achieve its own ends.
It is to reduce manual data entry and ensure that the financial records updated so that the owner can spend time reviewing information instead of creating 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.
You can also ask more questions about P&L
A P&L becomes much less intimidating when you don’t treat it as an accounting test.
Start with sales. Next, look at the costs of production. Compare the food and beverage industry’s performance. Analyze the costs of labor. Look at labor.
Compare the different periods.
Something in between has changed if sales have been increasing, but profits have not. Consider what has changed within the business as food prices increased. If the labor rate changed by a significant amount, you can compare sales and staffing activity. If the number appears odd look into it rather than thinking that the restaurant had an awful month.
Bookkeeping Chef gives monthly P&Ls which are completed in five business days. Owners can review the performance of their company without waiting for months to receive financial statements.
Understanding is more important than speed when it comes to owners who are looking for solutions to bookkeeping in restaurants.
It’s not required to make everything.
There is a happy middle between having someone take care of all your financial requirements and being your own accountant full-time.
The owner is able to remain engaged without having to manually complete every accounting task.
It could be as simple as automatizing systems to ensure information flow, reviewing the monthly P&L and a weekly report regarding prime expenses and asking questions in the event that something unexpected happens.
A specialist in restaurant bookkeeping can aid with this approach by keeping the books in order as well as helping the owner be aware of what they represent.
It is very unlikely that you will have one who can carry out all the duties.
Owners who are able sit down and talk intelligently about their business and the P&L will have more success.
The aim of financial freedom is not to generate additional reports, but to be able to live a life of financial freedom.
Restaurants already generate enormous quantities of information. The other dashboards aren’t necessarily useful.
When an operator is able to take a look at their weekly prime cost report and discover that something has changed, they can then access their P&L to see what needs further analysis.
Bookkeeping Chef’s method includes financial support for restaurants, weekly reports and automated bookkeeping for restaurants to accomplish this.
Automate repetitive tasks. Check your prime costs every week. Study the language used in your P&L.
You don’t have to be an accountant to be an.
It is essential to be aware of the financials of your establishment before you are able to become the proprietor.