Restaurant owners open their monthly P&L reports, look at the sales and then move down to the bottom and close the report.
Are you familiar with the situation?
If just those two numbers are scrutinized, the report’s true value is diminished.
It shouldn’t cause them to become more dependent on an accounting firm. It should help them feel confident in their own financials. It’s not required to sit long hours completing invoices, or master every accounting rule. You need to understand the way profit has fluctuated, what’s happened to the cost of food and labor, and the other questions that must be addressed next week.
That’s the philosophy behind Bookkeeping Chef: automate the bookkeeping tasks which doesn’t require the owner’s time. It also provides restaurant owners with better financial information that they can utilize.
You Should Start By Looking at the Weekly Numbers and not just month-end numbers.
Restaurants don’t run on the basis of a monthly. The managers plan the work for the week. Chefs order food today. Vendors change prices now.
Bookkeeping Chef’s weekly prime-cost reports are available alongside the monthly financial statements.
The principal cost includes the cost of the goods and labor, two areas in which a restaurant can accelerate its progress. The bookkeeping chef’s provided information states that prime costs typically represent approximately 60% of restaurant sales.
Suppose sales have barely changed and the prime cost has increased. The percentage by itself does not offer the answer. It gives the person in charge a reason to do some research.
Is the hourly wage increasing? Did overtime occur? Did the price of food changed? The invoice for a vendor was unusually high. Did the sales mix change?
It is better to discover the issue earlier rather than later.
Automate the repetitive Work
Self-bookkeeping doesn’t mean manually transposing POS numbers into spreadsheets.
Automating the process of bookkeeping for restaurants will eliminate repetitive data movement. This service can be connected to POS systems including QuickBooks, QuickBooks, vendors platforms Recipe and inventory management, as well as payment instruments and AP.
The goal is not automation for its own sake.
The aim is to reduce the manual entry of data, and ensure that financial records are up-to-date so that the owners are able to spend more time looking over the data rather than assembling 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.
Learn to Ask the P&L Better Questions
A P&L will be much more manageable when you don’t treat it as an accounting test.
Begin by looking at the sales. Begin with sales. Compare the performance of food and beverages. Look at labor. Look at labor.
And, most importantly, compare times.
If profit increased but sales rose, didn’t, something between those two lines has changed. What changed in the company as food prices increased. Review the staffing numbers and sales activities if the labor percentages changed. Examine if the number appears odd, rather than assuming that the restaurant had poor performance.
Bookkeeping Chef provides monthly P&Ls finalized within five business days. This provides owners the opportunity to evaluate recent performance rather than receiving financial statements for a long time after the operating period has passed.
Understanding is more crucial than speed for those seeking bookkeeping solutions for restaurants.
There’s no need to take on everything by yourself in case you do it yourself
There is no need to be your own full time bookkeeper to avoid handing over the whole financial responsibility over to another person.
It is possible to become a business owner without performing all accounting duties manually.
It could be as simple as using automated system connections to ensure information flows and analyzing a weekly prime-cost report, analyzing the monthly P&L and posing questions when something moves unexpectedly.
Specialized restaurant bookkeeping services could support that approach by keeping the books in order and assisting the owner to understand what the reports mean.
It’s not an owner who is able to perform every bookkeeping function.
Owners who are able to sit down and talk intelligently about their company with the P&L are more likely to succeed.
Financial independence is not to produce additional reports, but to be able to live a life of financial freedom.
Restaurants create a lot information. A different dashboard won’t be as effective.
The real value is when an employee can look at a weekly prime-cost report and see that something has was different, then look at the P&L and know what to do next.
Bookkeeping Chef’s approach to bookkeeping includes restaurant accounting automation, weekly reports, monthly P&Ls, and the provision of financial support for specific restaurants to make this process possible.
Automate repetitive work. Review prime costs every week. Be aware of the language used in your P&L.
You don’t have to be a professional accountant.
Restaurant owners who are aware of the financial aspects of their restaurants will be able make better decisions.
