The restaurant’s owner will look at the sales and then at the bottom line before closing the report.
Sound familiar?
The report may be totally exact, but if those are the only two figures that are being examined, the majority of its worth is put to waste.
A good bookkeeping program for restaurants will not put more the owners on accountants. They should have confidence in their own financials. You don’t need to know all accounting rules or do a lot of work in the evenings completing invoices. However, you must understand the reason why profits moved, what happened to costs for food and labor and what issues need focus next week.
Bookkeeping Chef’s philosophy is to automate bookkeeping chores which don’t take the time of restaurant owners, and provide them with clearer financial data they can utilize.
Don’t stop at month-end Numbers. Start with Weekly Numbers
While restaurants don’t operate in a calendar month, they still need to have a P&L. This week, managers are planning their labor. Chef orders food now. 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 goods and labor and labor, two areas where an establishment can make rapid progress. The data provided by the Bookkeeping chef indicates that prime costs typically account for 60% of sales in restaurants.
Imagine that sales barely changed but the price of production grew. This percentage doesn’t provide an answer. This gives the person in charge an opportunity to conduct some research.
Did hourly labor increase? Did overtime take place? Did the price of food increased? A vendor’s invoice was abnormally high. Has the mix of sales changed?
This is a lot more helpful than identifying the same issue several weeks later.
Let Automation Handle the Repetitive Work
DIY bookkeeping isn’t limited to manually transfer of POS figures into spreadsheets.
Automating the bookkeeping processes of restaurants can help eliminate repeated data movement. This service can be connected to POS systems, QuickBooks, vendors platforms, recipe and inventory management, and Payment instruments/AP.
The aim is not to automate to achieve its own ends.
The objective is to stop manually entering data and to keep financial records current to allow owners to spend more time analyzing the information instead of assembling it.
It provides a completely new bookkeeping process for restaurant establishments. Technology handles the mechanics and the proprietor remains involved in the financial aspect.
P&L Questions: Find out to Ask Better Questions
A P&L can be a lot less intimidating when you stop treating it like an accounting test.
Start with the sales. Begin with sales. Compare the food and beverages performances. Consider the labor. Examine labor.
Comparing the time spans is crucial.
If sales improved but profit was not, something between the two lines has changed. What changed when the cost of food were rising? Review sales and staffing numbers to determine if the labour percent has changed. Investigate any numbers that seem odd rather than just assuming that the restaurant experienced a poor week.
Bookkeeping Chef will send monthly P&Ls completed within five business days, allowing owners the opportunity to look over the performance of their business, rather than getting financial statements for a long time after the operational period has passed.
For owners searching bookkeeping restaurant solutions, speed is useful but understanding is the bigger objective.
It’s not necessary to DIY everything.
There’s a compromise between outsourcing the entire accounting function to a third party and becoming your own full-time bookkeeper.
Owners can continue to be involved in the process of accounting without needing to complete every task manually.
It could involve using automated system connections to ensure information flows, reviewing a weekly prime-cost report, studying the monthly P&L and posing queries when something is happening unexpectedly.
Specialized restaurant bookkeeping can help in this manner by making sure that the books are organized as well as helping the owner comprehend what they mean.
The result is not an owner who knows how to accomplish every bookkeeping job.
It’s an owner who can have a conversation with the P&L and engage in a thoughtful discussion on the business.
The goal is financial security, not more reports
Restaurants already generate massive amounts of data. The other dashboards aren’t necessarily useful.
When an operator is able to review the weekly prime cost report and see that something has changed, they are able to then access their P&L to see what needs more examination.
Bookkeeping Chef’s approach is a combination of financial support for restaurants daily reporting, and automated restaurant bookkeeping to achieve this.
Automate repetitive tasks. Examine your prime costs each week. Learn the terminology used in your P&L.
You do not need to be an accountant.
You should be an owner who is aware of the financial story behind your restaurant.
