The restaurant owner looks at the sales and then the bottom line before closing the report.
Sounds familiar?
The report might be 100% accurate, but if those are the only two numbers to be reviewed, the majority of its worth is being put to waste.
Good restaurant bookkeeping shouldn’t make owners more dependent on an accountant. They should have confidence in their own financials. There is no need to spend the night completing invoices or knowing every accounting principle. You must understand the way profit has fluctuated, what’s happened to food and labor costs, and the questions that should be answered next week.
That’s the idea Bookkeeping Chef’s mission: to automate the bookkeeping work which doesn’t require the owner’s time. It also provides restaurant owners with greater financial transparency that they can use.
Do Not Stop at the Month-End Numbers. Begin with the Weekly Numbers
A monthly P&L matters, but restaurants don’t operate monthly. This week, the managers plan their labor. Chefs ordered food this morning. Vendors change prices now.
This is the reason Bookkeeping Chef provides weekly prime-cost flash reports, along with monthly financial statements.
The main cost is a combination of cost of the goods and labor and labor, two areas where restaurants can achieve rapid growth. According to the data provided by Bookkeeping Chef, prime costs make up around 60% of restaurant sales.
Imagine that sales barely grew, yet the price of production grew. The percentage alone does not give the answer. It provides the person with the reason to conduct an investigation.
Has the hourly wage increased? Did there occur overtime? Costs of food changed? Did vendor invoices seem excessively high? What changes have occurred in the sales mix?
It is more beneficial to discover the issue now rather instead of waiting until later.
Let Automation Handle the Repetitive Work
DIY bookkeeping doesn’t need to involve manually transferring POS totals to spreadsheets following the service.
Modern restaurant bookkeeping automation is able to manage a lot of the repeated transfer of financial information. It connects to various systems, including POS, QuickBooks, payroll, vendor platforms inventory management and recipe management and Payment and AP tools.
Automating solely for the sake automating is not the main goal.
This reduces the manual data entry. This also helps keep current financial records so that owners are able to focus on studying data, not gathering it.
This is a completely new way of bookkeeping for restaurants. The technology will take care of the mechanics, while the owner is still involved in the financial aspects.
P&L Questions: Find out How to Ask More Effective Questions
Stop taking your P&L as the accounting test.
Start by reviewing the number of sales. Then, take a look at costs of production. Compare the food and beverage industry’s performance. Look at the cost of labor. Reduce operating expenses and examine what’s left.
Comparing periods is important.
If profits increase, but sales do not, there is a difference between the two. If food prices has increased, find out what was happening operationally. Review the staffing numbers and sales activity if labor percentages have changed. Examine any figures that appear odd rather than just assuming that the restaurant experienced a poor week.
Bookkeeping Chef provides monthly P&Ls within five days. This lets owners review the latest results without having to wait for financial statements which often arrive months later than the end of the operating period.
Speed is essential, but it is important to know.
You don’t need to do everything yourself when you DIY
There is a middle ground between delegating the entire financial functions to someone else and establishing yourself as your own full-time bookkeeper.
Owners can be still involved in the accounting process without having to perform every task manually.
It could be as simple as connecting to automated systems to ensure information flows and analyzing a weekly prime-cost report, studying the monthly P&L and asking questions when something is happening unexpectedly.
Specialized bookkeeping services for restaurants can help with this by organizing the books while helping the proprietor understand what the reports mean.
It is very unlikely that you will have an accountant who is able to perform all of the tasks.
It’s an owner who can have a conversation with the P&L and have a stimulating conversation about the business.
The objective is financial freedom Not more reports
Restaurants already generate huge quantities of data. A different dashboard won’t be as effective.
The real value comes when an employee can look at a weekly prime-cost report and realize that something has occurred, then open the P&L and understand what to do next.
Bookkeeping Chef’s approach includes automated bookkeeping for restaurants, weekly reporting monthly P&Ls, as well as specific financial assistance for restaurants for making this possible.
Automate repetitive tasks. Review your prime cost every week. Learn to speak the language of your P&L.
You don’t have to be an accountant to be an.
Owners who are knowledgeable about the financial aspects of their restaurants will be able to make better decisions.