A restaurant owner opens the monthly P&L then looks over sales, then jumps to the bottom line and closes the report.
Sound familiar?
The report might be 100% accurate, but if those are the only two numbers to be reviewed, the majority of its worth is left on the table.
Good restaurant bookkeeping shouldn’t make owners more dependent on an accountant. It should help them become more confident in their own numbers. It doesn’t require an accountant or stay up all your entire night completing invoices. It is important to know how profit moved and what happened to food and labor costs and what issues need consideration next week.
That’s the philosophy Bookkeeping Chef’s mission: to automate the bookkeeping tasks which doesn’t require the owner’s time and gives restaurant managers better financial information that they can actually utilize.
Don’t stop at month-end Numbers. Start by calculating Weekly Numbers
While restaurants don’t operate on a calendar month, they are still required to maintain a P&L. Managers set up their work schedules for the week. The chef orders food today. Vendors change prices now.
This is why Bookkeeping Chef provides weekly prime-cost flash reports alongside monthly financial statements.
The principal cost includes the cost of the goods and labor and labor, two areas where an establishment can quickly progress. The bookkeeping chef’s provided information states that prime costs typically represent about 60% of restaurant sales.
Imagine that sales barely grew, yet the price of production grew. This percentage alone isn’t enough to provide the solution. This gives the owner an opportunity to conduct some digging.
Was there an increase in the number of hours was worked? Did there occur overtime? Was the cost of food fluctuating? A vendor invoice seemed unusually large? Did the mix of sales changed?
It is more beneficial to identify the issue earlier rather instead of waiting until later.
Automate repetitive work
DIY bookkeeping does not need to be difficult. It can simply involve manually transfer POS (point of sale) totals onto spreadsheets.
Modern restaurant bookkeeping automation can manage a lot of the routine movement of financial data. This service can be connected to POS systems including QuickBooks, QuickBooks, vendors platforms recipes and inventory management, payment instruments and AP.
Automating for the sake automated is not the aim.
It’s to cut down on manual data entry and to keep financial records up-to-date so that owners have the ability to spend time looking over data instead of gathering it.
It’s a totally new accounting model for restaurants. Technology handles the mechanics and the owner stays engaged with the financial aspects.
P&L Questions: Find out to Ask More Effective Questions
A P&L can be a lot less intimidating when you stop treating it like an accounting test.
Start with sales. Examine the costs needed to make those sales. Compare the effectiveness of drinks and food. Consider the labor. See the work.
Check out the various periods.
Something between these two lines has changed if sales have increased, but profit has not. If food cost increased, inquire about what changed operationally. If the labor rate changed between staffing and sales activity. If a number looks strange examine it instead of thinking the restaurant just had an unlucky month.
Bookkeeping Chef provides monthly P&Ls on five days. This lets the owners look at recent performance without waiting for financial statements that often arrive months later than the end of an operating period.
Speed is essential, but the objective is to learn.
It’s not necessary to build everything.
There’s a middle-ground between handing the entire financial responsibility to another and establishing yourself as your own full-time bookkeeper.
You are able to be a business owner without performing all accounting duties by hand.
This could mean the use of automated system connections in order to keep information flowing and analyzing a weekly prime-cost report, analyzing the monthly P&L and asking questions whenever something happens unexpectedly.
A specialist in restaurant bookkeeping can aid with this method by maintaining the books in order as well as helping the owner comprehend what they mean.
This doesn’t mean the owner will be capable of performing every bookkeeping task.
Business owners who can take a seat and converse intelligently about their company with the P&L are more likely to succeed.
The goal is financial security without reporting
Restaurants are a major source of data. A different dashboard won’t be as effective.
The real value comes when an operator can open a P&L report and recognize that there was a change and then look at the report on the primary cost.
Bookkeeping Chef’s strategy includes automated bookkeeping for restaurants daily reporting monthly P&Ls, as well as the financial support for specific restaurants to enable this.
Automate repetitive tasks. Review the prime cost each week. Learn to understand the language of your P&L.
You don’t have to be a professional accountant.
You should become an owner who understands the financials of your restaurant.