Restaurant owners will open their monthly P&L reports, look at sales, then scroll down to the bottom and close the report.

Are you familiar with the situation?

The report may be totally precise, but if these are the only two numbers to be reviewed, most of its value is put to waste.

Good restaurant bookkeeping shouldn’t make owners more dependent on an accountant. They should be more confident about their numbers. It’s not required to sit in the dark putting together invoices or master every accounting rule. It’s essential to know what caused the change in profit and what transpired with the use of labor and food, and which questions need focus next week.

That’s the idea Bookkeeping Chef’s mission: to automate the bookkeeping work that doesn’t need an owner’s time while giving restaurant operators more precise financial data they can utilize.

You Should Start By Looking at the Weekly Numbers and Not Just Month-End

A monthly P&L is important, however restaurants aren’t operating monthly. Managers schedule labor for the week. Chefs order food today. Vendors change prices now.

Bookkeeping Chef’s weekly prime-cost reports are included with the monthly financial statements.

The prime cost comprises two major aspects that can be easily moved in a food service establishment: the price of the food sold and labor. Based on the information provided by Bookkeeping Chef, prime costs make up around 60% of sales in restaurants.

If sales haven’t changed much however, the cost of prime increases. This percentage doesn’t provide an answer. This gives the owner an opportunity to conduct some digging.

Did the hourly rate increase? Did overtime take place? Did food prices change? A vendor’s invoice appeared to be unusually big? Has the mix of sales changed?

This is much more helpful than locating the same issue several weeks later.

Automate the repetitive Work

The DIY bookkeeping process doesn’t have to be limited to manually transfer of POS figures into spreadsheets.

Automating the restaurant’s bookkeeping process will eliminate repetitive data movement. The service connects POS systems and QuickBooks, vendor platforms as well as recipe management and inventory management, and Payment instruments/AP.

Automation is not the objective.

The objective is to stop manually entering data and keep financial records up-to-date so that managers are able to spend more time analyzing the data instead of trying to assemble it.

This leads to a different style of bookkeeping for restaurants. technology can handle the mechanics, while the proprietor remains involved in the financial aspects.

P&L Questions: Find out to Ask More Effective Questions

Stop thinking of your P&L as the accounting test.

Begin with sales. Start with sales. Compare the food and beverage performances. Consider the labor. Move down through operating expenses and examine what’s left.

More importantly, compare periods.

Something that lies between these two lines has changed in the event that sales have increased, but profit has not. What happened when food prices rose? Review sales and staffing numbers to determine if the labor percent has changed. Investigate if a number seems strange, instead of assuming that the restaurant was in poor times.

Bookkeeping Chef can provide monthly P&Ls which are completed within five business days. The owners are able to look over the performance of their business without waiting for months to receive financial statements.

Speed is essential, but the objective is to learn.

DIY Doesn’t Need to Mean Making Everything You Need

You can find a happy middle between having someone take care of all your financial requirements and becoming your own personal accountant.

An owner can stay active without having to perform each accounting task.

It could involve using automated system connections to maintain information flow, reviewing a weekly prime-cost report, or studying the monthly P&L and posing questions in the event of an unexpected change.

Services for bookkeeping in restaurants that focus in restaurants can help owners to understand the purpose of reports by organizing the books and ensuring they are organized.

It does not mean the owner will be capable of performing every bookkeeping task.

Business owners who can have a conversation about their business to the P&L will have more success.

The goal is financial independence and not the need for more reports

Restaurants produce a lot of data. Dashboards don’t always make sense.

The real value comes when an operator is able to look at a weekly prime-cost report and see that something has occurred, then open the P&L and know what to do next.

Bookkeeping Chef’s strategy integrates automated bookkeeping for restaurants weekly reports along with monthly P&Ls and special financial assistance to restaurants in order for making this possible.

Automate the repetitive work. Examine your prime costs each week. Learn the language used in your P&L.

There is no need to be an accountant to be an.

You should be a successful owner who knows the financials of your restaurant.