Best Accounting Software for Restaurants of April 2023

Reconciling your accounts ensures you have recorded all your transactions and financial reports accurately. While bank reconciliation can be time consuming, it is essential to have a full picture of your operations. However, restaurant software also offers features that help manage and track inventory, track and pay sales tax, staff scheduling, floor plan and table management, and recipe and menu pricing. Plate IQ is our choice for the best-automated restaurant accounting software because it automates processes for the restaurant owner so they can focus on other tasks. Using Plate IQ, restaurant owners, and managers can automate invoices and accounts payable systems all on one platform. It can be used on its own, integrated with other products, or used in combination with other accounting software for restaurants.

However, if you need in-depth accounting services, you will need to integrate with QuickBooks or choose another restaurant accounting software. Reconciliation ensures accuracy and prevents fraud and accounting errors, so this process must be conducted regularly. You can quickly upload your bank and credit card statements, compare them with your reports, and generate accurate financial statements in minutes. The restaurant industry is known for tight profit margins, and without financial reporting, you are running your business blind. Analyzing your restaurant financial and operational data regularly is one of the keys to a healthy bottom line.

• Employees are required by law to report tips to the employer, who then includes the tip income on the employee’s Form W-2.
• If you aren’t experienced with managing the books, consider buying restaurant bookkeeping software.
• Restaurant accounting and receipt management software is designed to automate and organize common bookkeeping practices.
• If the owner needs more time or the necessary knowledge to manage their books or is unaware of how to do bookkeeping for a restaurant, then for a specialized bookkeeping job.

SLC Bookkeeping can help you with, reconciliations, accounts payable and receivable, payroll, cash flow, and budgeting and forecasting. Make better decisions based on accurate and timely reporting that uses real-time financial data. Identify opportunities, anticipate challenges and adjust as necessary so you can keep working toward your goals.

Sign up to receive more well-researched small business articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content. Restaurateurs and investors use EBITDA when they’re looking to sell, buy, or invest in a restaurant to help guide their buying decisions.

Instant, accurate reports 24/7

A daily sales report is a report of all the money you took in for the day. It breaks the revenue down into different categories so you can see what is selling. It also tells you what methods of payment were used, which is helpful when reconciling your accounts. You should also keep detailed financial records of all your restaurant bank accounts, including your business checking, savings and credit card accounts. First and foremost, let’s understand the basics of restaurant accounting . Restaurant accounting is a financial process that involves recording and organizing financial transactions related to running a restaurant.

When you enter menu items into your POS, check that they’re coded correctly to ensure accurate food and beverage costing, but even more so for tax tracking. As a small business owner, you’re required to pay quarterly employment taxes. This entails reporting what you’ve withheld from employees’ paychecks for federal income and Social Security / Medicare taxes, and then paying those amounts to the IRS. If your business is subject to excise tax, that will also need to be paid quarterly. Depending on the laws in your state, you may also be required to make quarterly tax payments to the state. The daily sales report is your quintessential end-of-day report that measures costs, sales, and future sales.

While you won’t leave this article a chartered accountant, we’ll give you the language you need to work with accountants and with restaurant accounting software. In other words, we’ll help you talk the talk, but you’ll still need someone to walk with. A restaurant bookkeeper oversees the financial reports of the restaurant.

Using Bill.com for Restaurant Accounts Payable

You can add a vendor, input the payment date and amount, and enter the category for each transaction. Your software will alert you when a payment is due, and in many cases, you’ll be prompted to authorize the payment and deposit the amount directly into the vendor’s account. Perform month end duties including bank reconciliations, monthly inventory, balance sheet reconciliation, and expense review. Our financial forecasting professionals put the power of the past to work for your future. Restaurant owners typically don’t have access to a traditional employer-paid 401 plan, but there are other retirement plans designed with small business owners in mind.

Your profit is the money that’s left over after you’ve accounted for your COGs, labor, rent, equipment, utilities and all other operating expenses. Finally, your restaurant’s success will be measured against key performance indicators. KPIs are what you’ll obsess over as a business owner – they dictate the financial outlook of your restaurant. A controllable costs report gives you a picture of the future environment you’ll be operating in, so you can make decisions ahead of the trends. A controllable costs report helps you determine your operating margin and calculate your prime cost – an essential KPI for every restaurateur.

Step 1: Track your daily sales on a POS system

Easily run reports to see trends—like weekly and monthly pay differences, or payroll costs by kitchen, front of the house, and management—so you can make any necessary adjustments quickly. Xero is a cloud-based small business accounting program that’s often considered as an alternative to QuickBooks Online. It was founded in 2006 in New Zealand and is used around the world. Xero has tools for managing invoices, bank reconciliation, purchases, expenses, inventory, and more. It can be used for different types of small businesses and isn’t specific to restaurants, so you may need to take your time setting up the software and creating restaurant-specific processes. On the other hand, accounting is more of the big-picture side of your finances, including analyzing your finances, providing advice, as well as helping with financial planning and tax filing.

Now you can type in profit and loss or find it under the business overview section. You can attach your statement to the reconciliation in QBO to make it easy to reference. You can then upload your invoices to Bill.com to allow your accountant to code them properly.

For other accounting software suggestions, check out our guide to the best small business accounting software. It’s extremely important that your accounting software integrates with your POS system. Features that are especially useful for restaurants include inventory management, payroll, and bill management. The best restaurant POS systems are all-in-one restaurant management solutions with employee management, staff scheduling, customer loyalty tools, reservations, and online ordering capabilities. We chose DAVO as our best accounting software for paying sales tax for restaurants. It’s a niche product designed to seamlessly calculate and pay your sales tax on time and in full while taking advantage of applicable discounts.

This will make it much easier to keep track of financial information at tax time. Once you know your costs, set aside a budget for each expense so you can easily monitor how much money is being spent on what. This will help you keep track of ALL recorded financial transactions so you know what’s going on with your financials at all times. This may influence which products we review and write about , but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice, which are grounded in thousands of hours of research.

Payroll processing can be time-consuming and complex, with many payroll liabilities. Hospitality POS systems with features designed to streamline restaurant operations. Fortunately, you can take some relatively simple steps to ensure your bookkeeping is in tip top shape.

What financial transactions should you track in restaurant accounting?

The Shogo journal entry allows you to reconcile your merchant service deposits so you can ensure you are getting all the money you are due. In order to record the daily sales you will need to generate a report that summarizes your sales. The hustle and bustle of a restaurant can make running payroll difficult. But before you get overwhelmed, let’s break down how to do payroll into a few key aspects.

Other components include payroll, automated A/P, and inventory management. Reconciling your accounts is the only way to know that you have accounted for all transactions, and it makes you aware of incorrect deposits, lost checks, and cash variances. You should reconcile all bank and credit card accounts, loans, lines of credit, and payroll liabilities. Our experienced team of restaurant accounting services professionals understands the unique needs of your business — beginning with your need to spend your time focusing on your patrons. Our 3-step restaurant accounting system furnishes clear and correct daily financial reports, seamless payroll imports through QuickBooks and CPA-ready books.

Automating financial processes can make life easier for the busy restaurateur. An automated accounting system can help you track invoices, manage payments and reconcile financial data quickly and easily. It’s important to keep track of your daily sales to monitor cash flow and understand where money is coming and going. Your P&L statement reflects the sales and costs of your restaurant during a given time period.

It’s a good idea to consider outsourcing your books to an outside bookkeeper who can help you stay compliant and on top of your finances. The best restaurant accounting software addresses the intricacies of restaurant operations and back office management, such as inventory taking, cost management, and employee scheduling. More advanced restaurant accounting software may also offer features, such as catering management and variance analysis.

The right california income tax rate and accounting software can make tracking employee hours, wages and payroll taxes much easier. With this data you can easily determine how much money you need to set aside for payroll each month and ensure your payroll taxes are paid on time. Moreover, payroll software can also help you comply with local and national regulations. Restaurant365 is an all-in-one software platform that offers accounting, inventory management, scheduling and reporting software along with payroll and HR options. The system integrates fully with more than 70 popular POS systems, including Toast, Square, Clover, Revel and Lightspeed.

Because restaurants deal with both front-of-house and back-of-house operations, POS integration options and reporting capabilities took center stage and were weighted most heavily. You can rest assured that we will work closely with you to create actionable business plans and accurate financial reporting. We offer our toolkit of financial intelligence that will be your greatest asset for business growth. You should reconcile bank accounts, credit cards, loans, lines of credit, and payroll liabilities.