Restaurant bookkeeping isn't monthly-cadence bookkeeping with a different chart of accounts — it runs on a faster clock, built around POS batch deposits, tip reporting, and food cost that shifts week to week. Our restaurant bookkeeping services reconcile your point-of-sale system (Toast, Square, Clover, and similar platforms) against your bank deposits, track food and beverage cost of goods sold, and keep tip reporting aligned with payroll — all handled by a dedicated bookkeeping team and reviewed by a US-licensed CPA.
Generic small-business bookkeeping breaks down fast in a restaurant: hundreds of small transactions a day, deposits that lag sales by a day or two, tips that have to flow into payroll correctly, and margins thin enough that a single bad week matters. Here's what restaurant bookkeeping specifically covers with us.
Your POS batch deposits are matched against bank statements line by line, accounting for discounts, comps, voids, and gift card redemptions — not just a lump "sales" entry that hides variance.
Reported tips, allocated tips, and tip pooling data are tracked and coded consistently so tip credit calculations and payroll stay compliant and audit-ready.
Vendor invoices are coded to food and beverage cost accounts so food cost percentage and prime cost can be pulled straight from your financials, not estimated after the fact.
Dozens to hundreds of transactions a day — POS batches, delivery platform payouts, vendor payments, card fees — categorized to a consistent chart of accounts, not dumped into a catch-all category.
Because restaurant margins move week to week, we can layer weekly or even daily cash position tracking on top of your monthly close, so cash issues surface early instead of at month-end.
Location or class tracking inside QuickBooks Online or Xero so sales, food cost, and labor can be reviewed per unit and rolled up across your group.
We start with a free consultation to understand your POS system, current software, service style (single location, multi-unit, bar/QSR/full service), and how far behind (if at all) your books are. From there:
See setup and cleanup specifics on our QuickBooks bookkeeping services page, or tip-related payroll on our payroll services page.
Whether you're running one location or several, restaurant bookkeeping only works if it's built for high transaction volume and thin margins from day one — not adapted from a generic small-business template after the fact.
Single-location owners who need accurate daily sales and food cost data without hiring an in-house bookkeeper.
Operators who need per-location visibility and a consolidated view across the group, without a separate books setup for every unit.
High-volume, cash-and-card-mixed operations where fast, consistent daily reconciliation matters more than a once-a-month close.
The same offshore-team-plus-US-CPA-review model that makes bookkeeping affordable for other small businesses applies here — restaurants run on tight margins, so paying US-market hourly rates for a bookkeeper to reconcile POS batches doesn't make sense. Flat monthly pricing and a dedicated team keep the cost predictable while a US CPA still reviews the numbers before they reach you.
Restaurant pricing is based on transaction volume, number of POS terminals/locations, and payroll complexity — never an open-ended hourly rate that penalizes a busy week. Packages are billed at a flat monthly rate — get your quote depending on complexity; catch-up and cleanup projects are quoted separately after a books review.
Restaurant bookkeeping sits on top of our core bookkeeping service — if you run a high-transaction-volume, consumer-facing business, these related pages go deeper:
Running both a physical location and an online storefront or delivery-heavy operation? Our ecommerce bookkeeping page covers the multi-channel side of high-volume, consumer-facing bookkeeping.
Yes. We work from the daily sales and deposit reports your POS system already generates — Toast, Square, Clover, and similar platforms — to reconcile gross sales, discounts, comps, voids, and gift card activity against what actually lands in your bank account. We're not claiming a certified technical integration with any specific POS vendor; we work from the exports and reports your system produces, which covers the reconciliation need for the vast majority of restaurants.
We track reported tips, allocated tips, and tip pooling records from your POS and payroll data and make sure they're recorded consistently for FICA tip credit and IRS reporting purposes. Payroll itself typically runs through your existing payroll platform (see our payroll services); our role is making sure tip data feeds into it correctly and that your books reflect it accurately. The full compliance picture is reviewed by our US CPA.
Food cost percentage (cost of food sold divided by food sales) and prime cost (cost of goods sold plus labor) are the two numbers that tell you whether a restaurant is actually profitable. We code vendor invoices and COGS accounts so these percentages can be pulled directly from your monthly financials instead of being estimated by hand.
Yes. Restaurant margins are thin enough that a monthly-only view often arrives too late to act on. We can set up daily or weekly sales and deposit reconciliation on top of the standard monthly close, so you see cash position and daily sales trends in near real time rather than waiting for month-end financials.
Yes. We set up location or class tracking inside QuickBooks Online or Xero so sales, food cost, and labor can be viewed per location as well as consolidated across your group, without needing a separate set of books for each unit.
