Who We Serve · Inventory & Retail · Restaurants
Restaurant margins are thin and the numbers move daily. We build bookkeeping around prime cost — food plus labor — with POS-integrated reporting fast enough to actually run the business on, not a P&L that arrives three weeks late.
Restaurant accounting is the discipline of tracking food cost, labor cost, and the prime cost that combines them — reconciled against POS sales and vendor invoices — so an operator can protect a margin that is often only a few points wide. Because perishable inventory and daily labor move fast, restaurant books have to close fast and report weekly, not just monthly.
The single most important number is prime cost: cost of goods sold plus labor, as a percentage of sales. Keep it in range and the restaurant survives; let it drift and even a busy restaurant loses money.
Every concept runs a different cost structure — food cost, labor model, and prime-cost target shift with the format.
Higher labor and rent, table service, and a prime-cost target around 60–65%. We track food and labor by daypart so you can staff to demand.
Volume-driven with leaner labor and a lower prime-cost target. We watch food cost and throughput where pennies per ticket compound fast.
Premium ingredients and high service labor push food and labor higher. We track margin by menu item where a few dishes carry the room.
Pour cost, excise tax, and taproom-vs-wholesale margin. We separate beverage cost from food and keep production and retail clean.
Consolidated and location-level P&Ls so you can compare units, spot the underperformer, and allocate shared overhead fairly.
Event-based revenue, deposits, and channel-specific margin. We track catering separately from the dining room so its real profit is visible.
The business-model attributes that make this niche different to account for — and that a generalist bookkeeper usually misses.
Food (COGS) plus labor as a percentage of sales — the single most important number, usually targeted between 55% and 65% depending on concept.
COGS as a share of food sales, typically 28–35%. Drift signals waste, portion creep, theft, or pricing that hasn’t kept up with vendor costs.
Wages, taxes, and benefits as a share of sales, tracked by daypart so you can see over- and under-staffing before it hits profit.
Perishable inventory valued and counted regularly (FIFO), so COGS is real and not just last month’s purchases.
Daily sales, tips, comps, voids, and payment types reconciled from the POS to the bank — where a surprising amount of cash goes missing.
Restaurants can’t wait for a monthly close. Prime cost and sales need a weekly read to be actionable.
A handful of measures decide whether a restaurant is profitable — ideal weekly Scorecard candidates.
A 20-minute call. No pitch, no obligation. We’ll tell you honestly whether we can help — starting with where your prime cost stands.
Talk to an expertPrime cost is cost of goods sold (food and beverage) plus total labor, expressed as a percentage of sales. It combines a restaurant’s two largest controllable expenses, so it’s the clearest single signal of operational health. Most concepts target 55–65%; if prime cost climbs toward 70%+, there is almost nothing left to cover rent, utilities, and profit.
Weekly. Food and labor move too fast for a monthly-only close — a problem caught in week one is fixable, while the same problem found 30 days later has already cost real money. We set up a weekly reporting cadence for prime cost and sales alongside the formal monthly close.
Restaurants deal with perishable inventory, daily POS reconciliation, tip handling, comps and voids, and razor-thin margins. The chart of accounts and close are built around food cost, labor cost, and prime cost rather than generic categories, and reporting has to be fast enough to act on.
Often when opening additional locations, when cash is tight despite good sales, or when seeking financing or a sale. A fractional CFO builds multi-location reporting, models the cash impact of expansion, and prepares the EBITDA story lenders and buyers expect — without a full-time hire.