We have a lot of experience with restaurant bookkeeping in Salt Lake City.  I never had a ton of restaurant experience outside of the dishwashing position until I started doing bookkeeping for other small businesses.  When I started doing bookkeeping for restaurants I immediately understood that they were very unique from a bookkeeping perspective.  I ended up managing the front of house of a restaurant for five years in addition to handling the back office tasks.  Through my experience I learned that the front of the house operations has an effect on the bookkeeping and understanding the ins and outs is extremely important.  If you own a restaurant and don't have your bookkeeping dialed in here are 5 questions I would ask your bookkeeper.  

Restaurant bookkeeping is often over complicated for one reason or another.  I think the day to day demands of running a restaurant can cause an owner to neglect the bookkeeping process.  Once you are behind on the bookkeeping it is difficult to get caught up.  The profit margins in the restaurant industry are too tight to let your bookkeeping slip.  If you aren't watching your financials closely it may be too late to fix problems by the time you catch them.  

How do you handle bookkeeping for a restaurant?

1. Record sales from your POS system on a daily basis.

2. Set up an efficient accounts payable system.

3. Outsource your payroll to a professional payroll service.

4. Reconcile all accounts that have a monthly statement with a beginning and ending balance. 

5. Analyze financial reports and restaurant financial ratios. 

Here is a simple 5 step guide on handling your restaurant bookkeeping.    

Outsourcing your bookkeeping has plenty of benefits such as offering financial checks and balances, freeing up valuable time for owners and managers, and keeping the business out of harm's way with the IRS.  But what about the other
important end results of bookkeeping that often get overlooked such as financial reporting management?  There are a decent amount of start-ups in Utah and financial reporting should be a key component to making sure goals are met on a regular basis.   It's always great when both the owner and bookkeeper are keeping a close eye on all margins.  Having an accurate Accounts Receivable and Balance Sheet is a great way to make sure Cash Flow is always accurate and easy to produce.  Getting your bookkeeping system set up is half the battle, making sure to maintain and utilize the system is the other.  

One of the major restaurant point of sale systems is NCR Aloha Restaurant POS Software.  We are very familiar with Aloha as we have been using it for our restaurant bookkeeping clients for over a decade.  Aloha has always offered a very user friendly software that also works well from a bookkeeping perspective.  Here is a guide on how to use Aloha for your restaurant bookkeeping.

Restaurant bookkeeping for a restaurant group that has multiple locations can be tricky.  With several restaurant locations you have quite a bit going on.  You have invoices and bills to deal with as well as credit card and cash deposits for each location.  You must be an experienced restaurant bookkeeper to implement a restaurant specific bookkeeping system that will work.  With over a decade of restaurant bookkeeping and management experience we have developed a pretty solid bookkeeping system for multi-location restaurants.  

We have developed many restaurant bookkeeping systems over the years.  We have extensive restaurant experience; both front of the house management and back of house accounting.  Restaurants are a tough business, which makes the accounting aspect that much more important.  We have helped several restaurants dial in a tight bookkeeping system and grow.  We have helped owners set up their restaurant concept to scale.  Helping a restaurant owner grow from a few locations to many is exciting, but it takes a tight financial approach.  Having the proper bookkeeping system in place from day one will promote scalability and set you up for growth.  Here are five things to consider when setting up your restaurant bookkeeping.  

POS System

The restaurant POS system that you choose is a very important decision that you should not take lightly.  I have seen clients go through up to three different POS systems by the time they finally have a conversation with us and we point them in the right direction.  We have seen various new POS systems come and go because they can't make it in the competitive market for one reason or another.  Typically they come out with some new hot technology that looks great (example Ipad), but the functionality and basic reporting is garbage.  While I'm not a big business guy I typically recommend going with one of the bigger players when it comes to your restaurant POS system.

The POS system that I most often recommend is Aloha by NCR.  From a front of house perspective Aloha is easy to program and train your staff on using.  It also has great controls which allow you to control theft.  Lastly, Aloha has always offered excellent customer service.  Our local Utah Aloha dealer POS Technologies has never disappointed.  I know the general manager Devin Wright extremely well and am confident he will over deliver his product and services to you.  From a back of house/bookkeeping perspective Aloha also delivers.  Obviously you want good reporting and Aloha has a series of standard reports that you will need.  In addition Aloha makes it easy to build custom reports if you find you need more details.  Your daily sales summary will be an important piece of your restaurant accounting.  You can manually enter the daily sales summary or import you sales data into QuickBooks or another accounting system.  You would want to check with the external software developer for importing options and compatibility.   

For a restaurant one of the most important aspects of the business is the restaurant point of sale system they choose to use.   I have had a pretty unique experience in the hospitality industry over the past 10+ years.  I have worked in both the front of the house management role as well as the back end financial reporting and bookkeeping role.  I understand how they are related and how they need to work together in order for the restaurant to succeed.  The restaurant POS system is a very crucial piece of the puzzle for the restaurant to succeed.  As a restaurant bookkeeping specialist I consider the POS system for a restaurant to be a critical aspect of a setting up a tight bookkeeping system.  

Let's face it, owning a restaurant  can be tough... 

That's why developing a restaurant bookkeeping system that works is so essential.  

As you're likely aware, the restaurant industry has very tight profit margins. And that's precisely why developing an efficient and accurate bookkeeping system is of utmost importance.