Accounting Tips for Restaurant Owners

Know your food cost percentage — and watch it weekly

Food cost percentage is the single most important number in a restaurant. It's the cost of the ingredients you used divided by the sales those dishes generated, shown as a percentage. If you spent 3,000 on food to produce 10,000 in food sales, your food cost is 30%.

Most restaurants and cafés run healthily somewhere around 28–35%, but the 'right' number depends on your concept — a coffee shop with high-margin drinks looks very different from a steakhouse. What matters more than the exact figure is the trend. Check it weekly, not just at year-end, so a supplier price rise or portion creep shows up while you can still act on it.

• Food cost % = (opening stock + purchases − closing stock) ÷ food sales × 100
• Count stock on the same day and time each period so numbers are comparable
• Separate food and beverage cost — they behave very differently
• Set a target % per menu category and flag anything that drifts more than a point or two

Reconcile daily takings every day

Cash and card takings should be counted, recorded and matched against your POS report at the close of every shift — not weekly, and not from memory. A daily habit catches till errors, missed voids, card-machine mismatches and, occasionally, theft, while the details are still fresh.

The three numbers that must agree are your POS sales total, the cash you physically counted (plus any float), and the amounts that later land in your bank account. When they don't, a same-day note ('card terminal offline for 20 minutes at lunch') is worth far more than trying to reconstruct it a month later.

1. 1

   Pull the POS Z-report

   Close the till and print or export the day's sales, payment breakdown, voids and refunds.

2. 2

   Count the cash

   Count physical cash, subtract the opening float, and compare to expected cash sales.

3. 3

   Match card settlements

   Check card totals against what the processor deposits — remember fees and next-day timing.

4. 4

   Log the difference

   Record any over/short with a short reason so patterns become visible over time.

Control wastage, staff meals and comps

Wastage is the silent margin-killer. Spoiled produce, over-portioning, kitchen mistakes, staff meals and complimentary dishes all use ingredients but earn nothing — and if you don't record them, they simply show up as a mysteriously higher food cost.

Keep a simple wastage log and separate the categories. Tracking staff meals and comps distinctly tells you whether the problem is generosity, training, ordering or genuine spoilage, and each has a different fix.

• Log what was wasted, why, and its cost — even a quick tablet or notebook entry works
• Review the top three waste items each week and adjust ordering or prep
• Cap and record comps and staff meals so they don't blur your true food cost
• Use stock counts to spot shrinkage that no one wrote down

Handle tips the right way

Tips are money that belongs to your staff, not turnover for the business — so they shouldn't be mixed into your sales revenue. Card tips in particular need care: they arrive in your bank with your card takings, but they must be paid out to staff and kept out of your income.

How tips are pooled, distributed and taxed varies a lot between countries, and payroll and social-contribution rules can apply. This is general information — confirm current rules with your country's tax authority or a qualified local tax or payroll professional before you set up your tip handling.

• Record card tips as a liability to staff, not as sales
• Keep a clear record of how pooled tips are calculated and paid out
• Check whether tips affect payroll, income tax or social contributions where you operate
• Be consistent — a documented, repeatable method protects both you and your team

Keep tax clean without the year-end panic

Whether your country charges VAT, GST, SST or a sales tax, restaurants often juggle more than one rate — dine-in versus takeaway, standard-rated versus zero-rated items, and sometimes service charges. The trick is to set the correct tax treatment on each menu item once, so every sale is categorised correctly at the point of sale rather than being untangled later.

Scan and store supplier invoices and receipts as you go, reconcile your bank regularly, and keep business and personal spending strictly apart. This is general information — confirm current rules and rates with your country's tax authority or a qualified local tax professional, as thresholds and return requirements differ by country and change over time.

Cost-control habits that actually stick

• Cost your recipes so you know the margin on every dish, not just the menu average
• Reprice or redesign the menu when key ingredient costs jump — don't absorb it silently
• Order to par levels so you buy what you'll use, reducing spoilage and cash tied up in stock
• Watch labour as a percentage of sales alongside food cost — together they make or break the week
• Review your prime cost (food + beverage + labour) weekly; it's the fastest read on profitability

Let one connected system do the heavy lifting

Most of the pain above comes from disconnected tools — a till that doesn't talk to your stock, spreadsheets that don't talk to your accounts, and hours of retyping that invites errors. When your POS, inventory and accounting share one set of numbers, a sale automatically reduces stock and lands in your books, and your food cost and daily takings are there without a rebuild.

Tallium is an all-in-one app that brings POS, inventory, e-commerce and accounting (with AI receipt scanning and insights) into a single account, with unlimited users at no per-seat charge. Pricing is a simple flat monthly fee per unit in USD, billed monthly with no free trial — a shop/store unit is $79/month and a warehouse unit is $99/month, each including the full accounting core, mobile app and email support. It won't replace good habits, but it removes the double entry so the weekly numbers are always waiting for you.