Restaurant Bookkeeping Services

Restaurant bookkeeping is the recording and reconciling of a restaurant’s daily sales, food and beverage costs, labor, tips, and sales tax so that the owner knows the true profit of each week and each location. Sunderland Valley Enterprises provides bookkeeping for independent restaurants, bars, cafes, and multi-unit operators, prepared by a former Chief Financial Officer.

Restaurants run on thin margins, and a few points of food or labor cost decide whether a month makes money. Our work gives you those numbers quickly enough to act on them.

What restaurant bookkeeping includes

• Daily sales reconciliation. We match point-of-sale reports from systems such as Toast, Square, and Clover to bank deposits, including cash, card batches, and gift cards.
• Delivery app reconciliation. DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub deposit sales net of commissions and fees. We record gross sales and each fee so your margins by channel are accurate.
• Prime cost reporting. Prime cost is the total of cost of goods sold and labor. Many operators aim to keep it at or below 60 to 65 percent of sales, and we report it every period.
• Tip and payroll recording. We record wages, tips, and payroll taxes correctly. Nevada does not allow a tip credit, so tipped employees must receive the full state minimum wage before tips.
• Sales tax. We track taxable sales and reconcile the amounts collected to your Nevada sales tax returns.

Reports a restaurant owner should see

• Profit and Loss statement by week or four-week period, with food, beverage, and labor shown as a percent of sales
• Prime cost trend
• Sales by category and by channel (dine-in, takeout, delivery, catering)
• Cash flow forecast covering rent and payroll
• Results by location for multi-unit operators

Common problems we fix

• Deposits that do not match the point-of-sale system
• Delivery app income recorded net, which hides commission costs
• Tips recorded as revenue
• Sales tax recorded as income
• Books that are months behind, which we bring current through catch-up bookkeeping

How we work with your restaurant

1. We connect to your point-of-sale system, payroll provider, and bank accounts.
2. We reconcile sales and deposits every week.
3. We close each period and send reports with a short explanation of what changed.
4. We meet with you to review prime cost, cash, and the decisions ahead.

Common questions