Bookkeeping Tips for Restaurants: Stay Profitable in a Fast-Moving Industry

Restaurant bookkeeping combines high transaction volume, narrow margins, and perishable inventory. To keep your operation healthy, you need systems that capture data accurately and reveal trends early.

If you haven’t read our Essential Bookkeeping Tips for Small Businesses yet, start there. The fundamentals and the common mistakes to avoid apply to every business.

This article expands on those basics with detailed, restaurant-specific bookkeeping practices.

1. Track sales by category

Restaurant income isn’t just “sales.” Each revenue stream has different costs and margins.

Tip:
Break down daily sales reports into categories such as dine-in, take-out, delivery, and bar. Use your POS integration to post these categories directly to the ledger. Over time, you’ll see which parts of your operation are most profitable and where menu adjustments can boost margin.

2. Reconcile daily cash and card deposits

With dozens or hundreds of small transactions, mistakes and shortages are easy to miss.

Tip:
At the end of every shift, match POS totals to cash, debit, and credit card receipts. Confirm that deposits match recorded sales before closing the day. Small variances signal theft, unrecorded refunds, or system errors—fix them immediately instead of letting them compound.

3. Control food and beverage inventory

Inventory is where most restaurant profits are lost. Spoilage, over-portioning, and theft inflate costs quietly.

Tip:
Perform weekly counts of all high-value items—meat, seafood, alcohol—and monthly counts for dry goods. Use these figures to calculate cost of goods sold (COGS). Compare actual COGS to your target percentage. Even a 1–2% improvement can add thousands to annual profit.

4. Track labour costs in real time

Staffing levels that match demand protect both service quality and profitability.

Tip:
Use time-tracking software integrated with payroll. Review labour cost as a percentage of sales daily, not just at month-end. If labour exceeds your target, adjust scheduling or menu pricing accordingly.

5. Record tips and wages correctly

Tip distribution is heavily regulated and a common audit risk.

Tip:
Record gratuities as a separate liability account until they’re paid out. Keep clear records of how tips are pooled and allocated. Align your payroll setup with CRA guidance so statutory deductions and reporting stay compliant.

6. Monitor prime cost (COGS + labour)

Prime cost shows how efficiently a restaurant converts inputs into sales.

Tip:
Calculate prime cost weekly. Add total labour and COGS, then divide by total sales. A healthy ratio is typically 60–70%. If the number rises, investigate waste, overstaffing, or supplier price changes before they cut into profits.

7. Manage supplier invoices and purchasing

Missed invoices, duplicate payments, and pricing errors are common in food service.

Tip:
Record invoices as soon as deliveries arrive. Match each invoice against a purchase order and receiving report. Track supplier pricing trends over time so you can negotiate or change vendors when costs creep up.

8. Post daily sales summaries consistently

Waiting until the end of the week to enter data leads to inaccuracies and forgotten adjustments.

Tip:
Create a daily sales journal entry that includes gross sales, discounts, tips, taxes, and refunds. Posting consistently keeps financials current and simplifies month-end reconciliation.

9. Forecast seasonal cash flow

Holidays, weather, and tourism cycles affect revenue.

Tip:
Use at least two years of historical sales to build a monthly forecast. Adjust labour, marketing, and inventory purchases around expected peaks and slowdowns. This proactive planning keeps cash available for supplier payments and payroll year-round.

10. Use restaurant-specific accounting tools

Generic bookkeeping systems rarely capture restaurant nuances like daily sales summaries or inventory yield.

Tip:
Choose cloud software that connects to your POS, supports recipe costing, and separates tax, gratuity, and sales data automatically. Automating these tasks reduces manual entry and improves accuracy.

Build stronger financial systems

Restaurants succeed on tight margins, and precise bookkeeping makes the difference between profit and loss. By combining these industry-specific techniques with the general bookkeeping fundamentals, you can maintain control, identify problems quickly, and plan confidently.

If you’d like professional help with restaurant bookkeeping, payroll, or advisory services, Complete Bookkeeping & Advisory Services supports restaurants and food-service operators across Kamloops and the surrounding area.

Learn more about our bookkeeping services.