12/01/2020

Bookkeeping for Cafes and Restaurants

bookkeeping for cafes

Keeping track of finances is a struggle for many small businesses, but the hustle and bustle of a busy café or restaurant can be even more overwhelming for managers and owners. Constant challenges of juggling staff and their shifts and rosters, suppliers, cashflow and produce requires great time and task management not to mention the fine art of multi-tasking. Often items are taken care of in the spur of the moment, based on what is critical at that moment; a supplier who won’t supply any more products, an employee who needs to change availability and so it goes on….. While bookkeeping for cafes may take a bit more attention, that doesn’t mean it has to be harder!

Let’s not forget, unfortunately businesses in hospitality have the highest percentage of failure, due to poor record keeping. Without timely information, this does not give owners valuable insights to make the right decisions. As a result, with little to no data, decisions are made on emotions.

Choosing the right software is a crucial first step to making bookkeeping for cafes and restaurants easier to handle and helps you stay on track each day. Xero ticks many of the boxes we see that owners of cafés and restaurants require. Everything from managing their daily cashflow, supplier payments to integration of key third party applications to manage shifts and rosters.

Managing of Supplier Invoices

With latest third-party integrated applications you can send or take photos of invoices and receipts which integrate directly into your accounting application. This information is digitised allowing for owners to quickly understand what they owe and when it is due. This removes the embarrassing situation when suppliers won’t supply more stock due to unpaid invoices. We all know, no stock means no sales.

Statutory reporting for cafés and restaurants can also become an issue with many supplier invoices being GST taxable, free or a combination. Introduction of key third party applications which read and interpret invoices, ensures you don’t overstate your GST obligations and remove potential duplicates. Too often we have seen owners overstate their GST due to manual capturing of information.

Paper was so 2019!

Managing Staff

Managing staff in any business can be challenging, however add the issues of shifts, rosters and awards and this adds a whole lot of complexity. Most accounting applications such as Xero provide payroll components which are suitable to manage staff, however where this does not suffice, third party applications exist which allow owners to manage rosters, capture hours worked (including time of the day) which is then subsequently compared to awards, making the paying of employees a whole lot easier.

It’s important to stay organised for the sake of your business and your employees – you don’t want to spend unnecessary money overbooking your staff or being short on hands during peak hours.

Selling to Customers

Once you have managed your supplier invoices and rostering of employees you need to remember the main objective as to why you got into business; selling to customers. Having the right tools to capture customer orders and sales is pivotal in understanding the success of a menu and customer satisfaction.

Add to this the different ways of selling a meal from client facing to delivery via Uber or Deliveroo, it is important to segment how sales are made. Point-Of-Sale (POS) applications take the hassle out of managing menus and pricing, orders and segmentation. With easy setup and user interaction it allows for business owners to understand what works, what makes money, and more importantly, what makes the customer happy.

Time is precious when running a busy business – don’t waste time by tracking all of these features manually!

Contact us for a bookkeeping consultation and be sure to visit us on Facebook!