POS reconciliation, tip tracking, food cost analysis, high-turnover payroll, and delivery app accounting. We know how restaurants work — and how their books should look.
Restaurants operate differently from almost every other type of business. You process hundreds of transactions a day through your POS system. Tips flow in and out in complex ways — some go to servers, some get pooled, some end up on credit card settlements that do not match your daily totals. Add delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats, and suddenly you have three or four different revenue streams with different payout schedules and commission structures.
Then there is payroll. Restaurants in BC deal with high staff turnover, minimum wage changes, tip reporting obligations, split shifts, overtime calculations, and WorkSafeBC premiums that vary by role. A line cook and a server have different classification rates. Getting payroll wrong does not just frustrate your staff — it creates CRA problems.
Food cost is the lifeblood metric of any food service business. If your books do not accurately track cost of goods sold — separating food costs from beverage costs from paper supplies — you are flying blind. You might think you are running a 30% food cost when in reality it has crept up to 38% because your supplier prices changed and nobody caught it.
And GST/PST adds one more layer. Most menu items in BC are subject to GST but exempt from PST, while alcohol and certain prepared foods have different rules. Getting your tax codes right on every category of sale matters for accurate filing and avoiding CRA assessments.
We have built our restaurant bookkeeping process around the specific workflows of food service businesses. We reconcile your POS, track your food costs, handle your high-turnover payroll, and give you the numbers you need to make smart decisions about your menu, your staffing, and your growth.
Your POS system records sales. Your bank records deposits. They never match exactly because of tips, chargebacks, gift cards, and processing delays. We reconcile both sides and identify the variances so your books are accurate. If your POS says you did $15,000 in sales on a Saturday but only $14,200 hit your bank, we find out why — every time.
We set up your chart of accounts to separate food costs from beverage costs from packaging and supplies. Every supplier invoice is coded to the right category. Your monthly P&L shows food cost as a percentage of food revenue, and beverage cost as a percentage of beverage revenue. When those numbers start creeping up, you see it immediately — not three months later when it is too late to adjust.
Restaurant payroll is frequent and complicated. We handle semi-monthly or bi-weekly processing for your entire team — front of house, back of house, and management. We track tips accurately for T4 reporting, calculate WorkSafeBC premiums by role classification, and ensure compliance with BC employment standards including overtime, statutory holidays, and vacation pay.
DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Skip the Dishes each have their own commission structures, payout schedules, and reporting formats. We reconcile each platform separately, tracking gross order value, platform commissions (which can run 15% to 30%), and net deposits. Your books show you exactly how profitable each delivery channel is — or whether some are costing you money.
POS systems we work with: Square for Restaurants, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed Restaurant, TouchBistro, and most other systems used by BC restaurants. If you are using a system we have not listed, ask us — we have likely worked with it before.
Book a free 30-minute call. We will review your setup and recommend the right plan for your food service business.