Restaurant accounting series: Prepping your Restaurant for a Sale (before or after it’s open for biz)

By: Michael Viola, Restaurant CPA

You expect what you inspect.  Sounds pretty straightforward, right?  If you expect or want more profitability, inspect where the money is going.  But don’t lump it to just a dozen or so accounts.  A comprehensive and flexible chart of accounts will give you best-in-class restaurant reporting.

By having a good chart of accounts, you can do many things.  First, you are more likely to benchmark against yourself or budget, compare with your peer group, negotiate with a vendor and so forth.  But you should also be able to review just a summary of the restaurant’s performance with a one-page P&L.  And if desired, that same P&L can be “exploded” to show every account and the detail behind the summary information.  The art is setting the chart of accounts up properly so that the accounts can roll up correctly.  Most operators want a “50,000-foot” view, as they have limited time to delve into multiple reports with multiple pages!

With granular information at your fingertips, you have more power to understand your business and run it well by making intelligent and informed decisions.  Additionally, developing a track record with consistent financial data will help down the road should your concept seek financing from a bank/SBA or investor, look to sell the concept or quite often…both!

We can help you with the design or redesign of your restaurant’s accounting.  Contact us (info@go-pure.com) a no-cost evaluation to understand your unique needs so we can tailor a solution for you.