Starting and running a restaurant successfully is easier said than done, it involves a lot of planning such as sourcing the ingredients from the right sources, selecting the right chef, making customers satisfied and acting on their reviews, and the list goes on. It is a 24/7 job with great rewards if you do not take your customers for granted.

Now, we are not here for the restaurant business, we believe that you are an expert in it. But you will agree that focusing on the above-mentioned points will not make you successful alone. Several things need to be managed to run your restaurant business smoothly among them is the accounting process. The accounting process when streamlined enables you to run your business with maximum efficiency and helps in reducing errors and delays and enables your business to grow.

Therefore, when you are planning to open a restaurant or already running one, focus on streamlining your accounting process at once. We can help you in this endeavor by helping you understand the importance of streamlining accounting processes.

Practices to Streamline a Restaurant’s Accounting Process

While steps for streamlining accounting processes will differ from business to business, we have taken the initiative to list down certain steps that will streamline your accounting processes for the restaurant, please take a look.

Automate the Invoicing Process

Creation of invoices is important in any business and is certainly for your restaurant because it helps your customers to know how much they are paying for the services or products they have purchased. Through proper automated and printed invoices, you are making a good impact on your customers and through them good word-of-mouth publicity. Any use of handwritten invoices, no matter how genuine, will only create doubts in your customer’s mind and may end up creating trouble for you and your business. The world is moving towards automation and digitization; hence it is wise to transition from scribbling handwritten invoices to printed ones using an invoice application.

Manage your Inventory

Those running a restaurant business will understand the pains of managing inventory. Usually, you face three challenges while managing your inventory which are wastage of ingredients, monitoring cost, and reordering ingredients. If these challenges are not taken care of, then they have the potential to create mismanagement in your inventory. To avoid such a scenario, it is important to streamline your accounting process using an automated inventory management system. Through it, you can keep a tab on the ingredients available in your inventory thus reducing wastage. Additionally, you will be aware of the cost of the ingredients which will help manage and reduce your expenses and update the menu price of your dishes.

Generate and Track Financial Reports

At the end of the month or year, you would like to know how your restaurant is performing financially. While there are multiple ways to know about it, none is better than your restaurant’s financial reports. These reports contain real-time information such as profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.

Through regular assessments of these reports, you will be able to understand the trends, analyze your expenses, and make informed business decisions. Through financial reports, you can check your Key Performance Indicators such as labor cost and food costs, thus giving you an understanding of your restaurant’s profitability and efficiency.

Through financial reports, you can keep track of your restaurant’s income and expenditure transactions and also help you to identify irregularities and take appropriate action to maintain cash flow.

Making such financial reports through your in-house team is a tiresome and time-consuming task, plus there are high chances of making errors. Hence, it is wise to follow your competitors and outsource this task to a professional accounting outsourcing provider.

Payroll Management

Your restaurant is incomplete without your workers who work in different positions. Some of them are recruited on an hourly basis, while some with a fixed salary. These dedicated workers need to be paid on time along with overtime and bonuses, if applicable. This can be achieved only through proper payroll management.

Multiple factors are involved in managing payroll which you may find difficult to handle in that case you can recruit an in-house payroll team. This team will manage the attendance of employees, hours worked, and so on. Still, human errors must be taken into account that can disturb your restaurant operations.

The solution to this problem is automation of your employee’s payroll. Under an automated system, manual entries will cease to exist and all the data will be transferred to an automated payroll system. Hence, all the wages, salaries, and other payables will be calculated without any manual intervention, thus reducing the chances of errors or fudging.

Such an automated system is too expensive to buy, also operating it requires expertise that your in-house payroll team may not have. Hence, it is advised to choose a payroll outsourcing partner that offers payroll automation and has expertise in it.

Improved Financial Security

Your financial information is prone to theft that why it is your utmost responsibility to maintain its security. That’s where streamlining your accounting process becomes very important to create robust internal controls to prevent mistakes and fraud. Moreover, it is essential to bring in automation in the restaurant’s accounting process, this will enable you to bring in backups for your financial data. Transitioning from manual to automation reduces the burden of maintaining files related to your business which adds to your financial risk.

We understand that maintaining such financial security is expensive and requires expertise that only an accounting outsourcing service partner possesses. An accounts outsourcing provider takes utmost care in maintaining financial data security by employing strict data security protocols which include encrypted data storage, secure access controls, and regular data backups.

Conclusion

It’s not a waste to streamline your account process because of the benefits it brings to your restaurant business such as saving time and money, data security and accuracy, and improved cash flow. Your accounting process is your restaurant’s backbone and by streamlining it you are making it strong, and efficient. And Corient can help you in making your process even stronger and more efficient.

At Corient, we specialize in offering services as per your restaurant’s accounting requirements. Our teams have vast experience in multiple payroll applications such as Sage, Brightpay, Xero, Moneysoft, Earnie, Star Payroll, and several others. Our services are designed to give your practice an edge in the market. Upgrade your business by partnering with us and adding value to your services. We can connect at your convenience on a call or online meeting where we can discuss in detail about our services.