#restaurant
Accounting solutions for restaurants and food businesses
The federal tip credit lets employers pay $2.13 an hour against a $7.25 minimum — but only with written notice, a weekly true-up, and a pool that excludes managers. This guide covers what changed in 2026: the vacated 80/20 side-work rule, California's SB 648 card-tip enforcement, service-charge wage treatment, and the $25,000 qualified-tips deduction.
Haiti and Syria TPS employment authorization documents have lapsed after a summer of shifting USCIS dates, and continuing to schedule an affected worker exposes a restaurant to per-worker penalties under INA section 274A. This guide covers the Form I-9 Supplement B reverification sequence, the five mistakes that turn paperwork into a discrimination claim, and how to book the overtime, temp-agency, and recruiting costs of rebuilding a roster.
Drive-thru voice AI runs roughly $800–$2,200 per location per month. A one-page payback model shows it nets a single-unit QSR about +$810/month — but only if the scheduled labor hours actually come off the roster; if they stay, the same math is −$1,590/month.
OpenTable now deducts 2% from no-show penalties, reservation deposits, and prepaid experiences, and lets U.S. restaurants absorb the fee or pass it to diners per cancellation policy. This guide shows how to book deposits at gross as a liability, expense the fee separately, run a six-step monthly payout reconciliation, and decide whether deposits still pay off after the fee.
Ground beef hit about $6.75 a pound and steak $12.80 in May 2026, with the U.S. cattle herd at a 75-year low of 86.2 million head and relief unlikely before 2028. This guide shows restaurants and butcher shops how to recost every beef item, spread increases across the menu, move down the carcass, and track item-level margin after the change.
Starbucks reported $9.32B of Q3 FY2026 revenue, down 1.4%, while global comparable-store sales rose 7.9% and net earnings nearly doubled to $1.05B. Moving China retail into a licensed joint venture removed roughly $780M of consolidated revenue, and a $536.3M divestiture gain accounted for more than the entire year-over-year increase in net income — the full income statement and balance sheet reconciled in a public Beancount ledger.
Florida SB 606 takes effect July 1, 2026 and redefines restaurant fee disclosure: every mandatory operations charge — service charges, auto-gratuities, delivery fees, and card surcharges — must be shown on menus, contracts, and ordering apps in compliant font, on the face of the bill, and as three separate receipt lines for tip, operations charge, and sales tax. Learn what counts as an operations charge, where to disclose, and how to book each line correctly.
Illinois SB 618 makes cocktails-to-go permanent July 1, 2026, requiring tamper-evident sealed containers, four-element labeling, a seven-day fill clock, employee-only delivery, and age verification, with ABV-based gallonage tax and separate POS bookkeeping to keep the channel profitable and audit-ready.
Florida SB 606 amends Statute § 509.214 effective July 1, 2026, requiring restaurants to disclose every mandatory operations charge—its amount and purpose—on menus and receipts before the order, on its own line separate from tax and tips. Includes the payroll treatment (service charges are wages, not tips), sales-tax exposure, and a chart-of-accounts setup to book each fee cleanly.
Illinois' Interchange Fee Prohibition Act bans swipe fees on the sales tax and gratuity portions of card transactions starting July 1, 2026 — the first US law of its kind. Learn how to prove tax and tips per transaction, choose between the real-time exemption and the 180-day rebate, and structure a chart of accounts that captures every dollar either way.
For wages paid on or after January 1, 2026, employers must report qualified tips in W-2 Box 12 Code TP and the Treasury Tipped Occupation Code in Box 14b, or tipped employees lose a deduction of up to $25,000 under section 224.
Under IRC Section 197, a liquor license is an intangible you must capitalize and amortize straight-line over 180 months starting the later of acquisition or opening month — no bonus depreciation, no shorter life, no half-month convention. Routine annual renewal fees paid to the state to maintain a license you already hold are generally deductible in the year paid. This guide covers what belongs in basis, the journal entries, Form 8594 allocation when you buy a bar, and five bookkeeping mistakes that misstate hospitality books.
