#restaurant
Accounting solutions for restaurants and food businesses
A classic salted pretzel costs about $0.29 per unit once packaging and realistic yield are counted. This guide shows how to build per-batch recipe costing cards, hold a 28-35% blended food cost and 55-60% prime cost, book waste and samples honestly, and choose between a kiosk and a storefront with a break-even calculation instead of a gut feel.
The IRS finalized the No Tax on Tips regulations in April 2026 with a closed list of 71 qualifying occupations, a new W-2 Box 14b for up to two three-digit occupation codes, Box 12 code TP for qualified tips, and a voluntariness test that disqualifies automatic gratuities and POS flows with no zero option. Here is what tipped employers must change in payroll, point-of-sale and bookkeeping before 2026 forms go out.
A per-person tea charge is a service charge, not a tip — it is taxable revenue, and any share paid to staff is wages subject to withholding. This guide covers dim sum bookkeeping specifics: cart versus order-sheet labor tracking, prime cost at or below 60–65 percent, food cost of 28–33 percent, weekend labor per cover, and the cash controls a stamp-card room needs.
Since 1 July 2026 food, catering, and hairdressing in Ireland are taxed at 9% VAT instead of 13.5% — worth about €3.63 per €100 of sales if prices hold. Alcohol stays at 23% and accommodation at 13.5%, so this guide covers the pricing decision, till and tax-code updates, deposits that straddle the change, and how to split mixed bills correctly.
Pour cost is beverage COGS divided by beverage revenue — target 15-20% on spirits, 20-25% on draft, and 25-35% on wine by the glass. This guide covers how to compute usage and variance weekly, why a half-barrel keg yields about 112 pints instead of the theoretical 124, and how to split revenue, COGS, comps, and keg deposits so the leak is visible in the ledger.
Shift4 folded the $250-per-device Annual Program Fee and the $325-per-device Regulatory Assurance Fee (capped at $975) into one roughly $2,000 Annual Service and Maintenance Fee starting with August 2026 statements. Here is how to reconstruct your baseline, dispute it within the 30-day window, price the exit before switching, and book the charge as merchant account fees accrued at about $167 a month.
New York City's app-based delivery rules — a $22.13 hourly courier pay floor for pay periods beginning on or after April 1, 2026, tipping offered at checkout with a 10% suggested minimum, and weekly itemized payouts — change what a restaurant has to record. Book gross marketplace sales, itemize every platform fee, run tips through a liability account that ends at zero, and the January 1099-K reconciles itself.
Surveys put 64% of diners against restaurant surge pricing and 81% ready to avoid peak hours or leave entirely, while 75% will shift to an off-peak visit for an incentive — so discount the trough instead of taxing the peak, and track discounts, daypart P&L and delivery fees as separate lines.
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.
