So-called ‘double-entry’ bookkeeping, coined by Medici family merchants in Renaissance Florence, has been displaced by the march of data processing technology. In short, it seems distinctly medieval now, to ‘cash out’ your till daily and tot up your takings with a pen. You need to automate these systems, particularly if you are looking to franchise restaurants.
A Point of Sale (POS) system is an essential prerequisite for accurate accounting for restaurants, as unlike your manager its ability to add up triple-digit numbers at the end of a long night shift is unaffected by mood, or by tiredness. Automating the process removes the potential for human error and forestalls the bookkeeper’s maybe siphoning off products while cashing up. Subscribing to a POS system can also detect employee theft, and as a preventive measure it can be programmed to require manager approval, or a certain level of seniority, in order to open the cash drawer. Rather than risk carrying around floats in sealable packets, keep a set level of cash in the till and tie out cash nightly to your reports. Deposit the cash stipulated in that day’s report to the bank, correct to the penny.
Your POS operating system should daily generate a sales summary, or report (if it does not, ask the manufacturer to programme this function for you), but you are still required to integrate and reconcile reports with the monthly account-keeping. Again, to avoid human error through time-consuming data entry, ensure your system’s daily sales reports are importable into Excel, or whichever alternative bookkeeping application you use.
And, which is less straightforward, recognise that credit card payments from different operators – American Express vs Mastercard – will likely be transferred through distinct payment lines, so you should create distinct categories in your daily sales report, rather than grouping all these payments under ‘credit card’. The label ‘comps’ can encompass all voucher purchases, and ‘cheque’ similarly has no sub-categories.
It is good practice to set up a separate payroll bank account, and to keep detailed records of how wages are distributed. In your accounts, ‘payroll expenses’ should be broken down into a minimum of ‘gross pay’, ‘employee payroll liabilities’ and ‘employer taxes’. Out-sourcing payroll is a useful way of relieving your line manager of the responsibility of verifying time-sheets, calculating overtime pay and account transfers, and payroll data should again be automatically imported into your accounts, rather than entered by hand.
If you have difficulty integrating your POS system with your bookkeeping program or application, or personalizing your sales reports, do not be afraid to phone the manufacturer and ask for their help. There is no use letting the technology operate at half-capacity; you need to deploy all its functions.
