2023 Example of Restaurant Chart of Accounts
Psst… skip ahead to the bottom of this article to download your free Restaurant Chart of Accounts Template!
So you decided to open up a restaurant.
Whether you are a veteran of the industry or a beginner, you now have your hands full. You have to manufacture and sell at the same time, and tied to the success is the quality of experience the customer receives.
From inventory management, to quality control, to people management, there are a lot of areas that require your attention on a daily basis.
And just like how your kitchen gets set up for service, you need your accounting to be set up appropriately.
While most softwares can handle your accounting needs, they don’t offer a specific chart of accounts that is useful for your business.
The good thing is you found us and we have a chart of accounts ready for you to use and import into Xero.
If you’re not using Xero, you can still use this file, but you’ll need to tweak it a bit to import into another software. If you are using QBO, we highly recommend that you read our articles or watch our videos on the 13 month calendar and Xero vs QBO for restaurants.
Feel free to expand on this template with new sub-accounts, especially in the food and beverage categories for your inventory, sales and cost of goods sold, as well as your Front of House (FOH) and Back of House (BOH) positions.
An Example of Restaurant Chart of Accounts
Here are normal items to include:
- Food
- Dairy
- Dry Goods
- Meat
- Produce
- Seafood
- Beverage
- Beer
- Liquor
- Mix & Garnish
- Non-alcoholic
- Wine
- FOH positions
- Bartender
- Bar Back
- Busser
- Headwaiter
- Server
- Supervisor
- Floor Manager
- BOH positions
- Dishwasher
- Expo
- Kitchen Manager
- Line cook
- Prep
- Sous Chef
- Supervisor
The way you set up your restaurant Chart of Accounts will depend on how you want to use your POS vs your financial statements.
If you will use your POS to analyze sales by category, then you don’t need a bunch of sub-accounts in your chart of accounts.
If you only want to go to one spot to review your financial data, then you need to have a detailed chart of accounts so when reviewing your sales and prime
costs so that you can see and analyze the food and beverage categories.
We generally recommend keeping your chart of accounts as simple as necessary, and keep the details in your POS.
Besides a good chart of accounts, and using Xero for your accounting, make sure you use a payroll provider like Gusto. Gusto will streamline your payroll process by importing approved hours from your time keeping software, paying employees via ACH direct deposit, and removing the stress of the employee onboarding process by inviting new employees to do their own payroll setup.
Oh, and Gusto integrates with Xero so all those FOH and BOH positions will
automatically post to their specific Xero general ledger account!
Download Your Restaurant Chart of Accounts Example:
You can download our Restaurant COA template here:
Do You Need a Better Restaurant Accountant?
Here at U-Nique Accounting, we do things different to other traditional accounts.
We help restaurant owners think outside the box, and streamline their restaurant accounting in a way that works for them (and works with the rest of their systems!)
We’ve saved our restaurant clients tens of thousands of dollars in taxes thanks to the R&D Tax Credit & FICA Tip Credit, that many traditional accountants don’t bother with.
If you’d like to chat to us about your restaurant or brewery business, we would love to help.
Simply book your free 15-minute call using this calendar.
Until next time!
