Restaurant Accounting and Bookkeeping in Raleigh

Restaurant margins are measured in single digits, and the numbers that decide them, food cost, labor and sales tax, change every single day. A quarterly report tells you about a problem three months after it started. Restaurant bookkeeping done right tells you this week.

Accounting services for Raleigh restaurants

• Daily sales from your POS reconciled to card settlements and cash deposits
• Food and beverage cost tracked against sales
• Prime cost (food plus labor) reported every month
• Tipped payroll with tip reporting and the FICA tip credit
• NC sales tax and Wake County prepared food and beverage tax filed
• Vendor invoices and delivery platform fees reconciled
• Gift cards, deposits and catering tracked as what they are
• Business and owner tax returns from an Enrolled Agent

Prime cost: the one number to watch

Prime cost is your cost of goods sold plus total labor, including payroll taxes. It is the share of every sales dollar spent before rent, utilities or profit. Most full-service restaurants need it around 60 to 65 percent of sales to be healthy; quick-service and cafes often run lower. We report it monthly with the trend, so a creeping food cost or an overstaffed shift shows up while there is still time to fix it.

Restaurant payroll and tipped staff, done the way the IRS expects

Tips are wages for withholding purposes, employers owe FICA on them, and in return the employer earns a credit for the FICA paid on tips above minimum wage. Done right, the credit is real money back at tax time. Done wrong, it is the most common payroll notice a restaurant receives. Our payroll service runs reported tips through every payroll, calculates the credit, and handles the reporting.

Sales tax and the prepared food tax

A Raleigh restaurant collects North Carolina state sales tax, the Wake County local rate, and the Wake County prepared food and beverage tax, each reported on its own schedule. Because we reconcile sales daily, the amounts filed match what the POS recorded, which is exactly what an auditor checks first.

Cafes, food trucks, bars and full-service

The books for a food truck and a 120-seat restaurant differ in scale, not in kind. Both need daily sales reconciled, food cost watched, payroll right and sales tax filed on time. We set the chart of accounts up for your concept, connect to your POS and payroll systems where we can, and deliver a monthly report built around the questions a restaurant owner actually asks.

When the numbers have gotten away from you

Restaurants fall behind on payroll deposits and sales tax more than any other business we see, because the cash is there one week and gone the next. If notices have started arriving, James handles IRS and state tax resolution as an Enrolled Agent while we get the books current, so you can keep the doors open while it is sorted out.