Gross margin by week, because a month is too late.
Hospitality margins are thin and the numbers move daily: food cost, labour, tips, deposits, no-shows. The accounting has to be fast and it has to be honest. We close weekly on the numbers that matter and monthly on the rest.
Four mistakes we fix in the first month.
Food cost known only at year end
Without regular stock counts and a purchases-to-sales ratio, gross margin is invisible until the accountant tells you it was too low.
Tips and tronc handled wrongly
UK tronc schemes, US tip reporting and UAE service charge rules each have specific tax treatment. Mistakes are a payroll liability.
Deposits and gift cards booked as sales
Money received for future service is a liability until the service happens.
VAT on mixed supplies
Hot food, cold takeaway, alcohol, delivery and eat-in can carry different VAT rates. Till setup decides whether the return is right.
Built for the sector, not adapted to it.
- Weekly flash report: sales, food and beverage cost, labour percentage, cash
- Stock count integration and gross margin by category
- Tips, tronc and service charge processed correctly through payroll
- Deposits, vouchers and gift cards as liabilities until redeemed
- VAT and sales tax by product type, configured in the till
- Cash flow forecast for seasonal trade and rent quarters
Usually these.
In roughly this order of importance for restaurants & hospitality.
Bookkeeping
Reconciled monthly on Xero or QuickBooks, so the numbers are real before you look at them.
Payroll
UK PAYE, UAE WPS and US federal and state payroll, run to the day with every filing that goes with it.
VAT Returns & Compliance
UK and UAE VAT registration, returns and scheme selection, filed digitally and on time.
Management Accounts & Reporting
Monthly P&L, balance sheet and cash with commentary you can act on, not a PDF you file away.
Cash Flow Forecasting & Budgeting
13-week cash forecasts and annual budgets that tell you the runway before the bank does.
Year-End Accounts & Statutory Filings
Annual accounts prepared and filed with the registrar and the tax authority, on time, every year.
Can you work from our POS data?
Yes. Square, Toast, Lightspeed and most UK and UAE POS systems export daily sales by category, which we reconcile to bank and card settlements.
How should tips be handled in the UK?
Since October 2024 the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act requires tips to be passed to staff in full. A properly run tronc can distribute them without employer National Insurance. We set up and run the tronc through payroll.
Talk to someone who has done hospitality books before.
Thirty minutes, no pitch deck. Tell us the entities and the countries, and we will tell you honestly what applies and what it costs.