Independent restaurant owners often do their own bookkeeping. Even if they hire a professional accountant at year’s end, they may save considerable money by handling the weekly tasks themselves.
Setting up a chart of accounts to fit the restaurant needs generally requires customizing the default choices of any accounting program. The selection of sales and cost of goods accounts on most systems does not provide for the separation of food and beverage categories that are needed.
Even the leading bookkeeping program for small business, accounting while it has a default selection for restaurants, fails to provide all of the accounts that most restaurant owners require. In addition, many of the expense accounts that are added are rarely used, leading to confusion during data entry, and don’t help with the overview of the business finances.
The National Restaurant Association publishes a book titled Uniform System of Accounts for Restaurants. The book provides detailed descriptions of the application of generally accepted accounting principles to the restaurant industry.
That book includes a sample chart of accounts, vpxco but notes that “the codes used here are not the only method for classifying the accounts”. It points out that most restaurants will not use all of the categories listed, and it also notably lacks breakdown of inventory and cost categories beyond “food” and “beverage”. Many restaurant owners want further separation of those categories to include sub-categories such as “meat”, “seafood”, and “produce”, and possibly “beer” and “wine” for beverage categories.
While many programs do not require the use of account numbers, the NRA book states that some type of account numbering system must be used. If your program is not showing account numbers, it should have an option on a set up screen to activate that feature.
Any account numbering system is generally grouped so that accounts of a particular type fall within a specific range of numbers. For example, buypsychedelicaustralia assets may be in the 1000 range, and income accounts in the 4000 range. On systems with many detail accounts, 5 digit numbers may be used to allow more sub-categories, but that is rarely needed for a small restaurant.
Typical number ranges that are used by many accounting systems are as follows:
Asset accounts: 1000-1999
Liability accounts: 2000-2999
Equity accounts: 3000-3999
Revenue accounts: 4000-4999
Cost of goods: 5000-5999
Expenses: 6000-8000
“Other” accounts: 8000-9999
Asset Accounts
Asset accounts include cash, bank accounts, inventory, and everything else that is owned.
It is common to assign the first account number, freepornoavis 1000, to Cash, since they are usually ordered, within each group, by liquidity (ease of converting to cash).
A separate account should be used in the chart of accounts for each bank account maintained for the business. If merchant deposits take a few days to reach the bank, a merchant account can be used. Also, if checks are accepted and not processed electronically, an account should be created for checks to be deposited.
New accounts are normally numbered 10 digits apart, so your first two bank accounts may use 1010 and 1020 as account numbers in the chart of accounts. Leaving gaps between the numbers makes it easy to add another account later and squeeze it in to the sort order in any position.
The asset accounts can be numbered as such:
- 1000 Cash
- 1010 Primary Bank Account
- 1020 Bank Account #2
- 1060 Merchant Deposit Account
- 1080 Checks Received
- 1100 Accounts Receivable
- 1200 Food foutatunisia Inventory
- 1210 Meat Inventory
- 1220 Poultry Inventory
- 1230 Seafood Inventory
- 1240 Dairy Inventory
- 1250 Produce Inventory
- 1260 Bakery Inventory
- 1270 Frozen Inventory
- 1280 Grocery Dry & Canned Inventory
- 1320 Beverage Inventory
- 1330 Liquor Inventory
- 1340 Beer Inventory
- 1350 Wine Inventory
- 1360 Merchandise Inventory
- 1380 Bar & Consumable Inventory
- 1400 Prepaid Expenses & Advances
- 1450 Recycle return value
Assets that have a lifespan of several years or more are referred to as Long Term Assets. This also includes any real estate. streetwear
- 1500 Fixed assets
- 1510 Land & Building
- 1520 Automobile
- 1530 Furniture Fixtures & Equipment
- 1540 Leasehold Improvements
- 1600 Accumulated Depreciation
- 1700 Capitalized Start Up Expenses
- 1800 Security Deposits
Liability Accounts
Liability accounts includes things like credit cards and payables to vendors. It also includes money that has been received for things like tax that is due to the state, tips due to the employees, and gift cards sold but not yet redeemed. Real estate loans and other major financing is sub-categorized as long-term liabilities.