Restaurants & Bars
Thin margins and high volume mean every dollar matters. We track food costs, reconcile your POS, handle tipped payroll, and keep sales tax current.
Busy Doesn't Mean Profitable
The restaurant is packed on a Friday night. Every table is turning. The bar is three deep. And at the end of the month, the owner is staring at the bank account wondering where it all went. That is the fundamental challenge of this business. Revenue comes in fast but it goes out just as quickly. Food deliveries, liquor orders, payroll every week, rent, insurance, equipment that breaks at the worst possible time. A restaurant can do a million dollars in annual sales and still barely clear five percent.
The difference between restaurants that survive and restaurants that grow is knowing the real numbers. Not just total sales from the POS but the actual cost behind every plate, every drink, and every hour on the clock. Without that visibility, you are making decisions based on how busy it feels instead of how profitable it actually is.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
Restaurants, bars, cafes, food trucks, catering operations, and brewery taprooms across the Tampa Bay area. Whether you run a single location or are working toward opening a second one, the financial challenges are similar.
Why It Gets Complicated
Why It Gets Complicated
High transaction volumes every day. Dozens of vendor invoices each week. Tipped employees with specific payroll rules. Perishable inventory that needs constant monitoring. Sales tax on every transaction. Delivery app payouts that settle on their own schedule. All of it hits at once and most of it cannot wait.
What We Track
We reconcile your POS system to your bank deposits so you know exactly what came in and what made it to the account. Credit card processing fees, tips paid out, voids, comps, and third-party delivery payouts all get recorded properly. This daily reconciliation catches discrepancies early instead of letting them pile up into a mess at month end.
Payroll for restaurants is not like payroll for an office. Tipped employees have different minimum wage calculations, tip credits, and overtime rules. Cash tips need to be reported. We handle all of this along with your tax deposits, quarterly filings, and year-end W-2s. Sales tax gets filed on time every period so you never fall behind with the state.
Food and Beverage Cost Tracking
Food and Beverage Cost Tracking
We track your cost of goods sold as a percentage of revenue. Vendor invoices get categorized and matched to your purchases so you can see exactly where your food cost sits each month. When that number creeps up, you know about it before it eats your margin.
Labor Cost Monitoring
Labor Cost Monitoring
Labor is your second biggest expense after food. We track it as a percentage of revenue so you can see staffing efficiency over time. If labor is running at 35% when your target is 30%, that five-point gap represents real money leaving the business every single week.
Where Money Disappears
Most restaurant owners know their food cost matters but few are tracking it with any real precision. Supplies get ordered based on what feels right. Invoices from vendors stack up and get paid without anyone checking whether prices changed from last month. A distributor bumps the price on chicken by 40 cents a pound and nobody catches it for three months. On a high-volume item, that adds up fast.
Cash handling is another blind spot. Between the register, the tip jar, and petty cash for small purchases, there are multiple places where money moves without documentation. It is not always theft. Sometimes it is just sloppy process. But without daily reconciliation and clear procedures, small discrepancies compound into real losses over time.
Payroll Mistakes with Tipped Employees
Payroll Mistakes with Tipped Employees
The rules around tipped wages, tip credits, and overtime for tipped workers are specific. Miscalculating these leads to underpayment claims or penalties from the Department of Labor. Many restaurants rely on their POS default settings without verifying the math, and that is a risk most owners do not realize they are carrying.
Sales Tax That Falls Behind
Sales Tax That Falls Behind
Florida requires sales tax on food and beverages. When things get busy, filing deadlines get missed or rough estimates get submitted instead of accurate numbers. The state charges penalties and interest on late or incorrect filings. Catching up later is always more expensive than staying current in the first place.
From Surviving to Knowing
You get financial reports that tell a real story. Food cost percentage, labor percentage, overhead as a share of revenue. These numbers show you whether your menu pricing works, whether your staffing model fits your sales volume, and where you can cut without hurting the operation. You stop guessing and start managing with actual information in front of you.
When it is time to apply for a loan, open a second location, or bring on an investor, you have organized books and accurate financial statements ready to go. Banks and lenders want to see that you understand the business beyond the kitchen. Clean financials demonstrate that, and they give you leverage in those conversations.
Menu and Pricing Decisions
Menu and Pricing Decisions
When you know what each dish actually costs to produce, you can price your menu with confidence. You can identify which items carry the best margin and which ones are losing money despite being popular. That changes how you build specials and how you train your servers to sell.
Confidence to Grow
Confidence to Grow
Opening a second location or renovating the one you have requires financial clarity. We provide the clean, current books and reports that lenders and investors need to see. You walk into those meetings with numbers that are ready, not numbers you had to scramble to pull together the week before.
Tampa Bay's Small Business CPA Firm
First Step:
A Short Conversation
Tell us about your business and where you need support. We'll walk through your situation, answer your questions, and give you a clear quote.
