Toast says one number and the bank says another. DoorDash pays a week later, net of its cut. Our restaurant bookkeeping services tie every sale to a deposit and get tips right. We track prime cost, your food, drink and labor as a share of sales, every week. Your books close by the 10th, so you see what each location earned before the next order.
Weekly sales · 3 locations
Prime cost 61.8%
Certified on the platforms your business already runs on
A slow leak rarely looks like a mistake. It looks like a packed Friday that made no money. It can also be an IRS notice about tips, or an app that kept more than you agreed. Each one starts at the register and ends in the books.
Toast or Square closes the day at one total. The processor settles a day or two later, minus fees. Cash, voids and comps move the number in between.
What it costs you
A short till or a processor error hides for weeks, and no one can say which shift it came from.
DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub take commission, promo costs and refunds before they pay. The net deposit gets posted as sales.
What it costs you
Sales look smaller than they were, and an app that loses money on every order looks fine.
Card tips sit in the POS, cash tips in an envelope, and tip-outs in a spreadsheet. Payroll gets whatever someone types in.
What it costs you
Wrong payroll tax, upset servers, and a FICA tip credit that no one can support.
Invoices get paid when they show up, and inventory is counted once in a while. Food cost is only known once the month is long gone.
What it costs you
A price jump from your produce vendor runs for weeks before anyone notices.
Payroll runs on time, but hours and overtime are never set against the sales each shift brought in.
What it costs you
You can't tell a heavy Tuesday schedule from a lean Saturday, and prime cost creeps up.
Sysco or US Foods sends food, beer, paper goods and cleaning supplies on one invoice. It all lands in a single account.
What it costs you
Cost of goods is wrong by category, so menu prices and pour costs are guesses.
Dine-in, takeout, alcohol and delivery can each be taxed differently. In most states the apps collect and remit tax on their own orders.
What it costs you
You pay tax twice on app sales, or miss tax on the orders the app did not cover.
The new location shares the original bank account, payroll and ledger.
What it costs you
The strong site hides the weak one, and a lease renewal is signed without real numbers.
Gift cards and event deposits are booked as revenue the day they are sold, not the day they are used.
What it costs you
December looks better than it was, the cards you still owe are invisible, and January looks worse.
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One flat monthly rate covers every step below, for every location. There are no add-ons, and the price does not rise with covers or ticket count.
Each sale traced from the POS to the bank, by channel and by location.
The costs that decide whether a full dining room made money.
Tax owed tracked by channel, and each month closed one location at a time.
We log in to the POS, payroll and ledger you already use. Nothing moves, you buy no new software, and service runs the way it runs now.
Send a few details about your restaurant. We read how sales, deposits and invoices are posted today and flag each place the numbers drift. You get one flat monthly price to fix it and keep it fixed. The review is free, with no obligation.
Covered from day one
These three show up in restaurant books more than any others. One skews your menu prices. One skews your schedule. One makes a losing delivery app look worth keeping.
| The mistake | What it causes | How we handle it |
|---|---|---|
| 01Posting the deposit as the sale | What it causesCard fees, app commission, refunds and chargebacks disappear inside a net deposit. Sales look lower, and no channel shows its true cost. | How we handle itWe start from the POS and app reports. Gross sales and each fee post on their own lines, then tie back to the deposit. |
| 02Checking food cost once a quarter | What it causesBy the time a quarterly count shows food cost is up, a price rise or a waste problem has run for months. | How we handle itWe code each invoice by category as it arrives and send prime cost weekly. A two-point jump shows up within days. |
| 03Leaving tips to payroll | What it causesCard tips paid out in cash, pools no one wrote down and tips missing from payroll all create tax risk. They also weaken the tip credit claim. | How we handle itWe tie every tip from the register to payroll. Your CPA gets the records to claim the credit on Form 8846. |
Restaurant accounting services that stop at a monthly P&L can't tell you which shift or app lost money. We match every channel to the bank, and a second person reviews each close. The fee stays flat through the slow season and the busy one.
A P&L shows the month. The figures below show which lever to pull on the menu, the schedule or the apps.
Every month
Arrives with each close, in time for next week's order and schedule.
Measures: Food, drink and labor as % of sales
Why it matters: The number that decides whether a restaurant makes money. Many full-service rooms aim for about 60 to 65 percent.
Measures: Food, beer, wine and liquor vs sales
Why it matters: Shows where a plate cost or a pour cost has slipped, and which category is carrying the rest.
Measures: App sales less commission and promos
Why it matters: Tells you whether each app earns its spot, or whether menu prices on it need to rise.
Every year
Worked out at year end, ready for a lease talk or a loan.
Measures: Net sales by site, year over year
Why it matters: Separates a site that is growing from one riding a good summer. Know this before any lease talk.
Measures: Rent, CAM fees and property tax vs sales
Why it matters: CAM is the common area maintenance your landlord passes on. Rent plus CAM is the fixed cost that most often sinks a good concept.
Measures: Total tax as a share of profit
Why it matters: Confirms the tip credit and other items booked through the year actually reached the return.
Reconciling a bank account is the easy part. Bookkeeping for restaurants also means splitting a Grubhub statement and building prime cost by site. That takes restaurant accounting know-how. Here is where the two approaches part ways.
We start by reading your sales channels, not changing them. After that, the close lands on the same days every month.
Day 0
We spend 30 minutes on how you sell, pay and tip out. Then we open your POS and ledger to see how sales, app payouts and tips are posted.
Within a day of the call
The fee covers every location and sales channel. If back months need repair, that cleanup comes as a second, separate quote.
Day 2
Logins for the POS, delivery apps, payroll and ledger come over. Location classes and clearing accounts get set up before any sale is posted.
Days 3 to 14
We rebuild sales from POS reports, split app payouts, tie out tips and recode invoices. You start the first close from balances you can trust.
Every service night
Daily sales, app payouts and vendor invoices are coded as they come in. Prime cost goes out each week.
First 5 days
POS batches, apps, bank, cards and payroll are reconciled. Tips are tied out and the gift card balance is updated.
Before the 9th
A second reviewer checks the whole close. Inventory counts are priced, and food, drink and labor cost are checked by site.
No later than the 10th
You get a P&L, balance sheet and cash flow for every location. A short note says what changed and what needs your call.
After the first close, the four monthly steps repeat for every location.
We book these through the year as the invoices arrive. By tax season each one sits in the file with its invoice or payroll record behind it.
Kitchen equipment and smallwares on a depreciation schedule. Your CPA chooses Section 179 or bonus depreciation.
Employer Social Security and Medicare paid on tips, with the $5.15 wage test applied, recorded for your CPA.
Hood and grease trap cleaning, pest control, equipment service and dining room repairs.
Delivery app promotions, social ads, printed menus and local sponsorships.
POS plans, online ordering fees, reservation apps and scheduling tools like 7shifts.
Liquor license renewals, health permits, liability and workers' comp premiums.
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Whether each item applies, and how much, turns on your entity and how you run the room. We book it right. Your tax preparer decides how it is claimed.
Owners who moved their books to Twelix, on what changed afterward.
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Yes, we reconcile Toast, Square, Clover and SpotOn, even when different locations run different systems. Each site's sales are matched to its card batches and cash deposits. Voids, comps, discounts and gift card activity are noted along the way. A short till or a processor error is then caught while the money can still be recovered.
We tie every tip from the register to payroll, so what servers earned matches what payroll reported. Card tips, cash tips, pools and tip-outs are checked against your payroll provider. Staff report cash tips to you on Form 4070 or a similar record by the 10th of the next month. If tipping is customary and you normally have more than 10 employees on a typical day, you also file Form 8027 each year. We keep the records behind both.
Yes, every week, not once a quarter. Distributor invoices are coded into food, beer, wine, liquor and supplies as they arrive. Month-end counts are priced and booked. Food, drink and labor are then reported against sales as prime cost. A two-point rise caught in a week is a menu tweak. Caught in a quarter, it is a lost season.
You need the bookkeeping done every week, but you do not need to hire for it. Twelix runs it as a service: sales, tips, invoices and prime cost handled on fixed dates for one flat fee. Most owners also keep the CPA they have. We close the books each month, and your CPA handles tax planning and returns. At year end they get reconciled books with tip, inventory and equipment records attached.
Yes, each location runs as its own class or entity, then rolls up into a group view. Sales, cost of goods, labor and rent are tracked per site. You get a P&L and prime cost for every location each month. Sites compare on the same basis, and a struggling one stands out early.
Restaurant bookkeeping starts from POS and app reports, not the bank feed, because deposits arrive net of fees. It also tracks prime cost weekly, handles tip pools and tip credits, and holds gift cards as a liability. Regular bookkeeping posts deposits as income and reports once a month. That hides the costs a restaurant lives on.
Yes, QuickBooks Online works well for most independent restaurants once it has location classes and clearing accounts. The POS posts a daily sales summary into it. Each delivery app posts through its own clearing account. Larger groups often add Restaurant365 or MarginEdge for invoices and inventory. We work in QuickBooks, Xero or the stack you already run.
Record comps as a discount against sales and treat voids as never sold, so neither inflates revenue. The food cost of a comped plate stays in cost of goods. Staff meals are tracked apart from guest comps, since your CPA may treat them differently. We pull comp and void reports from the POS each month. A rising void count on one shift is worth a look.
Yes, from 2026 your W-2s must show qualified tips on their own, but tips still carry payroll tax. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act lets eligible workers deduct up to $25,000 of qualified tips for 2025 through 2028. Employers report those tips in Box 12 with code TP, and the worker's job in Box 14b. IRS guidance is still new, so confirm the details with your CPA and payroll provider. Our part is clean tip records that feed payroll correctly.
We book each order at its gross price, then post commission, promos, refunds and fees as separate costs. The source is the platform statement, not the deposit. Tax the app collected and remitted is kept apart from tax you owe. You then see a true margin for each app, which many owners have never had laid out.
A gift card is a liability when sold and becomes revenue only when a guest redeems it. That keeps December from looking better than it was. It also shows how much you still owe in unused cards. Breakage, the share of cards never redeemed, falls under ASC 606 and your state's unclaimed property law. Your CPA confirms how it is treated.
Our bookkeeping services for restaurants cost one flat monthly fee, set by your locations, sales channels, invoice volume and payroll size. It does not change with covers or the season. There is no setup fee, and the plan runs month to month. The price comes in writing within 24 hours of the free review call. Past months that need fixing get a separate cleanup quote.
Many restaurants run a side line: private events, a retail shelf, or the building itself. Each page below covers the books for that line.
Deposits held until the event, a P&L per event, and staff costs for off-site jobs.
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Sauces or merch sold on Shopify or Amazon, with sales tax by state and cost per unit.
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Rent paid to your own property LLC, with the building's books kept apart from the kitchen's.
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Job costs, work in progress and retainage, tracked by job.
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Insurance claims, deposits and job cost, tracked by roof.
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Insurance payments and patient balances, matched to the bank.
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Cost per mile, IFTA fuel tax and driver pay, tracked.
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Deferred revenue, MRR and R&D tax credit support.
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Billable hours, work in progress and retainer balances.
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Restricted funds, grant tracking and Form 990 prep.
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Crop cycles, equipment depreciation and subsidy income.
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Recurring memberships, class packs and failed payments.
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Revenue for each cohort, refunds and instructor pay.
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280E cost allocation and seed-to-sale reconciliation.
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Set up a 30-minute call at a time that avoids service. We walk through your POS, tips and invoices with you and point out what is off. A flat monthly price follows. Nothing starts until you say so.
Month to month. No setup fee. POS connected within 48 hours.
