Chapter 1 QuickBooks for Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Many restaurants can use QuickBooks very effectively for their back office work and for purchasing, bill paying, and payroll. The methods presented here will provide you with what we feel are the most efficient ways of handling the needs of a typical restaurant. This example assumes the restaurant has one or more cash registers or a Point of Sale (POS) system that rings up each sale during the business day and tracks sales by server. At the end of each day, a sales journal will be created with the summary information from the cash register or POS system. This section uses Academy Restaurant2003.QBW Chart of Accounts See the sample Chart of Accounts shown in Figure 1-1. This example shows a few accounts that will be critical in tracking and handling your restaurant setup. The Tips Holding account will be used to hold cash paid out to servers each night after the end of their shift. It will not be a true bank account, but instead a drawer or safe on the premises with enough cash to pay out tips collected from customers that pay by credit card. Periodically, the manager of the restaurant should replenish the cash in this drawer so that is always enough cash on hand to pay tips to the servers.
Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Add these accounts for the typical restaurant setup. Figure 1-1 Restaurant Chart of Accounts The Gift Certificate account is used to track gift certificates sold, and redeemed. We recommend breaking down the income and Cost of Goods Sold accounts as shown in Figure 1-1. You could add additional subaccounts if you want more detail, but this chart should be sufficient for most restaurants. Items for Restaurants The item list for the typical restaurant is shown in Figure 1-2. Set up Discount items for each discount type you track. Figure 1-2 Item list for restaurants 2 Restaurants
Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Service Items Set up items for each different type of sale that is tracked on your cash register. If the register has more buttons to track more detail, you can add more service items to track each of those items. Figure 1-3 Food Sales Item Figure 1-4 Bar Sales Item Discount Items For each type of discount or complimentary service, set up a discount item as shown in Figure 1-5. Figure 1-5 Discount item for recording discounts and complimentary service Other Charge Items Create Other Charge items for Cash Over/Short and for tips paid out to servers each day as shown in Figure 1-6 and Figure 1-7. Restaurants 3
Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Figure 1-6 Over/Short Expense Item The Tips Paid Out item is used to track payments to servers from the Tips Holding account. This is used to pay servers when tips are collected from customers who pay by credit card. Figure 1-7 Tips Paid Out item Figure 1-8 Amex payment item for recording sales paid by Amex 4 Restaurants
Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Figure 1-9 Cash/Checks Received Item to record receipts of checks and cash Create Payment items to represent payments received by each type. Since Visa and Mastercard is deposited together, you only need one item. The same is true for Checks and Cash. Figure 1-10 VISA/MC payment item to record payments received on Visa and Mastercard This special sales tax item is needed to allow you to enter the sales tax directly on the face of the daily sales forms. This item is used at the bottom of the forms. Figure 1-11 Sales Tax Item for zero tax used at the bottom of daily sales forms. Inventory Considerations Restaurants should not use QuickBooks to track inventory. For more information on who should not use Inventory and why, see The Sleeter Group s Consultant s Reference Guide. We recommend taking periodic physical Inventory and using Journal Entries to manually adjust the value of Inventory, offsetting the appropriate COGS account. Restaurants 5
Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Setting up the Rep list for each Server Set up a Rep in the Sales Rep list for each of your servers (or other tip-earning employee). To set up Sales reps, follow these steps: Step 1. Step 2. From the Lists menu, select Customer & Vendor Profile Lists, and then select Sales Rep List. Then, from the Sales Rep menu at the bottom of the list, select New. Figure 1-12 Editing a sales rep in the sales rep list. Step 3. Enter the Sales Rep name in the Sales Rep Name field. If you haven t already set this person up in the Employee list, you can Quick Add the name and then go back and fill in the details later. Step 4. Enter the Sales Rep initials and click OK (see Figure 1-12). Setting up Customers and Custom Fields For the restaurant setup, you ll only need to add one customer, but you ll add several custom fields to help you track more information about each day s sales. Follow these steps: Step 1. Select Customer:Job from the lists menu. Step 2. Step 3. Select New from the Customer:Job menu at the bottom of the list. Enter All Customers in the customer name field and then click the Additional Info tab and click Define Fields. Figure 1-13 Define Fields window for Customer records 6 Restaurants
Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Step 4. Enter the text in the Label column and check the Customer:Job field in the first three rows of the Define Fields screen as shown in Figure 1-13. Then click OK. Figure 1-14 New customer record Step 5. Step 6. Select the N/A item from the Tax Item drop-down list. Make sure your screen looks like the one in Figure 1-14. Then click OK. Sales Forms Setup In order to record your daily sales from the cash register or POS system each day, you ll need to create a special sales receipt form. Follow these steps: Step 1. From the lists menu, select Templates. Step 2. Step 3. From the Templates menu at the bottom of the list, select New. Then select Sales Receipt. Enter Restaurant Daily Sales in the Template Name field, and edit the Titles and checkmarks as shown in Figure 1-15 through Figure 1-17. Figure 1-15 Restaurant Daily Sales Receipt setup - Header Restaurants 7
Restaurants Setting up QuickBooks for Restaurants Figure 1-16 Restaurant Daily Sales Receipt setup - Fields Figure 1-17 Restaurant Daily Sales Receipt setup - Columns Step 4. After you ve configured all the screens in the sales receipt template, click OK. Setting up Payroll for Restaurants QuickBooks is very well suited for most of the needs of small restaurants with fewer than 50 employees. In this section, you ll set up the special payroll items needed in restaurants. In addition to these setup steps, you should go through the complete payroll setup as discussed in The Consultant s Reference Guide. Set up Payroll Items for Restaurants Step 1. Step 2. From the lists menu select Payroll Items. Create Hourly Wage items for the following: 8 Restaurants
Restaurants Recording Daily Sales Step 3. Step 4. Chef Cook erver Bus Person Manager Host Person Create an Addition Item called Tips Addition. Set the Account to Gross Wages. Set the tax tracking type to Reported Tips. Create a Deduction Item called Tips Deduction. Set the Liability Account to Gross Wages. Set the tax tracking type to None. Set the Gross vs. Net to Net Pay. Set up Employees Set up your employees in the Employee list. If you plan to track hours for employees, and pay them based on hours worked, mark the Use Time Data to Create Paychecks field on each employee record as shown in Figure 1-18. To create paychecks based on hours worked, check this field. Figure 1-18 Edit Employee window showing Use time data to create paychecks. Recording Daily Sales To record the daily sales from your cash register (or POS system), use a sales receipt with the template you created earlier. Entering Daily Sales by Server At the end of each business day, zero out the cash register, and record the (z-totals) on a QuickBooks sales receipt. In order to track sales and tips separately for each server, create a separate sales receipt for each server s daily totals. Follow these steps: Step 1. From the Customers menu, select Enter Sales Receipt. Step 2. Enter All Customers in the Customer name field and press Tab. Step 3. Continue entering the daily sales information as shown in Figure 1-19. Note the following about the daily sales receipt form: Restaurants 9
Restaurants Recording Daily Sales Enter a different sales receipt for the total sales for each server, each day. Enter the server name, the weekday, the total count (number of guests), the number of To Go orders, and the average ticket at the top of the column section. Enter the total sales of each service item, followed by a subtotal, then the sales tax collected (per the cash register), and then enter the different payment types. The sales receipt must always total to zero at the bottom. This provides a proof that total sales balances with the total collections. If there is a balance at the bottom, use the Over/Short item to force the transaction to zero out. Notice that sales tax is entered directly on the face of the sales receipt, and the Tax field at the bottom is set to N/A. Figure 1-19 Daily Sales totals recorded on a sales receipt. Bank Deposits After recording the daily sales receipts for each server, the Undeposited Funds account will have a balance. The balance must be transferred into the bank account so that the bank reconciliation will match with each day s transactions. Depositing Checks and Cash To deposit the checks and cash, follow these steps: Step 1. From the Banking menu, select Make Deposit. 10 Restaurants
Restaurants Recording Daily Sales Figure 1-20 Payments to deposit window. Step 2. Select each of the transactions labeled Cash in the Pmt Meth column, and click OK. This groups all of the checks and cash received into one total deposit. Figure 1-21 A deposit of checks and cash. Step 3. Step 4. If you hold cash out of the deposit, for example for the Tips Holding account, you can enter the account in the Cash back goes to field and enter the amount held back in the Cash back amount field. Click Save & Close to record the deposit. Depositing Credit Card Receipts To record the deposit of credit card receipts, follow these steps: Step 1. From the Banking menu, select Make Deposit. Restaurants 11
Restaurants Recording Daily Sales Figure 1-22 The Payments to Deposit screen with all Amex receipts checked. Step 2. Step 3. Select each of the transactions labeled American Express in the Pmt Meth column, and click OK. This groups all of the American Express receipts into one total deposit. On the Make Deposits screen, enter a line at the bottom using the Credit Card Discount fees account. Use Quick Math to calculate the discount. Enter the total of the deposit, then press the * key. This brings up the Quick Math calculator. Then enter -.02 (if you have a 2% discount) and press enter. Figure 1-23 Make Deposits screen recording a discount fee using Quick Math. Step 4. Step 5. After recording the credit card discount fee, click Save & Close to record the deposit. Repeat the steps for making deposits to record the Visa and Mastercard receipts. 12 Restaurants
Handling Tips In Restaurants Restaurants Handling Tips In Restaurants Tracking and Reporting Tips Received by Credit Cards When tips are received on credit cards, and paid out of cash on hand directly to the servers, record this on the daily sales entry as shown in the transactions above. Then on pay day, add the tips information onto the employee s paychecks. Follow these steps: Step 1. Create a Sales by Rep report, filtered for the Tips Paid item as shown in Figure 1-27. Step 2. From the Employees menu, select Pay employees. Step 3. Add the amount of tips paid onto each employee s paychecks. Enter the same amount in two places on the paychecks. Once in the addition item called Tips Addition, and again on the Deduction item called Tips Deduction. This ensures that the tips paid to employees will be taxed, and that the tips will be reported on their W-2. Reports for Restaurants To see reports for your restaurant, create the following reports: Sales by Item Report To view total sales for each item, create a Sales by Item Summary report as shown in Figure 1-24 Figure 1-24 Sales by Item summary. Restaurants 13
Restaurants Reports for Restaurants Sales Detail by Server Report To see a report of all the sales details by server, create a Sale by Rep detail report, and add the custom field columns as shown in Figure 1-25. Figure 1-25 Sales Detail by Server report. Tips Paid Reports To see how much was paid out for tips to each server by day, create a Sales by Rep Detail report, filtered for the Tips Paid Out item as shown in Figure 1-26. Figure 1-26 Tips Paid Out - by Day by Server Report. To create the same report, but with totals only, create a Sales by Rep Summary report, filtered for the Tips Paid Out item as shown in Figure 1-27. 14 Restaurants
Restaurants Reports for Restaurants Figure 1-27 Tips Paid Out - Total by Server report. Other Resources Several references were consulted in the preparation of this chapter. For further information about restaurants and accounting, consult these web pages. http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/content/0,,id=98720,00.html Restaurants 15