How it runs for restaurants and hospitality businesses
Every deposit is tied to a Z-report or platform statement, liabilities for tips, sales tax and gift cards are rebuilt at each month-end, and food and beverage cost is reconstructed from vendor statements. You end up with a clean opening balance and a short list of open items.
What is catch-up bookkeeping?
Catch-up bookkeeping is a one-time project that records and reconciles months or years of transactions that were never entered. The goal is a set of books where every bank, card and loan balance agrees with the statement and every period can be reported on. It ends when the backlog is current and reconciled, usually followed by ongoing monthly bookkeeping.
What we handle for restaurants and hospitality businesses
- Rebuild daily sales by location and category from POS history month by month
- Tie every historical deposit to a Z-report, card batch or platform statement net of fees
- Reconstruct tip, sales tax and gift-card liabilities at each month-end
- Rebuild food, beverage and supply cost from vendor statements and payment history
- Hand over a reconciled opening balance and a year-end file for your CPA
The KPI that matters here
Every back month reconciled and reviewed, with tip, sales tax and gift-card liabilities quantified at handover.
Restaurants compliance notes
Tip reporting and tip credits
Employees must report cash and card tips to the employer, the employer withholds payroll taxes on reported tips, and large food and beverage establishments file Form 8027 annually. Where the restaurant takes a tip credit against minimum wage under the FLSA, the wage records must show that tips brought each employee to the full minimum. We reconcile POS tips to payroll and keep the workpapers; your payroll provider and CPA handle filings.
Sales tax and local meal taxes
Restaurant sales are taxable in most US states, many cities and counties add a meal or hospitality tax, and rules differ for catering, delivery, alcohol and service charges. We reconcile tax collected in the POS to the ledger by jurisdiction each month, prepare the workings for your filing, and flag rate changes or new locations so nothing is missed.
Daily cash and deposit controls
Cash-heavy service creates the need for a daily cash count, a deposit log and a documented over-and-short account. We reconcile the counted cash per shift to the POS cash tender, match deposits to the log, and report over-and-short by location and manager so problems surface within days rather than at year-end.
Alcohol, franchise and lease reporting
Liquor license reporting, franchisor royalty and marketing-fund reports based on gross sales, and percentage-rent clauses in leases all depend on POS sales figures that tie to the ledger. We prepare the sales schedules these reports need from reconciled numbers and keep the supporting Z-reports on file.
Restaurants software we work in
- Square
- QuickBooks Online
- Xero
- Gusto
- Bill.com
- Toast
- Restaurant365
- MarginEdge
- 7shifts
- All 50 platforms
More for restaurants and hospitality businesses
Other services for restaurants
Catch-up bookkeeping in other industries
Frequently asked questions
What records do you need for a restaurant catch-up?
Bank, card and loan statements; POS sales history exported by day, category and tender; card processor statements; delivery-platform statements; deposit logs if they exist; payroll registers with tip reports; vendor statements from your main distributors; sales-tax filings already made; and lease agreements. We list what is missing after the first review and reconstruct what we can from the sources that exist.
Will a catch-up change my reported sales and income?
It usually does, because an uncategorized bank feed treats net deposits as sales, so tips, sales tax and processing fees are all mixed into revenue, and delivery commissions disappear. Rebuilding from POS history produces sales that tie to Z-reports, liabilities stated correctly and costs in the right month. How any change affects returns already filed is your CPA's call; we supply the reconciled numbers.
How long does a restaurant catch-up take?
It depends on the number of months, locations, tenders and platforms, and on whether POS history and processor statements are still available. A single location on one POS with statements on hand moves quickly; a group that changed POS systems midway or lost deposit logs takes longer. After a first look at your data we scope it as a fixed project and report progress weekly.
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