The majority of the cost of most entrées comes from the “protein” component – meat or fish. Chefs try to maintain a consistent portion size, usually based on weight. Despite consistent portions, the cost will fluctuate depending on the raw purchase cost and the butchering yield. Even if you don’t have recipes fully documented and costed for every menu item, as a bare minimum, you should know the portion cost of the protein component of every plate. Also, you need to track the number of portions in inventory at all times. This will allow you to identify major cost problems that may be occurring.
Archive for February, 2010
Make Butchered Inventory Perpetual
Posted in Accounting, Cost Control, Food Costs, Internal Controls, Theft, tagged Accounting, Cost Control, Food Costs, Internal Controls, Spoilage, Theft, Variance Analysis on February 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Cooking the Books
Posted in Accounting, Alcohol Costs, Cost Control, Food Costs, Sales Taxes, tagged Accounting, Food Costs, Liquor Costs, RST, Sales Taxes, Spoilage, Variance Analysis on February 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Rest assured, today’s post is not about tax evasion. But, it does have a very important implications. If your food recipes use any alcohol, it’s important to account for it properly.
Proper Accounting
Your food cost of sales should include all of the costs that are incurred in preparing the food menu items. Sometimes, restaurants forget to include the costs of liquor, wine and beer that are used in food dishes. Food costs are understated and alcohol costs are overstated. No big deal to the bottom-line, but it does affect the margins for each category, which are considered in your decision-making.
But there is a far more important reason.
POS for Thought
Posted in Accounting, Cost Control, Internal Controls, Labour Costs, tagged Accounting, Analysis, Cost Control, Internal Controls, Operations on February 14, 2010| 1 Comment »
I’ve purchased several POS systems for my restaurants over the years. As an accountant and restaurant owner, I think I can give you a bit of practical advice when it comes to implementing a POS system in your restaurant. I visited a few web sites to see whether this topic had been adequately covered and found that there are still a few useful things to say. This article fills in a few of the missing details you should know about.
Most advice is written by people associated with a particular POS developer or a firm that implements such systems. Do you think they might be biased? I do. Based on my experience and research, all of the leading POS systems have very similar capabilities. Many provide the usual management capabilities in the standard package. Others provide functions commonly employed in a basic bistro style operation, and require you to purchase additional modules, if needed, such as inventory control (ingredients), menu engineering (recipes and costing), labour scheduling and time control, reservations, delivery, pool table rentals, etc…
Counting Inventory a Waste of Time?
Posted in Alcohol Costs, Cost Control, Coupons, Customer Comps, Food Costs, Internal Controls, tagged Cost Control, Food Costs, Internal Controls, Over-pouring, Sales Mix, Spoilage, Theft, Variance Analysis on February 13, 2010| 3 Comments »
I’m sure all restaurant consultants and accountants advise their clients to count inventory regularly. Depending on how many menu items and ingredients in use, and how many times you count inventory, this simple procedure can represent a very significant time commitment. Let’s take a closer look at inventory counts and see whether they’re worth the time and effort.