Restaurant Accounting

Peculiarities of accounting in restaurants and cafes

Perhaps the main difficulty with restaurant accounting is that there are three parallel processes in one place that you need to keep track of: production, retail and service.

But it’s not all that complicated. The main thing is to differentiate your business type at the initial stage: small business – on the one hand, large – on the other hand. The choice of taxation system depends on it, and therefore, the further accounting.

Tax accounting in a restaurant

The taxation system depends on the category of the establishment. For example, if you have a coffee shop, a pizzeria or a cafe without selling excisable goods, it is best to keep records on a single tax 2 group of FLP in Ukraine, and in Russia on specialized tax regimes.

Special regimes in the Russian Federation are a simplified system (USN) or a patent. There are two types of simplified taxation system: “Income minus expenses” and “Income”. The “Income” simplified taxation system model is popular for small businesses.

Small business is organized in the form of IP (in Ukraine – FLP) or LLC. Here is the main difference in accounting: a limited liability company must maintain accounting, in addition to tax, and individual entrepreneurs do not necessarily do it, which greatly simplifies their lives.

If you are planning an institution with all the complexes, it is likely to be a general system of a legal entity.

More details about the selection of all the necessary documents for the first institution can be seen in our separate video lesson on this topic.

IP and FLP

Let’s start with an individual entrepreneur (if you open an institution in Russia). When you choose a UTII or patent, you should keep only tax records, namely the “Book of Income and Expenses of an Entrepreneur”, where you need to record only the amount of income. But your expenses under these regimes are not of any interest to the tax authorities at all.

Income is taken into account in these regimes by cash method: everything that comes to the current account from buyers is considered income, except in some cases – for example, when returning from a reporting person or from a supplier, when we have paid some amount of money, and then the supplier returns us the money because he could not perform the delivery, but it is not the buyers or guests, and other people with whom you cooperate.

In Ukraine, the cash method is usually used only for FLP on the general system, where you need to ensure that every month all the deliveries have been processed and paid for, otherwise the company loses costs and increases its profit tax.

As a result, the task of the entrepreneur, the restaurateur – to keep only the record of income, which is quite simple to do. You do not even need any specialized software, you just need to calculate the amount of bank statements and cash on hand.

LTD.

As for LLCs, they will also have to keep full accounting records here. Tax accounting is carried out, as well as for individual entrepreneurs (for Ukraine – FLP).

The main headache is the formation of accounting registers, or, as they are also called, “posting”. They should be done for each economic operation:

• have purchased goods from a supplier;
• sold goods;
• paid their salaries;
• paid taxes;
• calculate or charge taxes, etc.

For any fact of economic activity it is necessary to form registers and to reflect in the corresponding reports.

In addition, the balance sheet and the financial results report are also submitted. This report reflects the main business indicators as of December 31:

• Condition of assets: equipment for production and trade, furniture, etc.;
• how much money is in the balance, how much the buyers owe you;
• Liability information: debts and sources of income.

There is also such a notion as accounts receivable. Now let’s explain how it can arise by example.

Let’s say you have received something from a supplier, but have not paid it yet – this is what is reflected in the balance sheet liability. Or the founders paid some amount initially for the purchase of equipment, all of which is retained profit and loss.

Unfortunately for everyone, such reporting has no value for them. But you have to do it, because it is part of the accounting, and your business is a legal entity.

A separate recommendation from our partners to Finguru, whose advice we used when describing the choice of taxation system in Russia, is to choose an individual entrepreneur as an organizational and legal form for their establishment. This will significantly reduce your labor and time costs, especially if you do not want to hire an accountant or spend your time instead of developing your business.

Next, we will tell you how you can save on the services of an accountant and organize accounting, what form of taxation is better to choose for medium and large businesses.

If we have already dealt with the situation in Ukraine above and in a separate article “What documents are needed to open a restaurant”, then the choice of the right system in Russia.