Restaurant owners need to have a strong, trusting relationship with their bookkeepers and accountants. This teamwork helps keep the business profitable, running smoothly, and prepared for any IRS checks (or at least calm if they happen).
Good communication is essential, but it’s not always easy. Restaurant owners often work long, unusual hours and don’t have much time to sit down and go over financial details every week. Small problems can grow into bigger ones if they’re not talked about and addressed early on.
To keep the relationship healthy, it’s important to understand what’s bothering the other person. Knowing the challenges you’re facing is the first step to fixing them and making things better. Here are four simple ways restaurant owners can support their bookkeepers and accounting teams.
Four simple ways restaurant owners can make things easier for their bookkeepers and accounting teams:
1. Make it quick and easy to send invoices to accounting.
2. Use yourPOS system to keep track of everything.
3. Avoid waiting until the end of the month to submit invoices.
4.Keep all important information in one central place.
1. Make it quick and easy to send invoices to accounting.
Invoices are key to knowing if your restaurant is making money, so don’t just pile them on a desk! You can manage them better with automated invoice software or, if you’re not ready for new tech, by sending invoices to multiple people to review.
How automated invoice software helps:
- It sends invoices straight to your accounting system without manual typing (just quick checks).
- It makes digital copies for easy reference during audits or disputes.
- Some tools even have mobile apps so your team can upload invoices the second they arrive.
Change can feel scary—especially if you’ve done things the same way for years. But running a restaurant profitably today isn’t the same as it was decades ago. Modern tools save time (no more endless paperwork!), and with AI improving things further, tech is becoming a helper, not a hassle. Start small, and you’ll see the difference!
2. Use your POS system to keep track of everything.
Using your POS system for everything—like petty cash, third-party delivery orders, and gift cards—helps your bookkeeper a lot. It keeps all your data in one place and creates clear transactions that can be matched with receipts or invoices.For example, when you upload that receipt from 7-Eleven because you ran out of 2%, the petty cash reimbursement will be clearly marked as paid. This stops unclear receipts or old transactions from weeks ago that nobody can explain.
If you use a restaurant management system that links your POS to your accounting software, it’s even easier because there’s no manual data entry. It also helps you check daily credit card and cash deposits against your bank statements, so you can keep better control of your cash.
3. Avoid waiting until the end of the month to submit invoices.
You know how chaotic it gets when the kitchen is slammed and servers send all their order sat once instead of spacing them out between appetizers and main dishes? Your kitchen team hates that, right? Well, bookkeepers feel the same way about invoices!
Just like spacing orders keeps the kitchen calm, sending invoices as you receive them keeps your bookkeeper happy and helps you stay on top of finances. Instead of dumping 50-100 invoices on them last-minute, spreading them out lets your bookkeeper stay organized. Plus, depending on your setup, you might even track spending mid-month and adjust before things spiral—like catching a sudden egg price hike early so your omelet costs don’t hit 45%.
Automation makes this even smoother! With real-time invoice tracking, your bookkeeper, accountant, and you can monitor daily profits and expenses. No surprises, just control.
4. Keep all important information in one central place.
This issue combines several of the challenges mentioned earlier, but it’s important enough to discuss separately. Not having a single, reliable source of information creates problems not just for your bookkeeper but also for you and your entire team.
How often have you had to double or triple-check numbers because the figures in your Excel sheet don’t match what your bookkeeper has? They end up searching for the invoice (if it’s not missing altogether), the books don’t balance, and it becomes a frustrating mess for everyone when the numbers don’t align.
That’s why having one central place where both you and your bookkeeper or accounting team can access information is essential.The simplest solution is to use a cloud-based Restaurant Management System or invoice processing tool. These systems capture invoice images (from photos, scans, or emails) and store them digitally.
UsingAI, line item details from invoices are automatically extracted, eliminating errors from manual data entry. And since AI isn’t perfect, Costflows combines AI with human oversight to ensure the data is accurate while still saving time.
Although this list doesn’t cover everything, it aimsto clarify the relationship between operators and bookkeepers and offers ways to make their work more enjoyable, engaging, and less stressful. The key is reducing the workload for both teams, and an automated system is usually the best solution.
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