Tavern chart of account.

Here is my streamlined approach to using QuickBooks for restaurant/food establishments:

I start with a simple chart of accounts and edit/add detail when needed.

_Post your Daily Sales (substitute monthly here) using the figures from your register reports and cc settlement reports. (see below)

_Post your purchases to Cost of Goods Sold, using Write Check, or Enter Credit Card Charge, depending on how you paid for the purchase.

_Periodically (annually, quarterly, or monthly), do an inventory adjustment to reflect current value on hand.

For a restaurant/food service business, I do not suggest that you track individual items or costs in QuickBooks. It would be extremely cumbersome.

This method is streamlined and will give you good tracking for your business - with numbers that your accountant will be able to use for taxes. . . and a good overview of your business activity for evaluating and setting future goals.

Periodically, you will need to do some calculations to help you with pricing, but, for the most part, your bookkeeping should be simple enough that you can move on to the business at hand, which is serving your customers!!

___________Daily Sales (substitute monthly here) Procedure: _______________

If you can get good end-of-day reports from your register/POS system, I would suggest creating a Daily Sales Summary to post the totals from your z-out tape.

Use one item for total sales (or multiple, if you want the detail in QuickBooks) - use Sales Income as the account.

Create Other charge type items for the various sales tax collected (pointing all to a liability account called Sales tax payable). Make sure that your file preferences say that you 'don't collect sales tax' because you won't use the internal sales tax platform that QuickBooks provides.

Also, create payment type items for the totals on your settlement summary report from your credit card machine, pointing them to a Sales Clearing account.

Then, post the total amount of deposits (inc. cc charges) which cleared the bank, using Make Deposit and the Sales clearing account as the 'from account'.

This is just a general overview. You will need to develop a system that works best for you.

I hope this helps,

Laura D

should I add cash sales and charge sales in total sales? I have a company processes the charges and direct deposit them in my bank account. I also borrow money from this company So how can I handle different traction from one  company?

Follow the above procedures.

For each day's totals, use a payment type linked to your checking account to post the direct deposit of the cc charges.

For the loan from this company, set up a current liability account and post the draws/payments/adjustments.

If this loan is tied to your credit card receipts, you would have to set it up differently.

Basically, follow the money.

However, it might take some thinking to set it up well.

Laura D

Hi Laura, thanks for your help. Yes the loan is paid out of the receipts. Also there are tips on the receipts that I feel should be taken out of the deposits, that I paid when the charge was made out of the register. Thanks again

OK - this is what I would do -

Forget the tip issue - that is nothing you have to worry about.  The tips paid by credit card, but paid to the server in cash, merely reduce the ending cash.

As for the credit card payments and agreement with the loan. . .this is where it gets tricky.

First of all, make sure that your loan balance is put on the books in the Chart of accounts.

Then, in your Daily Sales Summary, post the cc payment type using a current asset account called Credit Card Receivables.

Then, when you post the deposit to the bank, you will post the total cc receivable, minus the loan payment and minus the interest expense on separate lines.

You can do this daily, or monthly - depending on how the money flows (in real life) and the agreement/statement from your loan holder.

I hope this helps.  If you need more personal help, I suggest that you use FindAProAdvisor.com for someone local. . .or, contact me through my website.

Laura D