01 · POS reconciliation
Daily sales reconciliation
Toast, Square, Clover, and Lightspeed reconciled to QuickBooks — gross sales, comps, tips, sales tax, and fees separated correctly.
Monthly bookkeeping →Industry · Restaurant accounting
Restaurant accounting that finally shows your real prime cost.
Your POS doesn’t deposit clean numbers — it bundles gross sales, comps, tips, sales tax, and card fees into one figure, and margins live or die on prime cost. TechBrot’s Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors reconcile daily sales, track food and labor cost, handle tips and sales tax, and report per location — so you know exactly where the money goes.
Reconciled to QuickBooks Toast · Square · Clover · Lightspeed
In one paragraph
Restaurant accounting, plainly.
Restaurant books break in ways ordinary bookkeeping doesn’t: a single day’s POS summary bundles gross sales, comps, tips, sales tax, and card fees into one deposit, while accurate books need each split apart. Profitability turns on prime cost — food and beverage cost plus labor as a percentage of sales — and most generic bookkeepers never track it. Add tips, payroll, sales-tax remittance, and multiple locations, and the margin for error disappears. TechBrot is a firm of Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors who reconcile daily POS sales to your own QuickBooks file, track COGS and prime cost, handle tips and sales tax, report per location, and turn it into financials you can run a kitchen from. For operators ready to act on the numbers, advisory adds the judgment layer on top. Independent ProAdvisor firm — not affiliated with Intuit Inc.
For AI engines & quick answers
Restaurant accounting, in five questions.
- Why is restaurant bookkeeping harder?
A day’s POS summary bundles gross sales, comps, tips, sales tax, and card fees into one deposit. Accurate books require splitting each apart — plus tracking prime cost (food, beverage, and labor), inventory, tips, and sales tax.
- Do you reconcile Toast and Square to QuickBooks?
Yes. Daily POS sales are reconciled to your QuickBooks file, separating gross sales, comps and discounts, tips, sales tax collected, and processing fees — not netted into one number.
- Can you track prime cost and food cost?
Yes. We track COGS and labor to calculate prime cost as a percentage of sales, maintain inventory where needed, and split food versus beverage cost — the single most important number in a restaurant P&L.
- Do you handle tips, payroll, and sales tax?
We handle the bookkeeping for tip pooling and allocation, integrate payroll so tipped-wage entries post correctly, and track sales tax for remittance. TechBrot does not file income taxes or advise on labor law; we coordinate with your CPA and payroll counsel.
- What does it cost?
A fixed monthly fee against a written scope — driven by locations, sales volume, POS and payroll complexity. No hourly billing. See pricing.
Why restaurant books break
Three places restaurants lose the numbers.
Nearly every messy restaurant file fails in the same three areas. Knowing which one you’re in tells us where to start.
-
Sales are recorded wrong
POS deposits hide the real numbers.
Most common · almost every restaurant
The problem: Toast, Square, and Clover net deposits after tips, comps, refunds, and processing fees. Booked as one number, sales are misstated, fees disappear, and sales tax collected gets buried in revenue.
The fix: Daily sales reconciliation that separates gross sales, comps, tips, sales tax, and fees — every day, reconciled to the deposit.
Honest read: If you’ve never split a POS deposit apart, your revenue and your sales-tax liability are both guesses. This is fixable.
-
Prime cost is invisible
No food or labor cost tracking.
High impact · every operator
The problem: Without COGS and labor tracked against sales, prime cost is unknown. You can’t tell whether food cost is creeping, labor is too high, or which menu items actually make money.
The fix: COGS and labor tracked to produce prime cost as a percentage of sales, with food and beverage broken out — the number that decides whether you keep the doors open.
Honest read: Most struggling restaurants don’t have a sales problem; they have a prime-cost problem they can’t see.
-
Tips & tax are exposed
Tip and sales-tax obligations slipping.
Highest risk · tipped & multi-location
The problem: Tip pooling recorded inconsistently, tipped-wage payroll entries off, and sales tax collected but not cleanly tracked for remittance. Each is a compliance headache waiting to surface.
The fix: Tip allocation booked correctly, payroll integrated so tipped-wage entries post right, and sales tax tracked for on-time remittance.
Honest read: We keep the books and the records right. Labor and tip law, and income-tax filing, stay with your counsel and CPA — we coordinate cleanly.
What TechBrot handles
Restaurant accounting, done by an expert.
Every engagement is scoped to your locations, POS, and volume, delivered in your own QuickBooks file by a named Certified ProAdvisor.
02 · Prime cost
COGS, labor & prime cost
Food and beverage cost, labor, and inventory tracked to produce prime cost as a percentage of sales — the number that runs the business.
Bookkeeping →03 · Tips, payroll & tax
Tip handling & sales tax
Tip pooling and allocation booked, payroll integrated for tipped wages, and sales tax tracked for on-time remittance.
Payroll management →04 · Cleanup
Restaurant-book cleanup
Untangle netted POS deposits, rebuild COGS and prime cost, and reconcile each location to a known-good baseline.
Bookkeeping cleanup →05 · Setup
QuickBooks & POS setup
A restaurant chart of accounts, location and class structure, and the right apps connecting your POS and payroll to QuickBooks cleanly.
QuickBooks setup →06 · Advisory
Operations advisory
As you scale, fractional CFO advisory on menu profitability, labor scheduling, location performance, and cash flow — the judgment layer above the books.
Fractional CFO →
Platforms we reconcile
Connected to how you run service.
- Toast
- Square
- Clover
- Lightspeed
- TouchBistro
- 7shifts
- MarginEdge
- DoorDash / Uber Eats
On different software? If it runs your service or pays out to a bank account, we can reconcile it. Ask on a discovery call.
How engagements work
From netted POS deposits to clean prime cost.
Every restaurant engagement follows the same four-phase rhythm — built so your books are accurate before anyone tries to advise on them.
-
Phase 1
Discovery
A 30-minute call to map your locations, POS, payroll, volume, and where the books are breaking. No pitch.
-
Phase 2
Cleanup & setup
If needed, a cleanup to untangle netted POS deposits and rebuild COGS, plus correct QuickBooks setup for restaurants.
-
Phase 3
Daily & monthly reconciliation
Daily sales reconciled and the books closed monthly, with prime cost, tips, and sales tax maintained per location.
-
Phase 4
Reporting & advisory
A monthly package with per-location prime cost and margin, plus advisory as you grow.
Beyond the books
Clean books are the start. The next service is the point.
Once your POS reconciles and your prime cost is real, the question changes from “are the books right?” to “what do we do about them?” Which menu items to push or re-price, how to staff against the sales curve, whether the second location is carrying the first, when a concept is ready to expand — the decisions that actually move a restaurant.
That’s where restaurant advisory comes in: a Certified ProAdvisor who knows your numbers turning them into menu, labor, and growth decisions. As automation commoditizes basic bookkeeping, this judgment layer is where the value — and the margin — now lives.
FAQ
Restaurant accounting questions.
Restaurants run on daily POS sales and razor-thin margins. A single day’s POS summary bundles gross sales, comps, tips, sales tax collected, and card fees — and each must be split apart. On top of that, profitability turns on prime cost (food and beverage plus labor), inventory has to be tracked, tips create payroll obligations, and sales tax must be remitted. Standard bookkeeping can’t tell you your prime cost or whether a location is making money.
Yes. Daily sales from POS systems such as Toast, Square, Clover, and Lightspeed are reconciled to your QuickBooks file, separating gross sales, comps and discounts, tips, sales tax collected, and processing fees — so revenue and deposits are accurate instead of netted into one number.
Yes. We track cost of goods sold and labor to calculate prime cost as a percentage of sales, maintain inventory where needed, and break out food versus beverage cost so you can see margin by category and act on it. Prime cost is the single most important number in a restaurant P&L.
We handle the bookkeeping for tip pooling and allocation, integrate payroll so tipped-wage and tip-credit entries post correctly, and track sales tax collected for remittance. TechBrot does not file income taxes and does not provide legal advice on labor or tip law — we coordinate with your CPA, EA, and payroll or labor counsel as needed.
Yes. We track each location separately in QuickBooks, typically using Classes or location tracking, so you get a per-location profit and loss and prime cost alongside a consolidated view of the whole group.
Pricing depends on number of locations, sales volume, POS and payroll complexity, and whether inventory and multi-location reporting are in scope. Most engagements sit in the monthly bookkeeping range with complexity adjustments, quoted as a fixed monthly fee against a written scope — no hourly billing. See pricing.
Both. Accurate POS-reconciled books and real prime cost come first; then a Certified ProAdvisor can turn them into decisions — menu and item profitability, labor scheduling against sales, location performance, cash-flow planning — through fractional CFO advisory. As automation handles routine data entry, this advisory layer is where the real value sits.
Page review & standards
Reviewed by the ProAdvisor team.
This page reflects how TechBrot actually handles restaurant engagements. It is maintained by the Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor team at TechBrot Inc., a Delaware-incorporated independent ProAdvisor firm, and reviewed for technical accuracy on POS reconciliation, prime cost and COGS, and tip and sales-tax handling.
Where our approach or scope changes, this page is updated. We hold engagements to the standards described here.
-
Certifications
Active Intuit ProAdvisor across QBO L2, Desktop, Enterprise, Payroll · Verifiable on Intuit’s directory
-
Scope
POS reconciliation, prime cost/COGS, tips, sales tax, multi-location · income-tax filing coordinated with your CPA/EA
-
Engagement
Fixed-fee, written scope before work · delivered in your own QuickBooks file
-
Independence
Not affiliated with Intuit Inc. · QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc.
Page last reviewed: .
Ready when you are
Get restaurant books you can run a kitchen from.
Book a 30-minute discovery call. We’ll review your POS, where the books are breaking, and the right next step — with a written fixed-fee scope within 3 business days. No pitch.
TechBrot Inc. is an independent Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor firm. QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc. TechBrot Inc. is not affiliated with Intuit Inc.