Restaurant bookkeeping that keeps up with service
Restaurants take in money in more ways than most businesses: cash in the drawer, card batches, online orders, catering invoices and payouts from several delivery apps, each with its own fees and timing. Without regular restaurant bookkeeping, those streams drift apart, and the first sign is usually a sales tax return that doesn’t match the bank or a tax bill that doesn’t match how the year felt.
We work with restaurants, cafés, bakeries and other food businesses in New Jersey. One dedicated specialist keeps your books in QuickBooks Online, reconciles every source of sales to your deposits, and keeps sales tax and payroll consistent with the same figures.
What our restaurant bookkeeping services include
POS, card and delivery app reconciliation
Each month we take the sales summary from your POS and split it into food, beverage and alcohol sales, sales tax collected, tips and payment types. Card processor and delivery app payouts are recorded at their gross amount, with commissions, processing fees and refunds as separate expenses, so your reports show real sales and real costs. Every bank and credit card account is reconciled as part of our monthly bookkeeping.
Food, beverage and labor costs
Supplier invoices are coded by category so you can see food cost, beverage cost and paper goods separately. Combined with payroll, that gives you the numbers most owners watch closest: food and labor as a share of sales, month by month.
Sales tax on prepared food
New Jersey taxes prepared food and beverages sold by restaurants at the state sales tax rate of 6.625%, whether the customer eats in or takes out. Delivery charges billed by the restaurant are part of the taxable price. Tips are not taxable when they are separately stated, designated as a tip and paid in full to employees. A service charge the business keeps is a different matter. We prepare your New Jersey sales tax returns from reconciled sales, and check how orders placed through delivery apps are handled so tax is neither missed nor paid twice.
Tips and payroll
Tips create their own paperwork. Under IRS tip reporting rules, employees who receive $20 or more in tips in a month report them to the employer by the 10th of the following month, and the employer withholds taxes on reported tips. Larger establishments, those that normally had more than 10 employees on a typical business day in the prior year, also file Form 8027 each year. We set up payroll so tips and wages post to the right accounts, with payroll filings available on request.
Year-end return and the tip credit
At year-end we prepare your business tax return, federal and New Jersey, from the books we have kept. For restaurants where tipping is customary, we review whether you can claim the FICA tip credit on Form 8846, a credit for the employer’s share of Social Security and Medicare taxes paid on certain employee tips.
When the books are already behind
Many owners come to us after a busy stretch when the books were left for later. If QuickBooks is full of uncategorized deposits and duplicate app payouts, a QuickBooks cleanup fixes it. If months were never recorded, catch-up bookkeeping rebuilds them from statements and POS reports. Monthly work then starts from a clean base. If you use outside contractors such as cleaning crews or repair technicians, we also prepare 1099s at year-end.
Opening a new place or adding a second location? Tax planning before year-end looks at timing of equipment purchases and whether your entity type still fits.
How we work with restaurant owners
- Free consultation. A 15–30 minute call or a visit to your restaurant outside service hours.
- Fee agreed upfront. Your fee is set individually based on transactions, accounts and reporting frequency, and agreed before we start.
- One specialist. The same person handles your books, sales tax and questions, in English or Turkish.
- Same-day response. Questions don’t wait until next week.
We work with food businesses across Bergen, Passaic, Essex, Hudson and Morris counties and in New York, and with owners elsewhere online. Book a free consultation to talk about your restaurant’s books.
