Bookkeeping you can actually run a venue from.
Most bookkeeping is built to satisfy the BAS. Hospitality bookkeeping has to do more than that: it has to tell you, this month, whether the roster and the menu are still working.
The difference between compliant and useful
A file can be perfectly compliant and still useless for running a venue. If every supplier invoice is coded to one catch-all cost of sales account, the BAS will be right and the margin work will be impossible. If takings land as a single deposit with no split between food, beverage and tips, nobody can tell you why last month moved.
So we set the file up to answer operational questions first, and the compliance falls out of it.
What we keep current
- POS takings, split by revenue stream, reconciled to the money that actually arrived
- Supplier bills coded to food, beverage, packaging and consumables separately
- Stock movements and counts where the venue runs them
- Payroll, super and STP filings
- Bank, card and delivery-platform settlements reconciled, including the fees taken out before the money lands
- Owner drawings, loans and related-party transactions kept clean for year end
Delivery platforms deserve their own mention. The deposit in your bank is net of commission, and if it is booked as revenue, your sales are understated and your margin looks better than it is.
Then the numbers get read
Clean books are the input, not the output. Every month we read them against the bands below and tell you what changed.
| Line | Where we want it | Where it starts costing you |
|---|---|---|
| Wage cost | at or under 30% of sales | 35% is where we start calling it a leak |
| Food and beverage cost | at or under 36% of sales | 40% and the menu needs work |
| Prime cost, wages plus stock | at or under 62% of sales | 68% and the venue is running for someone else |
| Rent | at or under 10% of sales | 15% and the site has to earn its keep |
The bands we work to on a standard single-site venue. Licensed venues, function work and heavy takeaway sit differently, which is part of the conversation.
Most venues sit on Hospitality Margin Protection at $990 + GST a month, which carries the bookkeeping, payroll for up to five staff and BAS oversight underneath the monthly margin review.
Run the 60-second Margin Check on your own figures. Nothing is sent anywhere; it runs in your browser.
Straight answers.
Which software do you work in?
Xero, with the venue's POS feeding it. We can work with what you have if it is already in place and doing the job.
How far behind can we be?
We have picked up files more than a year behind. It costs more to catch up than to maintain, but it is normal work.
Stop finding out in July.
Fifteen minutes, direct with Pink. We look at your real numbers and tell you where the margin is going.