A place setting in afternoon light, with a printed menu, a wine glass, a fork, and a knife.

Restaurant finance, worked out.

Contents

Food cost

Food cost is what left the shelf: beginning inventory, plus purchases, minus what is still there, divided by food sales for the same days. A delivery can make the week look expensive until the count is in. The page has the formula, a worked week at 28.1 percent, and what the 2024 association medians actually measure.

Labor cost

Labor cost adds wages, payroll taxes, and benefits, then divides by the sales those hours produced. A wage-only percentage will not match the payroll register. The worked week here is 11,400 over 42,800, or 26.6 percent.

Prime cost

Prime cost adds food, beverage, and labor, then divides by sales. Those are the costs that still move when a week is slow. The illustration is 25,740 over 42,800, or 60.1 percent. The 2024 limited-service median is filed beside it as a median, not a target.

Restaurant P&L

A restaurant profit and loss runs from sales through the cost of what was served and the labor that served it, then the costs that do not flex with the week. Prime cost sits in the middle, where the number can still change. The template uses those same lines.

Cash flow

The deposit and the sales report describe different things. Tips, sales tax, card fees, and the timing of vendor bills sit between a busy Friday and the cash the restaurant can spend. The page keeps those amounts apart, and watches the week as well as the month.

Month-end close

A month is closed when sales, inventory, payroll, payables, and the bank all describe the same days, and a person has signed off. Software can hold the entries. The signature is still a person's. The vendor pages separate a product that stores the books from a firm that finishes them.

Multi-unit reporting

Each location needs the same chart of accounts, and a profit and loss that can be read store by store before the group is added up. A single company total hides the store carrying the others. Shared costs, such as an area manager, need a written rule for how they land on a store.

Guides

Food cost What is a good food cost percentage?

A useful food cost percentage is the one you can tie to a count, not a number borrowed from another dining room. The National Restaurant Association's 2024 median for food and nonalcoholic beverages was 32.4 percent of sales at limited-service restaurants and 32.0 percent at full-service restaurants, and the association says those medians are not targets.

Prime cost How to calculate prime cost

Add food cost, beverage cost, and labor, then divide by total sales. In the worked week on this page that is 25,740 over 42,800, or 60.1 percent. The association's 2024 limited-service median was 65 percent of sales, and it is a median, not a target.

Restaurant P&L Restaurant P&L template, explained

Read a restaurant P&L from sales down to prime cost before you look at rent. The template on this site follows that order so a weekly report and the monthly statement use the same lines.

Comparisons

Best Best restaurant accounting software

Software that holds a ledger and a firm that closes the month are different purchases. The table lines them up on the same fields. A ranked winner is not assigned on this version of the page.

Versus Restaurant365 vs MarginEdge

Restaurant365 can be where the books live. MarginEdge publishes 350 USD per location per month for invoices and food cost, then connects to QuickBooks, Xero, or Sage. The month is still closed by a person.

Versus Restaurant365 vs QuickBooks

Restaurant365 is a restaurant system with a general ledger, inventory, and scheduling. QuickBooks Online is a general ledger your accountant may already close. In both cases, someone still has to close the month.

Versus xtraCHEF vs MarginEdge

xtraCHEF is the Toast path, with Essentials published at 179 USD per location per month and Pro at 279. MarginEdge is 350 USD per location per month and names Toast, Square, NCR Aloha, and SpotOn. Neither one closes the books.