Service
Restaurant Bookkeeping Services for Food & Beverage Businesses
Restaurants live and die by their margins, we keep your daily sales, food and labor costs, and tips recorded cleanly so you can see your prime cost and actually run the numbers, not guess at them.
Starting at $500/mo
Running a restaurant means tracking sales every single day across cash, cards, and delivery apps, while managing food costs, labor, tips, and a thin margin on every plate. That's a lot more moving parts than a typical small business, and generic bookkeeping often misses what matters most in food service. IBRA records your daily sales correctly, reconciles your POS deposits against what actually hits the bank, and tracks the cost categories that tell you whether the restaurant is making money.
We help cafes, bars, food trucks, and full-service restaurants across Prince William County and the wider DMV keep books that reflect how a restaurant really runs. As a QuickBooks Certified Partner with an accounting degree and over ten years of experience, IBRA handles the day-to-day so you get clean financials, and the prime cost and margin numbers that drive real decisions about menu pricing, staffing, and purchasing.
What you get
Daily Sales Recording
Your daily sales summary from the POS recorded as a journal entry that splits food, beverage, tax collected, tips, comps, and discounts, not lumped into one deposit.
POS & Deposit Reconciliation
We reconcile what your POS reports against what actually lands in the bank, including credit card batch fees and the timing lag on card and delivery-app payouts.
Prime Cost Tracking
Cost of goods sold and labor tracked as a percentage of sales, so you can see your prime cost, the single most important number in a restaurant's P&L.
Tips & Payroll Coordination
Tips, tip-outs, and service charges recorded correctly as pass-through liabilities, and we work alongside your payroll provider so wages and tip reporting line up.
Vendor & AP Management
Food, beverage, and supply invoices entered and categorized so you can see spend by vendor and category, and never lose a bill in the shuffle.
Monthly Restaurant Financials
A clean, restaurant-formatted Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet each month showing food cost %, labor cost %, and prime cost at a glance.
Who this is for
- +Restaurant, cafe, bar, and food-truck owners drowning in daily paperwork
- +Operators who can't tell their true food cost or labor cost percentage
- +Owners juggling cash, card, and delivery-app sales that never seem to match the bank
- +Multi-revenue concepts (dine-in, takeout, catering, online orders) that need it all tracked separately
- +Anyone who wants tax-ready books and real margin numbers without doing it after close
How it works
Book a Free Call
A quick, no-pressure call to understand your restaurant, your POS, and how your sales and costs flow today.
We Set Up Your Books
We connect QuickBooks and your bank, map your daily sales from the POS, and build a restaurant chart of accounts that tracks food cost, labor, and prime cost.
Monthly Books & Reports
Each month we record sales, reconcile deposits, manage vendor bills, and deliver financials that show your margins, so you can focus on the floor and the kitchen.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does restaurant bookkeeping cost?
- Restaurant bookkeeping starts at $500/month. Because restaurants have high daily transaction volume and multiple revenue streams, your exact price depends on sales volume, the number of accounts, and how many systems we tie together. We'll give you a flat monthly quote on your free call, no hourly surprises.
- Do you work with my POS system?
- Yes. We work with the common restaurant POS systems, Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, and others, and record your daily sales into QuickBooks Online from the POS reports. We don't replace your POS; we make sure the numbers flowing out of it land in your books correctly.
- What is prime cost and why do you track it?
- Prime cost is your cost of goods sold (food and beverage) plus total labor, measured as a percentage of sales. It's the clearest indicator of whether a restaurant is profitable, most healthy operations aim to keep it around 60% to 65% of sales. We track it every month so you can act on it, not find out at tax time.
- How do you handle tips and delivery-app sales?
- Tips and service charges are recorded as pass-through liabilities so they don't inflate your revenue or your tax picture, and we coordinate with your payroll provider on tip reporting. Delivery-app sales (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub) are recorded gross, with their commissions and fees booked as expenses, so you see the real cost of those orders.
- Do I need to be local to you?
- No. Our restaurant bookkeeping is 100% remote, done through QuickBooks Online and secure bank and POS connections, with communication by phone or video. We're based in Dumfries, VA and serve food-service businesses throughout the DMV, but there are no in-person visits required.
Related services
Monthly Bookkeeping
Hand off your day-to-day books. We categorize transactions, reconcile your accounts, and deliver clean monthly financials, so you always know exactly where your business stands.
Catch-Up & Cleanup
Behind on your books? We untangle months, or years, of messy records, fix the errors, and hand you clean, tax-ready financials. Fast.
Ready to hand off your books?
Book a free 30-minute strategy call. No pressure, no commitment.
QuickBooks Certified · Based in Dumfries, VA