A well-structured chart of accounts (COA) is the foundation of smart restaurant accounting. It organizes every dollar that comes in and goes out, giving you clarity on how your business actually performs. Whether you run one café or 30 quick-service locations, a strong COA turns numbers into insight—and insight into profit.
Many operators start out using generic accounting software with a default chart of accounts—and quickly outgrow it. Without restaurant-specific categories, it’s hard to see where profits are really made or lost.
If food purchases are buried under “expenses” or labor costs lumped together, you lose visibility into key metrics like Prime Cost. Worse, different managers might code expenses differently, creating inconsistencies across stores.
A restaurant-specific chart of accounts solves these problems by providing:
Clear, standardized categories for all revenue and expenses
Accurate, consistent reporting across all locations
Faster month-end close and easier audits
The foundation for smarter forecasting and budgeting
Build a COA that works as hard as you do.
See how R365 can help.
A well-designed restaurant COA breaks down the details that drive profitability. Here’s what every operator should include:
Revenue accounts: Separate sales into categories like food, beverage, catering, delivery, and other income.
Cost of goods sold (CoGS): Include detailed categories for food, beverage, paper goods, and liquor.
Labor costs: Track front-of-house, back-of-house, and management labor separately, including benefits and taxes.
Operating expenses: Capture controllables like repairs, marketing, and utilities.
Occupancy costs: Include rent, property taxes, and insurance.
Administrative & general: Cover back-office expenses like accounting, software, and training.
Other income or expenses: Non-recurring items such as one-time repairs or franchise fees.
Getting your chart of accounts right is one of the simplest ways to make your financial data work harder for you. With a connected, restaurant-specific COA, you can eliminate guesswork and focus on growth.
See how it’s done in Mastering the Fundamentals: R365 Accounting, our free webinar on building the foundation for better reporting, easier reconciliations, and more profitable operations.
Building a COA from scratch doesn’t have to be intimidating. Follow these steps to create a system that works for your business:
Start with a restaurant-specific template. Avoid generic retail or service templates—they don’t reflect how restaurants spend and earn.
Match your COA to your reporting needs. Think about the insights you want from your P&L, then design categories to support them.
Standardize across locations. Use the same account structure at every store to make performance comparisons easy.
Integrate with your POS and vendors. Automate data flow to reduce manual entry and ensure accuracy.
Review and refine. Revisit your COA quarterly or annually to ensure it still matches your operations and growth.
With Restaurant365, operators can use pre-built COA templates tailored to restaurants or easily import their existing accounts. The system automatically connects data from POS, invoices, and payroll—keeping financials accurate without extra effort.
With more than 30 years in franchising, BLCO Enterprises manages over two dozen KFC, Taco Bell, and A&W restaurants across North America. As the company grew, manual data entry and fragmented systems slowed down accounting and reporting. Month-end close often took weeks, and reconciling data between entities meant hours of rework.
When BLCO switched to Restaurant365, they gained real-time visibility across all 29 locations and standardized their accounting with a single chart of accounts. The results:
Over 50 hours saved monthly in accounting processes
20 hours saved per month on P&L tasks
20 hours saved monthly on bank reconciliation
Instant consolidation and cleaner intercompany reporting
By eliminating manual data entry and unifying accounting under one system, BLCO turned complexity into clarity—and freed its team to focus on growth, not spreadsheets.
BLCO showed what’s possible when restaurant accounting and automation work together.
Want to see how R365 can help your restaurant gain clarity and control? Get a free demo of R365.
✅ Purpose-built for restaurant accounting and Prime Cost tracking
✅ Automatically syncs with POS, vendors, and payroll
✅ Supports multi-location, franchise, and corporate structures
✅ Delivers ready-to-use restaurant COA templates
✅ Works for basic bookkeeping
❌ Requires manual setup for restaurant-specific accounts
❌ Limited food, labor, and inventory tracking
❌ No real-time integration with POS or vendors
✅ Familiar and low-cost
❌ Time-consuming, error-prone, and hard to scale
❌ No automation or consolidated reporting
COA clarity = better decisions.
See how R365 makes it happen.
Beyond features, the true measure of a great system is the impact it has on your business.
By putting Restaurant365’s accounting tools into practice, operators have achieved measurable results:
Substantial time savings: BLCO Enterprises saves over 50 hours each month in accounting and reconciliation tasks.
Simplified multi-location management: “It’s great having one system for accounting, inventory, and reporting. It saves so much time and reduces errors.”
Accurate, real-time reporting: “Restaurant365 provides visibility into every dollar spent and earned, which has completely changed how we manage our business.”
Comprehensive restaurant management: “Finally, it includes accounting, payroll, inventory, and reporting—all in one place.”
The shift from disconnected tools to an integrated restaurant accounting platform doesn’t just save time—it empowers smarter, faster, and more profitable decisions.
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An organized chart of accounts gives you the clarity to see what’s really driving your business. When every dollar is tracked correctly, you can control spending and protect margins.
Restaurant365 helps operators standardize their COA across all locations, connect it to their POS and accounting systems, and generate real-time reports that drive profitability.
Want to see how? Get a free demo today.
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