Accounting/Bookkeeping

Man...ads are getting smart. Reading your thread and the ad at the bottom of my page is for quickbooks.

You don't really have to track all of that information unless you need it and are going to make decisions that improve your business from that info. I'd record cabbage as food Cost of Sales (COS) and paper towels as supplies. If you want to make sure your price is correct on coleslaw you can figure that out on the back of a napkin. Just save all of your reciepts for the year and you can alway just go back and add up how much you're spending on any one thing.

If you want to get real detailed you can use a program like quickbooks to record everything, but you'll have to take every receipt and break it out. That would suck with your busy schedule.

I'm an accountant by trade. I worked in public accounting for 8 1/2 years then moved to private accounting. How are you keeping up with your financial reporting now?

I have used Quickbooks for my business. Prior to this, I had partners and a larger company, we hired a bookkeeper every two weeks. But she also did payroll, taxes and banking, it kept us focused on our primary business functions.

If I was going to run a restaurant, the two options, and really, it is one with two arms, is a POS system that automatically creates receipts and calculates sales, and a second system, and I would use Quickbooks, to track my expenditures. It makes it a lot easier.

I would note that my QB install is highly customized, with categories for all regular purchases. Back with my larger company, I could tell you, to the piece or period, what I was spending on black plotter toner, or 18 pound bond copy paper etc...every single purchase was itemized and accounted for. If you do it the minute you get the invoice in your hands, it takes minutes and saves hours at tax time and dollars of revenue. Tight bookkeeping procedures are the MOST important aspect of business management.

I am a retired CPA and my wife is a retired photographer. My best advise to you is to look for a professional accountant that can hook you up with QuickBooks. The operative word here is a "professisional". You should hire them for monthly accounting services and for tax work including payroll, sales, unemployment, business income tax, etc. You will probably have to purchase QuickBooks software and a dedicated laptop for business. You will also want a checking account, credit card and savings account for BUSINESS ONLY. Expect to pay the Pro a monthly fee for the service and ask them to throw in personal income tax services with the package. The fee will not be too great and I am willing to bet that in two years you will call it the best money you ever spent. For this you will receive monthly and annual financial statements about your revenue and expenses, and if you want to you might even set the books up to show you your profit on each job. Sky's the limit with a good pro. Noticed that I did not recommend that you only use a CPA, even though I am a CPA. There are a lot of good "Public" accountants out there and there are a lot of bad "CPA's". You should shop around and find one that you trust to do the job you need at a reasonable price. However, whoever you choose should be a CPA or an "Enrolled Agent" with the IRS. I will say that again, whoever you choose should be a CPA or an "Enrolled Agent" with the IRS. You may be sorry if they are not. You will also want to hire a business with a staff of several professional accountants, and several clients just like you. I am not up to date with monthly charging lately, but 25 years ago my firm in Joplin, Mo. charged around $90 per month for such services. Also, your banker will be much happier to see professional financial statements when you are talking credit or credit cards for your business. When you get serious about a small business you need to hook up with three professionals, an accountant, a lawyer, and a banker. However, the only one you need to see on a regular basis is the accountant.

You may want to look into insurance and bonding, But the above contacts can help you with this stuff.

I agree with the others if you're looking to go full time with this. My answer was more directed to your current status.

You can get as detailed as you want, but the more detailed you get the more expensive (money or your time) it will get. If some piece of information isn't going to help you, no sense in paying for it just so you can say you have it.

FYI -I'm a CPA too, but have worked in the private world as a controller for the last eight years.

Weird, what Wayne posted sounds just like the person we used to hire, exact same advice.

Just curious, what do you use now for equipment for catering? Smokers, grills etc. Thanks

One thing to be very mindful of in choosing an accounting firm to handle your monthly write up, taxes etc. Many times your "bigger" firms will not give you the same attention as a smaller firm. I've worked for and worked with small, medium and big size firms and I can tell you that to be true. Granted, it is not the case across the board but I've found it to be common. You don't want someone that is going to put you on the back burner and when you call to have a meeting you feel like you're being "brushed off". Before I went with any firm and spent the money each month to obtain their services. I'd meet with a few and get a feel of which one will give you the most attention. Because there's nothing worse than paying for services each month and not getting what you're paying for because you're "small fries" to them compared to their money maker accounts.

When you purchase QuickBooks online, you will receive a bunch of ads through your email to local accountants giving seminars/classes on how to use it. Learn the ins and outs for it and hook up with a good accountant.

It's as easy as you make it - and personally I always made it hard on myself. After connecting with a great accountant and getting my lack of quality bookkeeping back on track (laziness and procrastination mainly haha), I buckled down and have a little system that helps me with my business (not catering but a small business nonetheless). With consultation with my accountant (a simple phone call), I put a list together of everything I needed to keep track of. There is software to help streamline this, but don't expect bookkeeping to ever be automated. Many software options integrate bank accounts and automatically input items in your statement as expenses, for example. I was encouraged to not use that, and rather just get into the routine of daily when I walk in the door when I get home to spend 2 minutes and just document the daily activities. Most importantly, it actually helped me look at the true big picture vs. just the balance in the account. At the end of the period, every category is totalled and my accountant uses those numbers and does his thing when filing returns. I was incredibly terrible at this befure, but it was mainly because I created a snowball-effect the more I neglected bookkeeping. When dealing with it daily (or weekly if that makes more sense for your situation), it is INCREDIBLY easy and simple. I smack my head looking back seeing how hard I made it for myself, especially when I hurt my bottom line.