Many restaurant owners start out by doing their own books, but as your business and responsibilities grow, you may find yourself too overwhelmed to handle the finances.

You need to hire someone but should you bring on an accountant or a bookkeeper? Though these terms are often used interchangeably, they are two separate positions with different responsibilities.

In this article, we’ll look at the difference between bookkeepers and accountants. We’ll review the function and responsibilities of each role, and then look at whether you should hire in-house or outsource.

What Is a Bookkeeper?

When it comes to accountant vs bookkeeper, think about your bookkeeper as the person who tracks your restaurant’s day-to-day transactions. They are on the ground, making sure your bills are paid, recording your sales, and keeping track of your taxes.

Bookkeeper responsibilities typically include:

• Performing payroll
• Sending invoices
• Paying invoices
• Recording receipts and bills
• Maintaining the business’s ledger

Bookkeepers are great at keeping your accounts organized and making sure everyone gets paid. They tend to be less expensive to hire than an accountant and can also give you a day-to-day understanding of your business.

What Is an Accountant?

While bookkeepers focus on the nitty-gritty of your daily business transactions, accountants look at the big picture. Their job is to generate reports, forecast trends, and help you make better financial decisions.

Accountant duties include

• Creating yearly, quarterly, and monthly budgets
• Doing the business’s taxes
• Creating financial statements and reports
• Analyzing a business’s performance
• Making recommendations to improve a business’s finances

While accountants can perform bookkeeping, bookkeepers can’t be accountants. An accountant gives you a better understanding of your restaurant’s financial health. They provide deep analysis and expertise that can lead to improved profits.

Accountant vs Bookkeeper: Which One Should You Choose?

When considering whether to hire an accountant or bookkeeper, the answer will depend on the specific needs of your company. If you simply need help keeping your books in order, a bookkeeper may be the right choice. If you want someone on your team to analyze the financial performance of your restaurants and help you structure a budget, an accountant could be the way to go.

These two positions are not mutually exclusive. As your business grows, you may find you need both an accountant and a bookkeeper. In fact, these two positions can work well together, with the bookkeeper performing the daily financial tasks and the accountant managing the business’s overall financial picture.

Should You Hire In-House or Outsource Bookkeeping and Accounting?

Now that you understand the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant, you can better determine what you need in your business. Bringing on a new employee, whether a bookkeeper or an accountant, can add a lot of overhead to your business. You may also find that you don’t yet have the need for a full-time bookkeeper or accountant.

In this case, it may make financial sense to outsource your bookkeeping and accountant. RASI can help. We offer a full suite of back-office services specifically for the hospitality market. We can take on all your bookkeeping needs and serve as your company’s accountant. Learn more about all the financial services we offer.

The post The Key Difference Between Bookkeepers and Accountants appeared first on Restaurant Accounting Services, Inc..

If you manage a restaurant, you already know how important shift scheduling is. But are your shift schedules working in the best interest of your staff and entire restaurant? Given the unique demands of scheduling shifts – after all, less than half of U.S. restaurant workers are full-time employees – it helps to understand how this underrated aspect of managing your restaurant can make or break your operation.

RASI’s complete restaurant accounting services help support your shift scheduling tasks, thanks to an innovative data analytics platform that provides timely information so you can make the best possible shift schedules.

Let’s look at common types of shift schedules, creative ways of scheduling shifts, and more.

Most Popular Types of Shift Schedules

Think of your shift schedules as a way to improve your restaurant’s performance. It’s getting the most out of your employees, ensuring you have enough resources to handle busy periods, and ultimately, improving customer services. Here are four common types of shift schedules:

Fixed Schedules

In today’s world of part-time restaurant employees, the fixed schedule – the same employees working the same weekly hours – is less common than it used to be. Fixed shift schedules are the easiest to track, but still must work in tandem with other random scheduling. To ensure your best employees are scheduled for optimal times, we recommend regular reviews of your fixed schedules. 

On-Call Shifts

Every restaurant manager has been there; a few waiters call off, or, the main cook has to leave work early, and you’re in a pinch. With the on-call variety of scheduling shifts, employees are able to fill in at a moment’s notice – often for premium pay. Probably the most challenging type of shift schedules, on-call shifts are hopefully rare. The fewer on-call shifts you have to plan, the more reliable your employees generally are.

Overtime Shifts

Scheduling shifts sometimes requires certain employees to log over 40 hours. The key is figuring out which workers can handle the extra workload while also staying within your local jurisdiction’s compliance and labor laws. Plus, OT can negatively impact EBITA, so we suggest a thorough assessment before committing to any overtime hours. A good question to ask: do you REALLY need OT, or will regular staffing – supplemented by top-performing employees – be enough to handle the extra work?

Rotating Shifts

Given the unique requirements of each individual employee, rotating scheduling shifts are sometimes necessary. In this instance, employees switch shifts, typically on a set cadence or schedule. In this case, for example, you might have two members of your wait staff switch their breakfast and dinner shifts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This extra flexibility has the double benefit of accommodating your employees’ lives outside of work, while giving your establishment the versatility to meet customer demand.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO BELOW!

How Are Shift Schedules Created?

There are three generally accepted methods for scheduling shifts. Finding which one works for you helps ensure your operation reduces error, increases profits, and keeps your employees happy!

Pen and Paper Method

Are old-fashioned shift schedules best? For some old-school managers and shift schedulers, nothing beats this way. But it’s not recommended in today’s fast-paced environment, with so many factors to account for. Just one factor that pen & paper may not account for: employees missing shifts. 

Spreadsheets

Many restaurant managers swear by Excel, Numbers and other spreadsheets for scheduling shifts. While it’s more efficient than pen and paper, this method still doesn’t capture and integrate other information related to effective shift schedules. 

Plus, multiple spreadsheets mean a greater chance of errors. While spreadsheets promote accountability for your team, they’re still not effective as a robust, all-encompassing shift scheduling software.

Shift Scheduling Software

The best of all worlds – shift scheduling software enables seamless, automatic scheduling shifts for any type of restaurant. Best of all, you can access helpful tools and resources like compliance and overtime notifications, staff break alerts, and more!

Aside from our complete array of restaurant accounting services, we also work with a host of partners to meet the point solution needs of your restaurant. Request a demo.

The post Shift Schedules: A Complete Guide appeared first on Restaurant Accounting Services, Inc..

The recipe for a great restaurant manager starts with this foundation: managing restaurant staff. Whether you’re thinking about accepting a promotion to a management position, or if you’re already a manager and would like to learn innovative ways on how to manage restaurant staff, the following restaurant management tips can help anyone lead, inspire, and ensure the entire operation runs efficiently. 

While some restaurant employee management skills come with experience, others are a bit more nuanced. Take restaurant staff management support, for instance. Even the best managers can’t do it alone; they require an intuitive, forward-thinking structure around them, especially with issues related to accounting, compliance, and the rest.

RASI’s extensive experience in helping with restaurant employee management starts with our full-service accounting platform, which supplies the considerable resources to ensure restaurants maintain an effective management culture, all while keeping the bottom line in full view.

Building Blocks of How to Manage your Restaurant Staff 

As you might expect, restaurant employee management is built around practical people skills. This list of attributes helps any manager (either in a fixed role or transitioning into management) with restaurant employee management.

1. Communication. One of the biggest hang-ups that hinders managers from effective leadership is poor communication. Clarity and clear communication aren’t nice-to-haves with restaurant staff management – it’s absolutely essential. Employees regularly cite subpar communication as the most obvious flaw with restaurant management.
2. Adaptability. Everything is changing all the time in a restaurant. From sudden labor issues to supply chain mishaps, it’s imperative for every manager to adapt and adjust on the fly – at a moment’s notice.
3. Organization. Admittedly, this isn’t every manager’s strong suit. But a baseline-level of organization goes a long way, boosting everything from regular supply chain processes to shift scheduling and much more. A well-organized financial reporting system, for example, eliminates many would-be problems and issues at the outset, and also avoids common compliance hurdles.

What’s more, RASI’s Management Checklists promote better organization and oversight with daily, weekly, and submit day tasks, and we review regular reports to help coach your team on accurate, on-time submittals. This targeted reporting helps your staff control what they can control —  a key element of having a well-run, organized restaurant.

4.     Setting an example. Of all the best restaurant management tips, here’s one to remember: be a leader on multiple levels. In other words, the best restaurant employee management methods involve “getting in the trenches” when needed – helping out when someone calls off, doing tasks when they’re needed most. But this also means leading by example with morals, ethics and integrity. Honesty is always the best policy.

For a more in-depth discussion of restaurant staff management skills, make sure to read our blog post on this topic!

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO BELOW!

Restaurant Management Tips 

Now that you’re aware of some critical restaurant employee management characteristics, it’s time to put these skills into action. We’ve helped literally thousands of restaurant managers over the years, and here are some tried and true ways to implement a practical, on-point leadership strategy:

Reward excellence – promotions, employee of the month recognition, etc. It’s always a good idea to recognize and reward those employees who go the extra mile for your customers – and your restaurant. Whether it’s putting in OT when required, handling customer issues, or providing flexibility, make sure you reward your best workers with gift cards, an extra day off, formal recognition, and more. 

Roll with the punches – we touched on this earlier…here’s where that adaptability comes into play. Nothing can prepare you for restaurant staff management. It’s a hectic job, there are plenty of ups and downs, and it takes that innate ability to remain calm in the midst of a storm to get your staff through a hectic shift – and well beyond. The very best restaurant managers are that rock everyone can lean on in a crisis. 

Put your support system in place – some managers think they can do everything by themselves. But we’re here to tell you that some daily and weekly tasks – like managing payroll, to cite just one example – are too much to handle for even the best-organized, optimistic managers. If there’s one constant in how to manage restaurant staff, it’s realizing where and when to utilize the tools that make the job easier. That’s what we’ve been doing at RASI for years!

Let RASI Help with Restaurant Employee Management

There’s always going to be on-the-job training associated with restaurant staff management. You never know that the next hour, shift, or week will bring. But RASI helps with the financial variables that surround the question of how to manage restaurant staff.

LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST EPISODE BELOW!

Our accounting platform is used by individual eateries, franchisees, caterers and other food service professionals, and we’re confident we have the plans and pricing to help ease all the challenges associated with restaurant employee management. 

Contact us today, or request a demo of our services. Expert, innovative accounting help is right around the corner. Thanks for visiting RASI, and we look forward to hearing from you soon!

The post How to Manage Restaurant Staff appeared first on Restaurant Accounting Services, Inc..

Every well run organization starts at the top. Sometimes, managers are brought in from another restaurant. And more often than you think, regular employees are promoted to manager.

But which restaurant management skills separate the good leaders from the great ones? What’s more critical – organization or people skills? And what tools or resources can help enhance the most important restaurant manager skills?

RASI can assist with honing and improving restaurant management skills – particularly in the field of full-service accounting applications and other business-friendly tools. We’re here to help any restaurant manager round out their skill set with the best support structure around. Let’s look at some common restaurant manager attributes and skills, how to refine the skills needed for a restaurant manager, and more!

Essential Attributes of a Great Restaurant Manager

Here’s a handful of characteristics every manager needs – learn and master these, and you’re on your way to perfecting all the skills needed for a restaurant manager!

1. Decisiveness. From deciding on the right supplier to making the latest shift schedules, all restaurant managers need to be decisive – yet fair at the same time. “The buck stops here” is a quality all effective leaders share, and a restaurant manager is no different.
   
2. Flexibility. Nothing ever stays still in the restaurant industry. Unexpected lunch and dinner rushes, prompt call-offs, challenging supply issues – you name it, restaurant managers deal with it. The ability to adjust on the fly, all while remaining calm in the center of the storm, defines all the best managers.
3. Professionalism. Everyone in the restaurant looks up to the manager. By having an aura of professionalism and authority, it’s easier to handle day-to-day responsibilities. Lead effectively, and your employees will follow.
4. Empathy. Don’t let professionalism take away the human touch. From disgruntled employees to angry customers, it always helps to empathize with a particular point of view. Empathy helps with conflict resolution, inspiring your team, and much more!
5. Honesty. Be a straight shooter – with employees and customers. Act with integrity at all times, whether you’re managing the books or working on employee relationships.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO BELOW!

Critical Restaurant Management Skills

An effective restaurant manager is the ultimate jack of all trades. Like a time-honored recipe, or your menu’s most popular item, it takes the right ingredients to make it work. Applying those skills to everyday management tasks is a good start. Here are just some of the things a manager is responsible for:

• Labor management – including payroll, shift scheduling, and the like. And don’t forget retaining the top talent!
• Ensuring a smooth supply chain – even the best customer service won’t fix a kitchen without the tools to succeed.
• Menu costing and control
• Inventory management
• Customer service – handling complaints, PR, etc.
• Compliance – all managers set the tone with integrity. This is critical, especially with ever-changing compliance laws & regulations.
• Handle the books – P&L statements, data analysis, cash management and more.

Building a Support System for Restaurant Management Skills

Aside from hiring the right people, the skills needed for a restaurant manager don’t stop with human interaction. It helps to have a complete support system in place for things like POS integration, data analytics, accounting, payroll and more. The bad news? There’s no single master class to master all of these areas at once.

The good news? RASI empowers restaurant managers with everything necessary to help round out any management skill set! One of our core focal points is to ensure that our clients have access to the best education possible to learn operational and accounting best practices that allow you to set attainable and realistic goals, tactics, and measurements for your teams. Like every capable restaurant manager, our services are also flexible, adaptable, and people-friendly!

LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST EPISODE BELOW!

Request a demo today, or contact us to learn more! We’re here to help any restaurant manager win with the absolute best accounting platform you’ll find anywhere. 

The post 5 Important Restaurant Management Skills appeared first on Restaurant Accounting Services, Inc..

There’s a labor shortage impacting the restaurant industry, made tougher by the pandemic. But there is no shortage of jobs: there are more than 9 million open jobs in the United States. Early on in 2020, we were scrambling to figure out ways to get food to customers and how to give staff enough hours and keep them on the payroll. Now as we enter a recovery stage, the biggest challenge that’s emerged has become finding enough staff to fit the demand. According to restaurant industry data, scheduled shifts are recovering at a slower rate than sales.

Many feel it’s too soon to come back: according to a survey by Poached, 24% of surveyed restaurant workers said that uncertainty about restrictions on indoor dining was preventing them from coming back. 26% cited concerns of getting themselves or loved ones sick—despite vaccination. There is a bright side—of all respondents, close to 75% are either actively applying or searching for work.

Here are seven best practices to make sure that you can find great workers and give them a reason to stick with you—shortage or not.

1. Determine what roles you actually need to fill

The past year has turned servers into expert delivery packers, challenged chefs’ creativity, and flipped the role of a restaurant manager on its head. The traditional front of the house to the back of the house divide has closed. Restaurants are employing more delivery drivers than ever. Do some planning and get a clear picture of exactly what you need to hire for. It may not just be as simple as a server or line cook anymore. This will also help as you begin to write your job description—the foundation of making a great hire.

2. Write a great job description

Online job postings are often overlooked in the hospitality industry. Lack of clear info, wide ranges of pay, and an absence of any sort of “sell” are pervasive.

“When you’re writing a job ad, you have to realize that it is marketing. Write it in a way that’s attractive and bouncy and gets people’s attention. When people think about marketing, they think about attracting customers. When they put up a job ad, they don’t think about it that way,” says Jack Hott, Senior Product Manager at Poached, a job board built for the restaurant industry.

Look to what sets your restaurant employee experience apart, and highlight it. Here are some qualities that may be your differentiator.

• Competitive wages compared to others in your area
• Benefits like health insurance, pet insurance, or retirement plans
• Paid vacation and sick days
• Low employee turnover rate
• Opportunities to learn and advance careers

Another factor to represent is your restaurant’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion: highlight the efforts you’re making to make a happier and healthier workplace for everybody.

3. Look in the right places

You have a job description that you’re proud of—but where to post it? You may be inclined to post it in as many places as possible, but that may yield you dozens of unqualified applications. However, this doesn’t mean all is lost when it comes to job boards. There are many great job boards built for the restaurant industry. Many have databases of qualified resumes, and some even help connect you with great candidates. Here are a few to consider:

• Poached
• HigherMe
• Culinary Agents
• GoodFoodJobs

One of the best places to find qualified candidates is to ask your existing team. Many restaurant workers have friends in the industry that they can refer to you. Set up a referral program for your existing employees and offer an incentive such as a cash bonus.

4. Look for the right fit

With the average cost of hiring just under $6,000—not to mention workload costs—you don’t want to be in the same position 90 days from now, looking again. The best way to do this is by using a hiring process that prioritizes fit over skill.

When deciding who you want to hire, look for qualities and personality traits, rather than existing skills that can easily be taught. Think about how they’ll fit in with the existing team, or how they will make it better. It’s important to have an understanding of your restaurant’s core values in this step. Come up with interview questions that are designed to get insights into the qualities you deem important. Just keep this mantra in mind: prioritize fit, and train for skill. The last thing you want is someone with a ton of experience that no one wants to work with.

5. Ask Great Interview Questions

When it comes time to interview candidates, make sure your questions reflect your values as a restaurateur. Don’t ask someone if they’re hard-working—have them demonstrate it through answers to your questions. Questions should leave room for explanation and storytelling—not be simple yes or no answers.

6. Ace Onboarding and Training

You’ve got the right person who ticks all of your boxes—hard-working, empathetic, and self-aware. But their skillset needs a little work. That’s what training is for. Once your new hire has agreed to a role, the onboarding process begins. An employee isn’t going to find success being thrown into the fire.

7. Use the Best Hiring Tools

The old way of posting help wanted signs and putting your post on as many job boards as possible isn’t the best way. Make sure you have the right tools in place for hiring. Two tools you’ll want to have at your disposal are easy job posting and an applicant tracking system.

Rather than tracking multiple job boards and email addresses, direct all applicants to one place. Even if you do post it out on multiple sites + social, having one place to apply will help you keep track of applicants. Once you have applicants, a simple applicant tracking system can help keep everyone organized in one place. While you could use a spreadsheet to manually track, the chance that your next star team member will get lost in the shuffle is much higher.

Whether you’re hiring for multiple positions across multiple locations or just one role— a good applicant tracking system helps keep everything organized in one place. Once they’re on board, you can easily integrate new hires to get them on the schedule fast.

Author:

D.J. Costantino

The post Restaurant Hiring: Navigating the Labor Shortage appeared first on Restaurant Accounting Services, Inc..

UPDATE (1/27/21):

The IRS has released new guidance regarding claiming the retroactive ERTC. Unfortunately, the new guidance requires more granular data.  On January 22, 2020 the IRS published guidance that indicated employers claiming the ERTC on Q4 941 for Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 can only do so if their PPP Loan was not forgiven.

If your PPP loan was forgiven you can still claim the ERTC. However, the updated IRS guidance requires that: Eligible wages need to be broken up by quarter. Additionally, The Q4 941 can only include eligible wages from Q4 if your PPP loan was forgiven.

Please note that the updated IRS request does not impact the work that you may have already completed as the total credit can still be claimed for 2020. Previously, the IRS guidance allowed that all eligible expenses could be claimed on the Q4 941 (provided your loan was forgiven).

Once again, in order to claim the ERTC for 2020 the eligible wages will need to be broken down into quarterly amounts not to exceed $10,000 in total earnings per employee.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

• Wages eligible for the ERTC in Q1 of 2020 (Only wages paid between March 13 and March 31 qualify in Q1) were reported on Q2 941.
• Only Q2 and Q3 941s may need to be amended provided those quarters contained the wages eligible for the ERTC.

ORIGINAL POST (1/11/21):

• Podcast
• Video

With the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which contained another round of COVID stimulus for businesses, PPP loan recipients are now eligible to claim the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) retroactively for eligible wages paid in 2020, even if the PPP loan has been or will be 100% forgiven.

A PPP recipient may elect (the Treasury is tasked with publishing guidance on how a business would elect this option) to report eligible wages paid between March 13, 2020 and October 31, 2020 on the business’ Q4 941 along with eligible wages paid between November 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 to claim the Employee Retention Tax Credit.

QUESTION #7

WHAT ARE ELIGIBLE GROUP HEALTH PLAN EXPENSES?

Group health plan premiums, as defined by IRC §5000(b)(1), paid by the employer—not deducted from employees’ paychecks—that can be allocated to wages eligible for the ERTC.

This would include Medical, Dental, and Vision premiums paid by the employer. . . if the employee’s portion is or would be a pre-tax deduction under a §125 benefits plan.

QUESTION #8

WHAT IS THE TAX CREDIT AMOUNT?

50% of eligible wages, so a maximum of $5,000 per employee (In 2020, $10,000 is the maximum amount of eligible wages per employee including eligible group health plan expenses).

QUESTION #9

HOW WILL THE CREDIT BE CLAIMED?

As a refund on the 2020 Q4 Form 941, which is due February 1, 2021.

QUESTION #10

ARE WAGES USED TO CLAIM THE ERTC DEDUCTIBLE ON MY FEDERAL INCOME TAX RETURN?

No, the wages equal to the amount of the tax credit are not a deductible expense on your federal tax return.

QUESTION #11

WHEN WILL THE REFUND BE RECEIVED?

The IRS must process the 941 and mail out the refund check.

LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST EPISODE BELOW!!

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