Who We Help · Restaurants · Bookkeeping
Restaurant bookkeeping: books that balance to last night's POS close
Restaurant books are built one day at a time: the nightly POS close is the source document, and sales, HST, tips, comps, delivery orders, and cash should all tie back to it. Get the daily entry right and month-end becomes a check, not an archaeology project. We run daily POS-to-books workflows for independent and franchised restaurants across Ontario.
By the AnalytIQ Accounting team · Last reviewed: August 12, 2026
The daily sales journal starts at last night's close
Each day gets one structured entry built from the POS close-out — Square, TouchBistro, or Lightspeed — rather than from whatever the bank feed shows three days later. That entry captures sales by category, HST collected, discounts and comps, tips, and the full tender breakdown: cash, card, gift card, delivery platforms.
Card deposits then reconcile against those entries net of processor fees, batch by batch. When a deposit does not match, you find out that week — while the manager still remembers the night — not at year end.
Tips run through a clearing account, never revenue
Tips collected on cards arrive inside your deposits, but they are not your money. They post to a tips clearing liability and leave through payroll or the documented tip-out process. A healthy clearing account returns to zero every pay cycle; a balance that keeps growing means either staff are being shorted or the books are.
How tips are paid out also matters upstream: employer-controlled tips are pensionable and insurable for CPP and EI, while direct tips generally are not. We keep the clearing account consistent with how payroll treats them, so the two sides of the ledger tell the same story.
Food cost runs on a counting cycle, not the bank feed
Purchases are not cost of goods sold — consumption is. Supplier invoices from the likes of Sysco or Gordon Food Service come in through Dext as they arrive, and each period we compute true food and beverage cost as opening inventory plus purchases minus the closing count. Weekly or four-week cycles beat calendar months, because food cost drifts fast and quietly.
The same cycle exposes the leaks. Waste, spillage, staff meals, and comps each carry their own line, so a rising food-cost percentage points somewhere specific instead of everywhere at once.
Delivery platforms: the deposit is not the sale
Uber Eats, DoorDash, and SkipTheDishes each deposit a net figure that hides the numbers your books actually need. We rebuild every platform statement so gross sales, commissions, and tax land where they belong.
| Payout line | What it is | Where it posts |
|---|---|---|
| Gross order value | What customers paid for the food before the platform touched it | Delivery revenue, tracked by platform |
| Commission and service fees | The platform's cut of each order | Delivery platform fees — a visible expense, not missing revenue |
| HST on the commission | Tax the platform charges you on its own fee | Recoverable input tax credit, captured monthly |
| HST collected on food | Sales tax the customer paid on the order | Your liability to remit — the platform generally does not remit it for you |
| Refunds and order-error charges | Adjustments for wrong, late, or missing items | Contra-revenue by platform, so problem patterns become visible |
Cash controls that survive scrutiny
Cash-heavy businesses draw attention, and the defence is boring consistency: deposits made intact, an over/short account that is watched rather than buried, and till paid-outs documented with receipts. Small daily variances are normal; patterns are not, and daily books are what make patterns visible early.
Franchisees of US brands carry one extra layer — royalty and ad-fund payments to an American franchisor, with withholding-tax strings attached. That side lives on our cross-border tax page for restaurant owners, and the wider monthly close is described on our bookkeeping services page.
Common questions.
How often should restaurant books be updated?
Daily for the sales journal, weekly for deposit and delivery-platform reconciliation. Restaurants run on thin margins and fast cycles, so books touched only monthly find problems after they have already cost you.
Are tips part of my restaurant revenue?
No. Card tips land in your deposits but belong to staff, so they sit in a clearing liability until paid out — and whether they are controlled or direct tips changes CPP and EI treatment on payroll.
Who remits the HST on Uber Eats and DoorDash orders?
Generally you do. The platforms collect tax from the customer and pass it through to you, so your books must keep it out of revenue — and capture the HST charged on their commissions as an input tax credit.
Related reading
Books that balance to the nightly close.
Book a consultation and get a plain answer on exactly what applies to you.