Restaurant & Bar Bookkeeping in Jacksonville

Prime cost is your cost of goods sold (food, beverage, paper) plus total labor (wages, payroll taxes, benefits), expressed as a percentage of sales. Full-service restaurants typically aim for 60–65%; quick service and bars can run lower. It's the single number that tells you whether a restaurant is viable, and it changes week to week with pricing, waste, and scheduling. We report it every month with a trend line, so a bad month shows up before it becomes a bad quarter.

Each processor gets a clearing account in QuickBooks. Daily sales are recorded gross by category, with sales tax, tips, and gift cards as liabilities. When the processor deposits net of fees a day or two later, we match it to the clearing account and record the fee. The clearing account should reconcile to zero every month; when it doesn't, we've found a missed deposit, a chargeback, or a processor error, which is exactly what you'd want caught.

We track sales tax collected as a liability from day one, reconcile it to your POS reports, and prepare your monthly or quarterly DR-15 figures. Duval County's combined rate is 7.5% at the time of writing; we keep the rate current in your POS and books. Where alcohol, catering, or delivery platforms create edge cases, we document how each is treated so an auditor sees a consistent method.