Restaurant Bookkeeping & Accounting in Scarborough
Daily POS reconciliation, tip pooling, liquor HST, and shift payroll — handled by accountants who understand how a restaurant's numbers actually work.
What We Handle for Restaurants
Restaurant finances move fast — daily cash and card sales, tip pools, food cost variances, and supplier invoices that need to match delivery receipts. Most general bookkeepers struggle with the volume and the industry-specific rules around tips, AGCO licensing, and the split between taxable and zero-rated food items.
We work with sit-down restaurants, quick-service operations, cafes, and food trucks in Scarborough and the GTA. Our bookkeeping is built around your daily close and your POS system — so reconciliation happens regularly, not once a year before tax season.
- Daily sales and POS reconciliation (Square, TouchBistro, Lightspeed)
- Tip pooling setup and payroll tax treatment
- Food cost percentage tracking month over month
- Liquor and AGCO licensing tax reporting
- Shift-worker payroll — CPP, EI, income tax deductions
- Supplier invoice reconciliation against delivery receipts
POS Reconciliation
Your POS end-of-day report should match your bank deposit and your books. We set up automated imports from Square and TouchBistro into QuickBooks so discrepancies are caught daily, not at month-end.
Tip Pooling & Payroll
Controlled tips must flow through payroll. We set up the correct payroll categories, calculate deductions, and produce T4s that reflect tip income accurately — reducing your CRA exposure at year-end.
HST on Food vs Liquor
Not all restaurant sales are taxed at the same rate. We categorize your revenue correctly across taxable and zero-rated items to ensure your HST remittances and input tax credit claims are accurate.
Where Restaurant Bookkeeping Goes Wrong
Cash handling gaps
Cash deposits that do not match POS totals create unexplained variances in your books. Without a clear cash-handling procedure and daily reconciliation, small discrepancies accumulate into large write-offs — or CRA queries about unreported income. We help you build the daily close procedure that prevents this.
Food vs liquor HST split not tracked
Applying 13% HST to everything is the safe default, but it means you are likely overclaiming on food items that are exempt or zero-rated. Accurate classification by product category is worth doing — especially if your liquor and food split shifts seasonally.
Lost or unmatched supplier receipts
Supplier invoices that are paid but not entered — or entered but not matched to a delivery receipt — result in either missing deductions or inflated cost-of-goods figures. We set up a simple receipt-to-booking workflow so every purchase is accounted for before it affects your food cost percentage.
Software We Support
QuickBooks Online connects directly to Square, TouchBistro, and Lightspeed via integration apps, which means daily sales data imports automatically rather than being entered by hand. We configure these connections, map your sales categories to the correct income accounts, and set up bank feeds so reconciliation takes minutes instead of hours each week.
If you use a POS system without a direct QuickBooks integration, we build a manual import workflow using your daily close reports. The reconciliation process is the same — only the data entry method differs.
Get your restaurant books under control
Call 416-477-0644 or request a free consultation.
Book a Free ConsultationFrequently Asked Questions
How does tip pooling affect payroll and income tax?
Controlled tips — where the employer decides how tips are distributed — are treated as employment income and must be included in payroll, which means CPP, EI, and income tax deductions apply. Direct tips paid by customers to individual employees are not subject to the same deductions, but employees are still required to declare them as income. If you run a tip pool, it is important to document the arrangement clearly and process it through payroll consistently to avoid CRA classification issues.
Is HST the same on food and liquor?
Not always. Most restaurant food and beverages are subject to the full 13% HST in Ontario. However, certain items — like basic groceries, coffee below a temperature threshold, or unbaked goods — may qualify for the zero-rated supply exemption. Liquor sold in a licensed establishment is taxable at 13% HST. The split between taxable and exempt sales affects your input tax credits, so it is worth tracking accurately rather than applying a blanket rate to everything.
What POS systems do you work with?
We work with the major systems used in Scarborough and the GTA, including Square, TouchBistro, Lightspeed, and Toast. Most of these connect directly to QuickBooks Online, which lets us reconcile daily sales reports automatically rather than entering them manually. If your POS does not have a native integration, we set up a manual import workflow that keeps the reconciliation close to real-time.
How do I track food cost percentage?
Food cost is calculated as cost of goods sold divided by food sales revenue. Tracking it accurately requires consistent supplier invoice entry, regular inventory counts, and separation of food versus non-food purchases. We set up the accounts and inventory tracking in your bookkeeping software so you get a food cost percentage each month — typically, restaurants aim for 28–35% depending on their menu mix, though what is right depends on your specific operation.
Do you handle bookkeeping for new restaurant openings?
Yes. New openings often have pre-opening costs — leasehold improvements, equipment, deposits, initial inventory — that need to be categorized correctly from day one. Some of these are capital expenditures subject to CCA depreciation; others are deductible as current expenses. Getting the initial setup right avoids clean-up work later and ensures your first-year tax return reflects the actual cost structure of launching.
Related Services
Restaurant Accounting Without the Chaos
POS reconciliation, tip payroll, and HST returns for Scarborough food businesses. Handled monthly so nothing piles up.
Get a Free Quote- Daily POS Reconciliation
- Tip Pool Payroll
- Food Cost Tracking
- Quarterly HST Returns