Cash, tax and payroll are the three things that go wrong in a restaurant's finances, and they go wrong on a calendar. Put the dates on one page, run the books weekly, and most of the drama disappears.
Cash flow: see thirteen weeks ahead
A restaurant's cash moves fast and unevenly. Card money lands days after the sale. Suppliers want paying on terms. Rent is quarterly, VAT is quarterly, payroll is weekly or monthly, and January is quiet. A bank balance tells you none of that.
The tool is a thirteen-week cash forecast: expected takings by week, every known payment on its date, and the balance that results. It takes an hour to build from good books and ten minutes a week to keep. The books have to be current for it to be true, which is the real reason to keep them weekly.
Two hospitality specifics. Deposits and vouchers are cash now and a liability later, so record them as money owed. And card fees, chargebacks and delivery platform commissions come off before the money arrives, so forecast the net amount.
Taxes: four dates, no surprises
- VAT. Returns are usually quarterly and due a month and seven days after the period ends, filed digitally. Mixed rates on the menu mean the till must carry the right rate on every button.
- PAYE and National Insurance. Reported to HMRC on or before each payday under real-time information, and paid by the 22nd of the following month when paid electronically.
- Corporation tax. Due nine months and a day after the company's year end, with the return filed within twelve months.
- Annual accounts. Filed at Companies House within nine months of the year end for a private company.
Keep the books current and each of these is a filing from numbers that already exist. Let them slip and each one becomes a reconstruction, usually in the week you can least afford it.
Payroll: start from the hours that happened
Hospitality payroll fails when it starts from the wrong number. Contracted hours in the payroll system, actual hours on the rota, and a labour cost in the accounts that matches neither.
The fix is a sequence. Clock-ins captured at the site. Hours approved by the manager each week. Payroll run from those hours. Tips allocated through a separate tronc, with the records the law now requires. Labour cost posted to the ledger from the same run, by site. One chain, no re-keying.
"With ease" means routine
None of this is difficult. It is simply easier to do a little every week than a lot every quarter. At HSG, Opsyte captures the hours, sales and invoices, and Solutions 4 Caterers runs the books, payroll and filings from them. The calendar still has the same dates on it. They just stop being frightening.