5 Best Restaurant Accounting Software for 2023
This article is part of a larger series onAccounting Software.
Restaurant management requires an understanding of the components of restaurant operations and back-office management, such as accounting, inventory checking, cost management, and employee scheduling. The best restaurant accounting software must address the majority, if not all, of these components to help managers and owners track the financial aspect of the business without having to transfer to and from different software.
We’ve chosen the five best restaurant accounting and bookkeeping software for managing your restaurant business:
- Restaurant365:Best overall accounting software for restaurants
- QuickBooks Online:Best for small restaurants, cafes, and startups
- MarginEdge:Best restaurant integration for QuickBooks users that need advanced restaurant features
- Food Service Ace:Best for food trucks and food delivery
- Wave:Best free software for compiling income and expenses after the end of the year
Best Restaurant Accounting Software Compared
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Pricing
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Starts at $444 per location per month for quarterly billing |
Starts at $55 per month for bill management |
Flat fee of $330 per location, per month |
Custom Priced |
Free |
Recipe or Food Management
|
✓ |
N/A |
✓ |
✓ |
N/A |
Inventory
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✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
N/A |
Employee Scheduling
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✓ |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
Cost Management & Analysis
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✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
N/A |
N/A |
Catering Proposals & Management
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✓ |
Through project tracking |
N/A |
✓ |
N/A |
Point-of-Sale (POS) Integration
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✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
N/A |
Restaurant365:最佳整体Restaurant Accounting Software
What We Like
- Track income and expenses separately by location
- Integrated payroll and human resources (HR) is available
- Assistance in finding a Restaurant365 Certified Accounting Partner
- Sales forecasting based on past data provides projections for staffing and food requirements
Drawbacks
- No monthly billing
- Caterers cannot track project profitability
- Recipe management and employee scheduling is not available in the Core plan
- Expensive for restaurants with many small locations
Features
- Accounts payable (A/P) automation features with invoice capture
- Approval workflows with multilevel approvals based on location, location category, or dollar amounts
- P&L report with variance analysis of cost and revenues
- Custom report customization
- Inventory management, stock counting, purchasing, and receiving functions
- Employee scheduling and labor cost management
- Integration with 90 POS systems
QuickBooks Online: Best for Small Restaurants, Cafes & Startups
What We Like
- Very affordable compared to restaurant-specific software
- Integrates with all of our choices forbest restaurant POS systems, as well asQuickBooks POS
- Excellent project accounting for caterers
- Instantly share your books with an external accountant
- Track classes and locations separately
Drawbacks
- No recipe costing
- No assistance with employee scheduling
- No assistance purchasing food with electronic data interchange (EDI)
- Lacks restaurant management features in general
Features
- Inventory management, purchase order tracking, and stock tracking
- Class, location, and project tracking
- Seamless bank feed integration and easy-to-use bank reconciliation module
- Bank reconciliation through bank feed connection or comma-separated values (CSV) file imports
- POS system integration
- Ecommerce services integration
- 营业税的计算和跟踪
- Generation of 1099 tax forms for contractors
MarginEdge: Best Restaurant Integration for QuickBooks
What We Like
- Integrates with QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, and Xero for general bookkeeping
- Uses the latest invoice prices to recalculate the cost of recipes automatically
- Compares actual ingredient usage to what should have been used given the dishes sold
- Integrates with 6 of8 Best Restaurant POS Systems
- Straightforward pricing
Drawbacks
- Must pay for bookkeeping software, such as QuickBooks Online, in addition to MarginEdge
- Employee scheduling is not available
- Cannot forecast sales and food usage based on prior data
MarginEdge Features
- Expand POS integration with recent addition of Upserve, Revel, and Clover in MarginEdge’s long list of compatible POS systems
- Bill pay feature for unlimited electronic and check payments to suppliers and vendors
- Labor data feeds from POS system for labor costing and estimates
- Recipe management including allergen tracking in recipes
- Inventory management and stock-taking features
- Side-by-side budget-to-actual cost comparison charts and graphs
Food Service Ace: Best for Food Trucks & Food Delivery
What We Like
- Includes foodservice distribution software that assists with deliveries to customers
- Flexible plans based on your needs
- Manage inventory transfers between commissary and multiple food trucks
- Forecast sales based on prior data and view required inventory purchases
- Purchase food through EDI with vendors
Drawbacks
- No upfront pricing
- No employee scheduling
- No payroll features
Food Service Features
- Offline use of mobile apps
- Comprehensive A/P and accounts receivable (A/R) modules for tracking invoices, bills, and payments
- Automated purchase order forwarding to vendors through electronic data interchange
- Delivery route mapping for food deliveries
- Option to integrate with third party or Food Service Ace POS system
- Proposal creation and management for catering services
Wave: Best Free Software for Compiling Income & Expenses
What We Like
- Software is free forever
- Connect bank and credit card accounts to transfer activity
- Print basic balance sheet and income statement
Drawbacks
- Not sufficient to manage a restaurant
- No inventory accounting
- No tracking by class or location
Features
- Free accounting and invoicing features
- Receipt scanning via mobile receipt scanning app
- Unlimited users with user roles tracking
How We Evaluated Restaurant Accounting Software
我们评估餐厅会计软件的基础on basic accounting features and reporting, as well as useful restaurant-specific features. It’s extremely important that your accounting system integrates with your POS software, so we evaluated whether the software integrates with any of our eight choices forbest restaurant POS systems.
20% of Overall Score
Our pricing score not only includes the cost, but also whether month-to-month contracts are available and if there are any limitations on users, transactions, customers, or vendors.
20% of Overall Score
The general features include accounting features that all industries require, but the weights placed on features are specifically tailored to restaurants. Features particularly important for restaurants are payroll, inventory management, and bill management.
30% of Overall Score
The most heavily weighted restaurant feature is the number of good POS systems available for integration. Other features we considered are the ability to track multiple locations and update the cost of preparing recipes based on daily food prices, employee scheduling, sales forecasting, and electronic data exchange (EDI) with vendors.
10% of Overall Score
Our ease of use score includes both a subjective evaluation by our accounting expert and the customer support options available. Finally, we consider whether the software has any accounting partners that can offer assisted bookkeeping services.
10% of Overall Score
In rating user reviews, we checked user reviews websites to gain user insights and suggestions. We believe that feedback from actual and verified users of the software give us information about its usability for small businesses.
10% of Overall Score
The expert evaluation is an overall scoring of the software’s features, mobile app, and reports.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do you set up a restaurant accounting system?
最简单、最方便的方式建立再保险staurant accounting system is by hiring a professional accountant with experience in restaurant accounting. You can also get accounting software and modify it for restaurant accounting. Such modifications include adding unique accounts, like raw materials, labor, overhead, and other special income and expense accounts for restaurants, such as food sales, food discounts, service fees, and delivery expenses.
Can restaurants use Excel?
Yes, Excel can be useful in preparing certain schedules for restaurants, but we highly recommend using bookkeeping software for tracking income and expenses for the easiest time.
How do you account for restaurant expenses?
The best way to account for restaurant expenses is to group them by cost components: direct materials, direct labor, and overhead. Direct materials are ingredients that your restaurant uses, like meat and vegetables. Direct labor consists of payroll of all employees. Finally, overhead costs are costs that can’t be traced directly to your products like electricity, use of condiments, and telecommunication expenses.
Bottom Line
Restaurant365 is a complete restaurant management and accounting software in a single platform. While it’s pricier compared to its competitors, Restaurant365 won’t disappoint in restaurant management features. However, if budget is your concern, then MarginEdge plus a QuickBooks Online plan is the best choice for affordability. Food Service Ace is also worth considering if you’re a mobile restaurant or specialize in delivery because its apps can be used without an internet connection.