One of the most important aspects of setting up your restaurant’s QuickBooks file is using a proper restaurant chart of accounts (or COA, for short). QuickBooks often comes with a default chart of accounts. However, it is not well suited for the complexities of a restaurant.

Why Our Chart of Accounts is Best

There are many chart of accounts out there, but many of them are outdated or overly complicated. Outdated chart of accounts don’t consider things like software cost and its increasing role in the restaurant industry. Point-of-sale subscriptions, delivery software, productivity apps, and other software are significant costs to restaurant owners and need to be tracked separately.

Additionally, there are many COAs out there that are designed for restaurant groups and contain hundreds of accounts that you’ll probably never use. A solid chart of accounts is reserved for around 100 - 125 accounts.

And finally, many COAs aren’t grouped, making it hard to compare one business to another. In our case, we’ve grouped the accounts into six main categories: Cost of Goods, Direct Costs, General Administrative Costs, Payroll Costs, Professional Fees, and Occupancy Costs.

Step 1: Modify the Existing Chart of Accounts 

When you first set up your QuickBooks Online file, you’ll be assigned a generic chart of accounts. Since you can have a limited number of accounts before you can upgrade, you’ll want to modify some of the existing accounts that you won’t use. We have a google sheets document here that’ll help you change the accounts. Make the quick changes and move on to uploading our Chart of Accounts.

Step 2: Download our Chart of Accounts and Upload it to QuickBooks

Once you’ve made the necessary changes to the existing accounts, go ahead sign up for our newsletter below and we’ll send you a copy of our default chart of accounts.

GET OUR CHART OF ACCOUNTS

Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll send you our restaurant chart of accounts.

Step 3: Now Customize!

This is a generic chart of accounts, so feel free to add and subtract as you see fit! That’s the beauty of this COA. It doesn’t try to fit every single scenario, but the most common instances.

Still need help?

If this is all a bit overwhelming, we understand. We’re happy to help. At Prix Fixe, we recognize that every restaurant is different. That’s why our team is here and ready to discuss your specific requirements, so we can best support your restaurant bookkeeping and accounting consultancy needs. Get in touch with us today.