Restaurant Accounting Services

Overview

Excel Complete provides restaurant accounting services designed to give operators better visibility into the numbers that drive profitability. We help restaurants understand food costs, labor costs, sales trends, cash flow, and overall financial performance through accurate accounting and practical reporting.

Running a restaurant leaves little time to sort through spreadsheets, reconcile systems, or build financial reports. We help organize accounting processes, connect POS, payroll, and accounting systems, and deliver reporting that enables owners to make faster, more informed decisions.

What makes our firm different is our combination of accounting and technology expertise. Beyond bookkeeping and financial reporting, we help restaurants improve workflows, automate reporting, conduct labor modeling, analyze menu pricing, and identify opportunities to improve margins.

Restaurant Accounting Cost

Restaurant accounting services start at $750 per month for single-location operations with standard accounting needs. Rates scale based on sales volume, number of locations, and the complexity of your reporting requirements.

We first meet with clients in person to get an understanding of the businesses and operations. We routinely work with restaurants throughout Michigan and the Midwest, including the following locations near our Ann Arbor, Michigan headquarters:

• Detroit, MI
• Grand Rapids, MI
• Toledo, OH
• Akron, OH
• Columbus, OH
• Chicago, IL
• Cleveland, OH
• Cincinnati, OH
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Indianapolis, IN

On-site consulting is available for additional locations; travel costs may vary.

Our Process

1) Understand

We start by understanding your restaurant, locations, menu, and current systems. This includes reviewing your financials, POS setup, payroll, and reporting, and identifying where food cost, labor, or margins lack visibility.

2) Manage and Report

We take over day-to-day accounting operations, including bookkeeping, monthly close, and financial reporting. We structure reporting to give clear visibility into food cost, labor percentages, sales trends, and location-level performance.

3) Improve

We improve the systems behind your accounting. This includes connecting POS, payroll, and financial data, refining workflows, and structuring your data to support pricing decisions, menu optimization, labor planning, and multi-location growth.

Financial Reporting

Restaurant operators need reporting to understand cost drivers to make informed decisions. Excel Complete helps restaurants consolidate data across systems to create custom financial reports. We standardize the chart of accounts and the data structures, providing better visibility into performance. Common projects:

• Food cost reporting
• Labor cost analysis
• Prime cost management
• Month-end close reporting
• Multi-location reporting
• Sales mix analysis
• Waste tracking
• Inventory and purchasing analysis
• Cash flow analysis
• Budget and forecast reporting
• Dashboard development
• POS and accounting system integration

Labor Management

Labor is one of the largest and most sensitive drivers of restaurant profitability, and it must be aligned with sales in real time. Many restaurants struggle with overstaffing or understaffing, lack consistent labor tracking, and rely on schedules that are disconnected from actual demand. This leads to inconsistent service and margin pressure across shifts and locations.

We build labor reporting directly tied to sales, providing clear visibility into performance by hour, day, and location. When combined with food cost data, this allows us to identify where high cost and high labor overlap and adjust pricing, menu mix, or staffing accordingly. We support these decisions with targeted analysis, helping you improve efficiency, control costs, and protect margins.

Market Research

Restaurants generate valuable transactional data every day, but without financial analysis, most of it goes unused. We help you transform point-of-sale (POS) data, guest counts, and costs into actionable decisions that directly protect your bottom line.

Instead of treating menu pricing as a guessing game, we use data-driven intelligence to conduct pricing sensitivity analysis. We evaluate your sales mix to categorize items by both popularity and profitability. When combined with our location intelligence tools, our approach provides the framework for smarter decisions about price increases, menu redesigns, and geographic expansion.

System Improvements

We see many restaurants operating across a fragmented tech stack, using different systems for POS, scheduling software, nd inventory. We build data pipelines that provide a single, reliable view of your operational data, all in one place.

Because our leadership combines CPA expertise with professional software engineering background, we don't just rely on unstable, third-party plugins. We build custom workflows tailored to your needs.

Benchmarking

Restaurant operators benefit from understanding how their performance compares across locations and against similar concepts. We offer benchmarking built from your financials, POS data, and labor models, with results structured to highlight differences in food cost, labor, sales performance, and overall margins.

For deeper analysis, we offer optional surveys to capture customer and operational feedback, including service quality, cleanliness, and overall experience. This data can be collected using simple tools, such as QR codes on tables or on receipts. Combined, this helps identify opportunities to improve efficiency, consistency across locations, and overall performance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are answers to common questions about our restaurant accounting services.

Can you provide consolidated reporting on food and labor spend for our finance team?

Yes. Excel Complete works with restaurants to collect, organize, and consolidate data across POS, payroll, inventory, and accounting systems. We build reporting packages, dashboards, and presentations that provide finance teams with a complete view of food costs, labor costs, and overall performance.

Can you handle accounts payable, inventory, and labor analysis?

Yes. Excel Complete supports accounts payable, inventory tracking, labor analysis, financial reporting, and month-end close processes for restaurant operators. We also provide labor modeling services that help restaurants forecast staffing needs and improve scheduling decisions.

Do you help restaurants with prime cost management and operational reporting?

Yes. We help restaurants track and analyze food, labor, and prime costs, as well as key operational metrics, through custom-built real-time dashboards and reporting solutions.

Do you specialize in restaurant financial reporting and month-end close?

Yes. Excel Complete provides full month-end close support, including account reconciliations, adjusting entries, financial reporting, board packages, KPI reporting, variance analysis, and executive commentary.