RESTAURANT AND TAKEAWAY BOOKKEEPING · UK
Bookkeeping for restaurants and takeaways, done every working day.
Money reaches a food business from many places at once: the till, the card machine, Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat and cash in the drawer. Wenzo records each of them properly in the software you already use, every UK working day, so your sales, costs and VAT records line up with the bank.
Why food businesses are harder to keep straight
A restaurant or takeaway might take hundreds of small payments a day. Very few of them arrive in the bank as the same amount the customer paid. Card takings land a day or more later, after fees. Delivery platforms pay out in batches, after taking commission and adjusting for refunds. Cash goes into the bank whenever someone has time to visit.
If the bookkeeping only follows the bank, sales end up recorded at the wrong figure and costs go missing. The result is a profit figure you cannot trust and VAT records that are hard to defend. Our job is to rebuild each payment into what really happened: the full sale, the costs taken off it, and the amount that reached you.
Delivery platform payouts from Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat
Each platform sends a statement or report with its payouts. That report is the key document. It shows the orders behind the payout and everything deducted before the money was sent. We use it to post each payout in three parts:
- Gross sales. The value of the orders, recorded as sales income.
- Commission and fees. Recorded as a cost, using the VAT shown on the platform's own invoice or statement.
- Refunds and adjustments. Customer refunds, missing-item credits and other changes, recorded separately so you can see what they cost you.
The three parts add up to the payout in the bank, so the bank line reconciles exactly. Where a platform holds some money back or pays two periods together, we match the payout to the right reports and note anything that does not add up.
A made-up example. A hypothetical takeaway receives a platform payout of £1,251.50. The platform report shows orders of £1,840.00, commission and fees of £552.00 and refunds of £36.50. Booking only £1,251.50 as sales would understate sales by £588.50 and leave out the platform costs entirely. We post £1,840.00 of sales, £552.00 of platform costs and £36.50 of refunds, which together match the £1,251.50 received. This is an invented example, not a real business, and the figures are for illustration only.
Till and EPOS takings, card settlements and cash
Your till or EPOS system reports each day's takings, usually split by payment type. We use that report as the record of the day's sales, then match each payment type to where the money actually went.
Card settlements
Card providers settle takings to your bank after deducting their fees, often a day or more later and sometimes combining several days. We match each settlement to the takings it covers and post the fees as a cost. That way your sales show the full amount customers paid, and you can see what card processing costs you each month.
Cash
Cash takings from the till report are recorded as sales on the day. When cash is banked, we match the deposit back to the takings. If cash is used to pay for small purchases or kept as a float, we need to know, so the difference is explained rather than left loose in the accounts. Gaps between till cash and banked cash are listed and asked about.
Supplier invoices for food, drink and packaging
Food businesses buy from many suppliers, often several times a week: wholesalers, butchers, drinks suppliers, packaging firms and cleaning services. Some send invoices by email, some hand over paper with the delivery and some only send a monthly statement.
We record each supplier invoice with the right cost category and VAT rate, match payments to them and keep your list of what you owe accurate. With your permission, we monitor the finance inbox you agree with us for invoices. Anything missing is followed up with you or the supplier, so costs are not left out simply because the paperwork went astray.
Most food is zero-rated, while items such as packaging, cleaning products and many drinks are usually standard-rated. Getting this right on each invoice matters, because it feeds straight into the VAT you can reclaim.
VAT on hot and cold food, in general terms
VAT for food businesses depends on what is sold and how. These are the general rules from HMRC's guidance. Your own menu may need specific advice, and the VAT treatment of your sales is your decision or your accountant's. We record it consistently once it is agreed.
- Eating in. Food and drink served for eating on your premises is catering, which is standard-rated at 20%.
- Hot takeaway food. Takeaway food that is hot, meaning above the ambient air temperature, and meets one of HMRC's tests, such as being heated to order, is standard-rated.
- Cold takeaway food. Cold takeaway food and drink is generally zero-rated, except items that are always standard-rated, such as crisps, sweets and some drinks including bottled water.
A business that sells a mix of these needs its sales split by VAT rate. Many EPOS systems can do this if the menu items are set up correctly. Delivery platform reports do not always give the split you need, so we agree with you how mixed sales are worked out and apply it the same way every time.
A business must register for VAT if its taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or is expected to go over £90,000 in the next 30 days. VAT records must be kept for at least 6 years, and under Making Tax Digital for VAT some records must be kept digitally. Daily bookkeeping in your existing software keeps those records in order as you go.
Tips and service charges
Tips need care in the books because they are not your income in the normal way. HMRC's guidance says tips that customers genuinely choose to give are outside the scope of VAT. A service charge that customers must pay is part of the price of the meal and is standard-rated.
From 1 October 2024, employers must pass on all tips, gratuities and service charges to workers. Where the employer pays tips to employees, PAYE must be operated on them through payroll. In the bookkeeping, we record tips collected by card separately from sales, and we track them as money owed to staff until they are paid out, so they do not inflate your sales or your profit.
What is included, and what is quoted separately
Every package covers the same daily work: bookkeeping every UK working day in your existing software, bank reconciliation and receipt matching, finance inbox monitoring, missing invoices and receipts followed up, and a monthly financial summary in plain English.
We work in Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, Dext, VT Transaction+ and others. You keep your software and your subscription.
Some work sits outside the monthly packages and is quoted separately: catch-up work on older records, tax returns, statutory filings and payroll. Running payroll and posting wages journals from payroll reports are quoted separately. We record the wage, PAYE and pension payments that go through your bank as part of the daily bookkeeping.