Five bookkeeping mistakes Chicago restaurant owners make (and how to fix them)
Commingled accounts, late reconciliation, and ignored POS reports top the list. Here's the practical fix for each.
After ten years of working with Chicago restaurant owners, the same five errors show up on nearly every set of books we inherit: (1) Commingled personal and business expenses — the fix is a dedicated business debit card and a 30-minute monthly review. (2) Reconciling quarterly instead of monthly — by the time you find the error, it's compounded. (3) Ignoring POS reports — your point-of-sale system produces a daily sales summary; it should match your bank deposit every single day. (4) Misclassifying inventory purchases as expenses — food cost is an inventory item until it's used, and the distinction matters for your P&L. (5) Not tracking tips correctly — tip income is taxable, and the IRS has specific rules about allocated tips for employers. None of these are catastrophic in isolation, but together they produce financials that can't be trusted — which means you're flying blind every time you make a pricing, staffing, or expansion decision.
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