Business financial control for restaurants and bars with EPOC
How to organize company finances with EPOC
Complete integration
Connect POS, ERP, inventory, and tax management, and have all your sales cataloged, auditable, and automatically recorded in your cash flow.
Performance analysis
See various financial metrics for your restaurant or bar in real time, such as revenue, busiest hours, customer profiles, number of sales, staff performance, and much more.
Multi-store module
See data from all your group's stores in a single tool. View operations in full and run comparative analyses to make the best strategic decisions.
Get all your questions answered about how to manage your establishment's business financial control!
Want to know more about how to manage your restaurant or bar's finances? No problem — below you'll find the advantages of this kind of control, ways to do it right, and details about the benefits it offers your establishment. Check it out!
What is financial control for businesses?
Before sharing tips on how to manage your finances, it's worth highlighting what this financial management actually covers.
While some people may think this just means tracking sales, this kind of care actually goes much deeper.
For efficient financial management of a restaurant, bar, or club, it's essential to look at the operation as a whole. In other words, besides sales, pay attention to:
- Budget;
- Inventory management;
- Cash flow;
- Accounts payable and receivable;
- Accounting and taxes;
- Employee payroll.
So, you need to integrate several areas of your establishment and gather valuable information from each of them. This way, you'll have an accurate picture of your business.
This way, you have concrete data to make the best decisions and, on top of that, ensure your restaurant/bar's financial health.
In practice, business financial control shows up in various day-to-day processes, routines, and actions at the establishment.
Closing out the register, sales analysis, purchasing supplies, setting budgets, and, most importantly, tracking all these accounts and actions are great examples. Just below, you'll find out how to do this kind of control!
What are the main ways to organize a company's finances?
While there are several ways to handle business financial control of a bar or restaurant, there are certain practices and tools that tend to be more commonly used – and more effective.
Below, we've selected tips on how to manage your establishment's finances using three of the main methods: spreadsheets, apps, and systems.
Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, so look for the one that best fits your restaurant/bar's needs.
Spreadsheet for financial control
Using spreadsheets for management is one of the most common practices at many companies, including in the food service segment. When it comes to financial management, it's common practice to use a combination of spreadsheets.
You could, for example, use one spreadsheet to keep your inventory up to date, with all stock coming in and out.
Plus, another spreadsheet would hold sales information, with data on amounts, items sold, payment methods, and other details relevant to your business.
The important thing is to centralize all relevant data in spreadsheets that are easy to access and frequently updated.
This makes it easier to use and ensures the information stays current, enabling better decisions about your restaurant/bar.
However, while useful for cataloging data, a spreadsheet isn't necessarily the most practical way to handle business financial control.
The reason is simple: everything needs to be entered manually, which takes a lot of time and effort (not to mention the potential for human errors and fraud).
That's why more and more large establishments seeking greater efficiency and operational speed are turning to technology for this task – like in the two tips below.
Financial control app
And a more modern way to manage your restaurant or bar's finances is precisely through a financial control app.
With this type of tool, you can integrate several areas of your establishment and, depending on the app, use the software on different devices with data synced between them.
Generally speaking, this type of app works similarly to spreadsheets, just in a centralized way.
In other words, instead of having several spreadsheets, you have a single app to view all sorts of information.
Plus, depending on the software, it can collect this data automatically, making business financial management much easier.
However, keep in mind that this kind of tool won't always be compatible with solutions you already use, like your POS system, ERP, and others.
Management system with financial control
And for those looking for maximum efficiency and speed, plus flexibility and compatibility, the best option is a management system for restaurants e for bars with financial control features.
It's a business financial control app, only with even more features and integrations. That's why it's a complete solution for restaurants and bars.
With this type of software, you can integrate all areas of your establishment, such as Sales, Inventory, Finance, Tax, Accounts (payable and receivable), and more.
This way, you can centralize all relevant information in a single solution, ensuring no data is lost or becomes outdated.
This way, you can:
- track sales;
- view the average ticket;
- understand customers' consumption profile;
- organize inventory;
- plan supply purchases and supplier payments.
In the case of a system like EPOC, you can use these features on various devices, such as computers, smartphones, and tablets. You can also view dashboards with charts containing all this data and much more.
5 benefits of business financial control for restaurants and bars
Below, you'll learn about some of the main advantages of maintaining efficient, reliable financial control at your restaurant or bar.
With this practice, you can plan your business's future, fix mistakes, prevent fraud, and much more. Check it out!
1 – Get a clear view of your establishment
Have you ever heard the phrase "What can't be measured, can't be managed"? This famous saying highlights how important it is to measure something before you can make decisions and implement changes.
That's why it's so vital to maintain business financial control at your bar or restaurant. This way, you can understand the past, the present, and then project your establishment's future.
Financial management allows you to:
- understand how much you make in revenue;
- know what your expenses are;
- find out how much you can invest in improvements and new offerings for your establishment;
- identify flaws or errors in your cash flow;
- spot opportunities to cut costs and optimize management as a whole.
2 – Plan for the medium and long term
And it's thanks to this clear, in-depth view of your bar/restaurant's financial health that you're able to plan ahead. By understanding your cash flow, you can set future profitability goals and anticipate upcoming expenses.
This way, your establishment will have realistic goals, predictable cash flow, and funds to invest in infrastructure and equipment.
You'll also be able to adapt your operation according to the seasonal fluctuations in customers, costs, and income you've identified.
3 – Gain more financial security
It's exactly this predictability that brings more security and peace of mind to your establishment's financial health.
This prevents surprises and drastic changes, since you're able to anticipate your income and costs – as well as find ways to set aside part of your profit to get through unexpected situations.
4 – Prevent fraud and errors
Thanks to business financial management, it becomes much easier to identify possible flaws – or even fraud – in the financial management of a restaurant, bar, or nightclub.
For example, with the automated register closing of a management system, there's no way for someone to miscalculate or forget a transaction. This, in turn, means more security as well as time savings and greater operational efficiency.
5 – Understand what works and what can be improved
Finally, like any good management practice, financial control generates valuable information about your operation. Among them, you may find:
- products that bring more profitability;
- your customers' profile;
- the most active days and times;
- main expenses and costs;
- products that are not as popular/profitable;
- the need to modify processes and/or expand your team.
This way, you can apply strategic actions to enhance the positive points of this analysis and also address what needs to be improved at your establishment.
5 tips on how to organize your establishment's finances
After learning more about the tools used for financial management in a restaurant or bar, it's time to discover tips and best practices for business financial control.
You can apply the tips below as routines in your operation and recurring practices. In addition, if you have a management system, many of these strategies and actions happen automatically and in sync across your establishment's areas.
1 – Record all transactions
Good financial control only happens when you have all the necessary information. So remember to record everything that comes in and goes out of your cash register.
Even small expenses or minimal income entries need to be logged so that your cash flow stays accurate.
This way, your accounts close correctly, avoiding surprises and preventing you from thinking you have less or more cash on hand than you actually do.
That's why it's so important to have a solution that integrates POS, inventory, ERP, finance, and tax management.
This way, when an item is sold, the tool automatically records the transaction in the POS, updates the inventory supplies, and sends the information to the ERP, which updates the finance numbers.
In addition, the system accounts for this information and makes it available in charts and analysis dashboards to facilitate the financial management of the operation as a whole.
2 – Carefully control your inventory
As you've already seen, Inventory Control is an essential part of business financial control.
After all, if you don't know exactly what's in your inventory, you can't set a sales target or determine which supplies you need to buy (and whether you received exactly the quantity you purchased). And remember: all of this should be done daily.
Only those who have already suffered from stockouts or been caught off guard by missing an ingredient for a popular dish or drink on a busy day know how much this can affect their revenue.
3 – Categorize expenses and receipts
Organization is an integral part of an establishment's financial control, as it allows you to catalog and analyze expenses and, in doing so, analyze the business's finances.
Divide expenses into categories, such as food, beverages, salaries, rent, fixed bills (water, electricity, etc.), among others. This way, you can easily identify your main resources and expenses.
Again, using an app or system makes this process easier. It can create labels and assign expenses/income to each of them, and this will happen automatically with these items in the future.
4 – Review your planning periodically
Remember that, no matter how attentive and careful you are, business financial control is an ongoing process. Therefore, there is always room for improvements and changes.
In addition, the restaurant or bar market is very volatile, with new trends, routines, and practices constantly emerging. Not to mention problems and unforeseen events that can arise at any time.
That's why you should periodically review your organization and planning, taking into account your establishment's new context. Update your practices and implement new tools to ensure the efficiency of your financial control.
5 – Use the right tools
Finally, you've probably already noticed that, despite being so important, financial management presents many difficulties. The good news is that this becomes much easier with the right tools.
We've already mentioned apps, spreadsheets, and, of course, management systems. The important thing is to understand which solution fits your restaurant or bar's routine and, thus, adopt it efficiently and completely.
For those looking for greater control and versatility, the best option is to have a management system for restaurants/bars.
This way, you manage the entire establishment more easily and quickly, in addition to automating the collection and analysis of financial data.
To learn more about how a solution like EPOC can help your restaurant or bar not only manage finances but also sell more and cut costs, check out a free demo of our system.