California · Restaurants

Built for full-service, QSR, and bar owners across California.

Tip-compliant books, a weekly flash P&L, and prime-cost reporting for full-service, QSR, and bar / catering owners across LA, OC, and the IE — on one predictable monthly retainer.

One expert who actually understands tip allocation, multi-jurisdiction sales tax, and pour-cost variance — not a rotating cast of junior accountants.

Serving Southern California
26 years of tax expertise
One expert — every month
Restaurants we serve
  • Full-service restaurants

    Tip pools, multi-station prep, and a 941 that lands every quarter.

  • QSR · Fast-casual

    Food cost variance, multi-jurisdiction sales tax, and owner draws on a real cadence.

  • Bars · Wineries · Breweries · Catering

    Pour cost, tip pooling, and alcohol-vs-food sales tax — without the audit trail.

Serving restaurant owners across Los Angeles, Orange County, Long Beach, Pasadena, the Inland Empire, and the rest of Southern California.
Full-service restaurants

Tip pools, multi-station prep, and a 941 that lands every quarter.

Front-of-house versus back-of-house, Busser shifts versus Servers, and a Form 8027 that has to reconcile to the penny — full-service books are the most demanding in hospitality. Most owner-operators do them in a stack of QuickBooks files and a spreadsheet the GM updates on Sundays. We rebuild the chart of accounts around how a real full-service kitchen and floor actually run.

The pain
  • Tip allocation between BOH and FOH that fails Form 8027

    Front-of-house tips, service-charge split-aways, and back-of-house tip-outs all need to reconcile against the IRS Form 8027 the restaurant files. A 1% miss triggers a notice, and most operators don't discover the gap until the next quarterly 941.

  • Inventory COGS across prep stations, bar, and walk-in

    Prep-station counts, dry-goods variance, beverage pulls, and the walk-in reconcile against the food cost you reported on Tuesday — but rarely match. Without a monthly bridge across stations, the P&L food cost is fiction.

  • Quarterly 941 pain across tipped and non-tipped staff

    Servers, bartenders, hosts, dishwashers, and line cooks all hit the 941 with different tax treatment. The deposit lands late, the reconciliation drags into the next quarter, and the owner takes the cash-flow hit personally.

What changes
  • Tip compliance — Form 8027 reconciled monthly, not at year end

    Tip-out schedules, service-charge allocations, and BOH distributions tracked against the 8027 each month — so quarterly 941 deposits line up the first time, and January is a quiet month.

  • An inventory bridge across every station, every month

    Prep, line, bar, and walk-in tied to the food-cost line on the same monthly P&L. The variance between ordered and used shows up before the quarter closes, not in the tax return.

  • A weekly flash P&L the owner actually reads

    Revenue, labor, food, beverage, and prime cost on a single page, every Monday morning. The GM gets the operational view; you get the cash view; the books tell the same story.

QSR · Fast-casual

Food cost variance, multi-jurisdiction sales tax, and owner draws on a real cadence.

QSR and fast-casual operators run on a 3–5% food cost margin and a district tax schedule that changes by city. One missed line on the LA County add-on and the cash register says one number while the CDTFA says another. We build the books to match the way QSR units actually bill, collect, and pay owners out.

The pain
  • Food cost variance across shifting produce and protein vendors

    Sysco, US Foods, and the regional produce brokers all issue credits against returns, damage, and substitutions. Without a monthly reconciliation, those credits sit on the vendor statement — and the food-cost line quietly inflates by 1.5 points.

  • Sales tax collected across LA, OC, and IE jurisdictions

    State base, district add-ons, county measures, and the occasional city ballot item all stack differently by store. A multi-unit QSR operator in three jurisdictions is collecting four tax rates — and reconciling them by hand every quarter.

  • Owner-pay discipline across multi-unit operators

    Two or three units, a family on payroll, draws booked as wages, and a clean split between owner compensation and reinvestment. Most owners pull from the operating account and call it a draw — the books can't tell the IRS what was wages versus distributions.

What changes
  • Prime cost tracked weekly, food cost reconciled monthly

    Labor and food cost broken out by unit, reconciled against vendor statements, and tied to the same weekly flash the GM already reads. The 3–5% margin you say you run is the margin you actually run.

  • A sales-tax calendar that handles every district you operate in

    State, district, county, and city add-ons scheduled by jurisdiction, with deposits prepared before the due date. Quarterly CDTFA filings go out the first time — without the December scramble.

  • Owner draws scheduled, not pulled on a vibe

    A documented owner-pay schedule by unit, with payroll and distributions classified cleanly. Year end is a quiet conversation with the books, not a forensic reconstruction.

Bars · Wineries · Breweries · Catering

Pour cost, tip pooling, and alcohol-vs-food sales tax — without the audit trail.

Bars, wineries, breweries, and catering operators run split tax treatment across every ticket — alcohol versus food versus catering deposits versus tasting-room fees. The pour-cost line drives the entire margin, and a tip pool that crosses roles (FOH, BOH, barbacks, runners) breaks compliance fast. We tune the books for how a real beverage program actually bills.

The pain
  • Pour-cost variance and beverage COGS that don't reconcile

    Bottle counts, keg variance, spillage, comps, and staff drinks all hit the beverage COGS line — but rarely match what the bar program reports at month end. A 2-point pour-cost variance collapses 80% of beverage margin.

  • Tip pooling and comping across FOH, BOH, and barbacks

    House tip pools, service-charge pools, and barback percentages cross roles and shifts. A pooling mistake triggers a Section 3(m) notice from the DOL, and most operators don't find out until the next TWC review.

  • Sales tax across alcohol, food, catering deposits, and tasting-room fees

    California taxes alcohol, food, and catering deposits differently — and the tasting-room carve-out changes by license type. Multi-concept operators are collecting three or four tax rates from the same POS, and one misclassification compounds monthly.

What changes
  • Prime cost tracking with COGS tuned to beverage

    Pour-cost variance, beverage COGS, and labor on a single weekly flash. The bar program margin becomes a number you can defend — to yourself, to your banker, and to the CDTFA.

  • Tip compliance across pools, comps, and roles

    House pools, service-charge pools, and barback allocations reconciled against the payroll register every month. Section 3(m) compliance is a quiet checkmark, not a January surprise.

  • A sales-tax calendar that knows alcohol from food from catering

    Each concept's tax treatment documented by license, the calendar scheduled by jurisdiction, and quarterly filings prepared before the deposit due date. One POS, many tax rates — handled.

Get Started

Stop letting the books run the kitchen.

Book a free 30-minute consultation to walk through your full-service, QSR, or bar / catering operation — tip pools, food cost, multi-jurisdiction sales tax, the lot. No pitch, just a real conversation with someone who's done this for 26 years.

Southern California
Full-service · QSR · Bars & Catering
Est. 1998