Daily cash reconciliation, COGS & inventory control
Accounting Services for Restaurants & Cafes in Dubai
Restaurant accounting lives or dies on daily reconciliation — cash, card settlements, delivery-app payouts and food cost percentage need tracking daily, not reconstructed monthly from a shoebox of receipts.
What's different about restaurants & cafes accounting
Most businesses in this sector rely on the same core services: bookkeeping, VAT return filing, the annual corporate tax return and the statutory audit.
Accounting services built for restaurants & cafes
Accounting for restaurants, cafes and F&B groups
Restaurants run on daily cash, high staff costs and food cost percentages that drift without anyone noticing. POS sales, delivery-app settlements, card machine deposits and cash takings all need to be reconciled daily or weekly, and food and beverage costs need regular stock counts to show real gross margins per outlet.
| Sales reconciliation | POS, card settlements, cash and delivery platform payouts reconciled to bank |
| Food and beverage cost | Stock counts and cost-of-sales percentages by outlet |
| Payroll and WPS | Salaries, service charge distribution and end-of-service accruals |
| Outlet P&L | Profitability per outlet and per brand each month |
| Pre-opening costs | Fit-out capitalisation and pre-opening expense treatment |
| Year-end | IFRS statements, audit where needed, and corporate tax return |
VAT and corporate tax for F&B businesses
Restaurant sales are standard-rated at 5%, and prices shown to consumers must include VAT. Delivery apps invoice commissions separately — the sale to the customer and the commission are different supplies, and VAT on each must be reported correctly. Tips and service charges need a documented treatment.
For corporate tax, small single-outlet restaurants may qualify for Small Business Relief, while groups should consider tax grouping, loss relief and transfer pricing between outlets and brand-owning entities.
Related services for restaurants
Related guides from our team
Practical explanations of the rules behind this service, written by our chartered accountants.
Questions from restaurants & cafes owners
How often should we actually reconcile cash versus doing it monthly?+
Daily, if at all possible — discrepancies caught same-day are traceable to a specific shift; discrepancies found a month later usually aren't.
Do delivery app commissions get treated as an expense or netted against revenue?+
Best practice is recording gross revenue with the commission shown as a separate expense line — netting them together hides your true food cost percentage against total sales.
Can you handle payroll for staff who work across multiple outlets?+
Yes — this is a common structure in restaurant groups and needs to be tracked correctly for both payroll and per-outlet cost allocation.
Do menu prices need to include VAT?+
Yes. Prices displayed to consumers must be VAT-inclusive.
How should delivery app sales be recorded?+
Record gross sales to customers and the platform commission as a separate expense, reconciled to each settlement.
What food cost percentage should a restaurant target?+
It depends on concept and pricing; the key is measuring it accurately by outlet each month so drift is caught early.
Can you handle payroll for restaurant staff?+
Yes, including WPS processing and end-of-service accruals. See payroll & WPS.
First review is free, within 24 hours.
Running a restaurants & cafes business and tired of generic bookkeeping?
Tell us your current setup and where the reporting breaks down — we'll scope a fixed monthly fee built around how your business actually earns revenue.