Automating Restaurant Accounting: What to Keep, What to Outsource
Automation is powerful — but not perfect
Every restaurant owner wants bookkeeping to “just run.”
The truth?
Automation saves hours, but only when paired with smart oversight. Too much automation, and errors go unnoticed. Too little, and you’re buried in data entry.
What to automate
Daily sales syncs — Pull data automatically from your POS into your accounting software.
Bank feeds — Reconcile deposits and withdrawals automatically.
Vendor invoices — Use tools like Dext or Hubdoc to capture and code invoices.
Payroll imports — Sync gross wages, tips, and taxes into journal entries.
These repetitive tasks should happen without manual effort.
What to keep human
Reconciliations — Automation doesn’t know context. Humans catch duplicates, missing deposits, and timing issues.
Variance analysis — A bot can’t tell you why food cost jumped 2% — that’s an operator’s insight.
Financial reviews — Judgment calls (like capital vs. expense) still need professional oversight.
Automation should free you to think, not disengage completely.
What to outsource
If you’re managing more than one location or vendor list, outsource:
Bookkeeping and reconciliations to ensure accuracy
Payroll postings and sales tax filings to avoid compliance issues
Controller-level review to track prime cost and cash flow trends
You stay in control; we handle the moving parts.
The Steady Plate approach
We combine automation with expert oversight — so your numbers update automatically, but still make sense.
You’ll know what happened and what to do about it.
Automation + Accountability = Real insight.