Hospitality and cafes
Alpine Accounts provides bookkeeping and management accounts for cafes, restaurants, pubs and caterers across Hervey Bay, the Fraser Coast and Australia wide. Hospitality has three problems that general bookkeeping handles badly: daily takings that have to reconcile across EFTPOS, cash and delivery platforms, payroll with split shifts and penalty rates that changes every week, and a trading pattern that swings hard between peak season and the quiet months. The work is about knowing your real margin, not just your turnover.
Takings never reconcile themselves
A venue takes money through the register, EFTPOS, the delivery apps and sometimes cash, and each settles differently. Delivery platforms pay net of commission days later. EFTPOS batches overnight. If the deposit is coded straight to sales, the margin figure is fiction and nobody notices until the year is closed.
Done properly, gross takings, platform commission, merchant fees and refunds are each recorded separately and reconciled to what actually landed in the bank. Only then does the gross profit percentage mean anything, and only then can you tell whether a price rise actually stuck.
Payroll is the biggest line and the most volatile
Wages are usually the largest single cost in a venue and the hardest to control, because rosters move weekly, shifts split across penalty rate bands, and staff turn over constantly. A payroll setup built once and left alone will quietly drift out of line.
We process each pay run against the rates and classifications you confirm, keep leave accruals and superannuation current, and flag anything that looks inconsistent rather than processing it quietly. Award interpretation itself is a workplace relations question and you will be told that plainly.
Cost of goods, plate by plate
Food and beverage cost tracked properly tells you which menu items earn and which are there out of habit. Suppliers change prices constantly and menus rarely keep up, so the dish that was profitable eighteen months ago can be underwater now.
Reporting split between food, beverage and other revenue makes that visible monthly rather than annually, which is the difference between adjusting a menu and discovering a problem after a bad year.
Common questions
Can you reconcile Uber Eats, DoorDash and Menulog settlements?
Yes. Each platform is reconciled separately so commission, refunds and adjustments are recorded as costs rather than being netted off sales. That is the only way the true margin on delivery becomes visible.
Our takings change enormously with the season. Can you plan for that?
That is exactly what the cash flow work is for. A Fraser Coast venue that budgets on an average month will be wrong in both directions twice a year. Forecasts are built on your actual trading pattern, including the quiet months.
Do you handle tips and staff payments?
Tips are recorded and distributed according to your own policy, and processed through payroll where they are paid that way, so the treatment is consistent and the records hold up.