After taking this course you will be able to: 

• Identify five key metrics for restaurants and their use in the Chart of Accounts
• Explain five common restaurant accounting hurdles and how to clear them
• Recognize five core restaurant processes and transaction types and handle them appropriately

What You’ll Learn:

• Setting up a Restaurant Friendly Chart of Accounts
• What to automate and sync, and what NOT to
• The magic of clearing accounts
• Booking delivery and catering income streams
• Categorizing and tracking COGS & Inventory
• Segmenting and tracking Labor expenses
• Dealing with Tips vs Automatic Gratuities
• Calming Petty Cash chaos
• More key restaurant accounts and processes
• What to reconcile and how often
• Creating Restaurant Friendly reporting

Restaurant-Friendly QBO Class Description

Restaurant accounting is supposed to be some of the toughest around, but is it really? 

Sure, there are a lot of ‘special’ things going on, from food costs to tips to delivery, but they are mostly predictable and even cyclical in nature.  Once you know how to process them, it all ends up being fairly routine.

The secret is that restaurant bookkeeping isn’t especially hard, it’s just different.  

The very good news is that not everyone knows how to handle the restaurant kind of ‘different’.  This means a person who understands this niche becomes very valuable, indeed.

Join restaurant accounting expert Kristen Nies Ciraldo as she walks you through setting up, keeping up, and even summing up the financial life of a typical restaurant using QBO.   

You will learn how to deal with common events like sales, COGS, payroll…and even see what you can automate and how to sync things well.

You’ll also learn how to deal with some not-so-intuitive aspects of restaurant bookkeeping:  tips, auto-gratuities, inventory, delivery services, and the parade of credit card deposits and petty cash transactions.

With a customized Chart of Accounts at the center, everything you do within a restaurant’s data will become a little bit easier.  The bonus?  The resulting reports aren’t just clearer, they are invaluable to restaurant clients.

Take this class and you’ll not only serve restaurants more easily, you’ll serve them better!  Most important? You will gain the confidence that comes from knowing what kind of ‘different’ restaurants are and how to handle it inside the books.

Instructional Level

Intermediate

Course Length

3 hours 

Course Credits

3 CPE, Certificate of Completion

Prerequisites

• Our “QuickBooks® Online Fundamentals” live class/webinar, or
• Our "QuickBooks® Online Fundamentals” On-Demand video course, or 
• Prior QuickBooks® Online experience.

Who should take this class?

• CFOs in the Food & Beverage industry
• Accountants and bookkeepers serving restaurants or bars
• Anyone interested in serving this niche using QBO

Refunds & Cancellations

Please view our Terms of Service for information on refunds, cancellations, and complaint resolution. To request a refund, please contact us.

Royalwise is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its website: www.nasbaregistry.org.

Course Credits: 3 CPE
Course Updated: July 2025
Course Page Updated: July 2025