Insights / Reference
Restaurant chart of accounts
The structure we deploy for restaurants, groups and hotels, and the reasoning behind it. A general chart of accounts will produce a technically correct P&L that tells an operator nothing — the grouping is what makes the statement readable.
Published by Back of House Accounting · Principal: Douglas Carpenter, CPA, CFA · Last updated 25 September 2026
Three principles
Group to prime cost, not to GAAP order
Food, beverage and all labor categories sit adjacent so prime cost is a subtotal on the face of the statement, not something the reader calculates. Operators manage that one number weekly.
Separate controllable from non-controllable
A general manager can influence direct operating, marketing and repairs. They cannot influence rent, depreciation or interest. Splitting them lets you measure the manager on what they control and the deal on what they do not.
Sub-account by concept, not by vendor
Food cost splits into produce, protein, dairy, dry goods and paper — categories a chef can act on. Splitting by vendor produces a list that tracks purchasing habits rather than cost behavior.
For lodging clients the same logic is applied within the USALI departmental structure, so brand and lender reporting requirements are met without a second set of books — that version is published in full as the hotel chart of accounts, with its own free Excel and CSV download.
| Range | Account group |
|---|---|
| 4000 | Revenue — food, beverage, retail, delivery, catering, other, less comps and discounts |
| 5000 | Cost of sales — produce, protein, dairy, dry goods, paper, beer, wine, spirits, NA beverage |
| 6000 | Labor — hourly kitchen, hourly FOH, salaried management, payroll taxes, benefits, workers comp |
| — | Prime cost subtotal (5000 + 6000) |
| 7000 | Direct operating — smallwares, cleaning, uniforms, laundry, menus, kitchen supplies |
| 7200 | Marketing — digital, print, third-party delivery commission, loyalty, local minimum |
| 7400 | Utilities — electricity, gas, water, waste, telecom |
| 7600 | Repairs and maintenance — equipment, building, service contracts |
| 7800 | General and administrative — bank and card fees, POS, insurance, professional fees, licenses |
| 8000 | Occupancy — base rent, percentage rent, CAM, property tax, property insurance |
| 8500 | Franchise — royalty, national ad fund, technology fee |
| 9000 | Non-operating — depreciation, amortization, interest, pre-opening, non-recurring |
Percentage rent sits in occupancy, not in cost of sales — a common misposting that distorts prime cost and makes unit comparison meaningless.
A full sample restaurant chart of accounts
The structure above explains the reasoning. This is the account list itself — 121 numbered accounts covering assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, cost of sales, labor, operating costs, occupancy, franchise and non-operating items. It is a starting structure, not a rule: delete what you do not run, and add sub-accounts only where you will actually act on the variance.
Two things to check before you build it. Account numbers must leave room between them — the gaps below exist so a new account can be inserted in the right place three years from now without renumbering the whole ledger. And location, concept or department belongs in a separate dimension, not in the account number; one chart of accounts serves every unit.
| Account | Description |
|---|---|
| 1000 | Assets |
| 1010 | Cash — operating account |
| 1020 | Cash — payroll account |
| 1030 | Cash — tax and reserve account |
| 1050 | Petty cash and cashier banks |
| 1100 | Undeposited funds / cash in transit |
| 1150 | Credit card receivable — clearing |
| 1160 | Third-party delivery receivable — clearing |
| 1200 | Accounts receivable — house accounts and catering |
| 1300 | Inventory — food |
| 1310 | Inventory — beer, wine and spirits |
| 1320 | Inventory — paper, cleaning and smallwares |
| 1400 | Prepaid expenses — insurance, licenses, rent |
| 1500 | Leasehold improvements |
| 1520 | Furniture, fixtures and equipment |
| 1540 | Smallwares — capitalized base stock |
| 1560 | Accumulated depreciation (contra) |
| 1700 | Security and utility deposits |
| 1800 | Liquor license and other intangibles |
| 2000 | Liabilities |
| 2010 | Accounts payable — trade |
| 2100 | Accrued expenses |
| 2110 | Accrued payroll |
| 2120 | Accrued vacation and paid time off |
| 2200 | Payroll taxes payable — federal |
| 2210 | Payroll taxes payable — state and local |
| 2220 | Tips payable and tip pool clearing |
| 2230 | Employee deductions payable — benefits, garnishments |
| 2300 | Sales tax payable |
| 2350 | Gift card liability (deferred revenue) |
| 2360 | Loyalty and deferred promotion liability |
| 2400 | Current portion of long-term debt |
| 2500 | Notes payable |
| 2550 | Equipment finance and lease obligations |
| 2600 | Deferred rent / lease liability |
| 2700 | Due to related parties |
| 3000 | Equity |
| 3010 | Owner or member capital contributions |
| 3020 | Owner or member distributions |
| 3100 | Common stock or membership units |
| 3200 | Additional paid-in capital |
| 3900 | Retained earnings |
| 4000 | Revenue |
| 4010 | Food sales — dine-in |
| 4020 | Food sales — takeout and counter |
| 4030 | Food sales — third-party delivery (gross) |
| 4040 | Food sales — catering and events |
| 4100 | Beverage sales — beer |
| 4110 | Beverage sales — wine |
| 4120 | Beverage sales — spirits and cocktails |
| 4130 | Beverage sales — non-alcoholic |
| 4200 | Retail and merchandise sales |
| 4300 | Private event and room fee income |
| 4400 | Service charges retained by the house |
| 4800 | Comps (contra revenue) |
| 4810 | Discounts and promotions (contra revenue) |
| 4820 | Employee meals (contra revenue) |
| 4900 | Other income — vending, rebates, classes |
| 5000 | Cost of sales |
| 5010 | Produce |
| 5020 | Protein — meat, poultry, seafood |
| 5030 | Dairy and eggs |
| 5040 | Dry goods, grocery and bakery |
| 5050 | Paper, packaging and disposables |
| 5100 | Beer |
| 5110 | Wine |
| 5120 | Spirits |
| 5130 | Non-alcoholic beverage |
| 5200 | Retail and merchandise cost |
| 5900 | Inventory adjustment — waste, spoilage, count variance |
| 6000 | Labor |
| 6010 | Hourly wages — kitchen and back of house |
| 6020 | Hourly wages — front of house |
| 6030 | Tipped wages — cash wage paid by the employer |
| 6040 | Overtime premium |
| 6100 | Salaried management |
| 6110 | Bonus and incentive |
| 6200 | Payroll taxes — employer FICA |
| 6210 | Payroll taxes — FUTA and state unemployment |
| 6220 | FICA tip credit claimed (contra) |
| 6300 | Workers compensation insurance |
| 6400 | Health insurance and benefits |
| 6500 | Uniforms, training and employee meals charged to labor |
| 6900 | Contract and agency labor |
| — | Prime cost subtotal (5000 + 6000) |
| 7000 | Direct operating |
| 7010 | Smallwares replacement |
| 7020 | Cleaning supplies and chemicals |
| 7030 | Uniforms and laundry |
| 7040 | Menus, printing and decor |
| 7050 | Kitchen supplies and equipment rental |
| 7060 | Pest control, trash and grease removal |
| 7200 | Marketing |
| 7210 | Digital advertising and social |
| 7220 | Print, outdoor and local store marketing |
| 7230 | Third-party delivery commission and platform fees |
| 7240 | Loyalty, gift card and promotional funding |
| 7250 | Public relations, photography and content |
| 7400 | Utilities |
| 7410 | Electricity |
| 7420 | Gas |
| 7430 | Water and sewer |
| 7440 | Telecom and internet |
| 7600 | Repairs and maintenance |
| 7610 | Kitchen equipment repair |
| 7620 | Building and leasehold maintenance |
| 7630 | HVAC and refrigeration service contracts |
| 7640 | Technology and POS hardware |
| 7800 | General and administrative |
| 7810 | Credit card and bank fees |
| 7820 | POS, accounting and software subscriptions |
| 7830 | Insurance — general liability and property |
| 7840 | Professional fees — accounting and legal |
| 7850 | Licenses, permits and dues |
| 7860 | Office supplies, postage and administration |
| 7870 | Travel, meals and entertainment |
| 8000 | Occupancy |
| 8010 | Base rent |
| 8020 | Percentage rent |
| 8030 | CAM and common area charges |
| 8040 | Property tax |
| 8050 | Property insurance |
| 8060 | Other real estate and equipment lease |
| 8500 | Franchise |
| 8510 | Royalty |
| 8520 | National advertising fund |
| 8530 | Technology and support fee |
| 8540 | Franchise fee amortization |
| 9000 | Non-operating |
| 9010 | Depreciation |
| 9020 | Amortization |
| 9030 | Interest expense |
| 9040 | Pre-opening costs |
| 9050 | Non-recurring and one-time items |
| 9100 | Gain or loss on disposal of assets |
| 9500 | Income tax provision |
Tipped wages, the employer FICA accounts and account 6220 are what make the FICA tip credit calculable from the ledger rather than reconstructed by hand each year. Accounts 4400 and 4810 are the two most commonly miscoded lines in a restaurant ledger — see service charge vs tip.
If you would rather this was set up, mapped and maintained for you, that is what our restaurant bookkeeping service does, and restaurant accounting services covers the reporting built on top of it.
Ungated, no email
Restaurant chart of accounts template
The whole account list above as a file you can import instead of retype. The Excel workbook adds the account type, the statement each account belongs to and its normal balance, so it maps straight into QuickBooks, Xero or Sage. No email, no sign-up, nothing gated.
What is in it. Three sheets. Chart of accounts lists all 121 postable accounts with account number, name, type, statement, normal balance and group, filterable, with the 14 range headings marked so you do not import them as accounts. How to use it covers importing, which accounts to delete, and the three treatments that cause most of the damage — third-party delivery, sales tax and tips. P&L mapping shows which account range feeds every line of the statement, including the prime cost and restaurant-level EBITDA subtotals.
The contra accounts are flagged as contra, not as expenses: comps, discounts and employee meals reduce revenue, accumulated depreciation reduces fixed assets, and account 6220 reduces payroll tax rather than sitting in it. That single distinction is the difference between a chart that produces a usable restaurant P&L and one that does not. The matching P&L template, with the subtotals and percentage column already built as formulas, is on that page — also free and ungated.
Period structure
4-4-5 quarters
Thirteen weeks per quarter in a 4, 4, 5 pattern. Each quarter is directly comparable; months are not equal length but quarters are.
13 equal periods
Every period is exactly four weeks. The cleanest structure for week-over-week and period-over-period comparison, and the one most multi-unit operators prefer.
Calendar months
Simplest for tax and lender reporting, and the worst for operational comparison — a five-Saturday month looks like growth that is not there.
Whichever you use, the close calendar and the comparison basis have to be stated on the report. Most disputes about a bad period turn out to be disputes about the calendar.
What a restaurant chart of accounts has to do that a generic one does not
A default small-business chart of accounts will produce a compliant set of financial statements. It will not produce a statement an operator can run a restaurant from, because it groups accounts for the tax return rather than for the decisions. Four requirements separate the two.
- Prime cost has to be a subtotal, not a calculation. Cost of goods and every labor category — hourly, salaried, payroll taxes, benefits, contract labor — sit together above the line so the number an operator manages weekly reads straight off the statement.
- Revenue has to split by channel before it splits by category. Dine-in, takeout, first-party delivery, each third-party marketplace, catering and events behave differently on margin. Merged into one sales line, a shift in channel mix looks like a fall in food cost discipline.
- Contra-revenue needs its own accounts. Comps, voids, employee meals, discounts and promotions netted into sales destroy the ability to tell a pricing problem from a discounting habit.
- Third-party delivery needs gross treatment. Platform commission, promotional funding, delivery fees and adjustments each need a home, with gross sales recorded gross. Booking the net remittance understates revenue and expense simultaneously, and makes food cost percentage meaningless.
Cost of goods sub-accounts that a chef can act on
Splitting food cost into produce, protein, dairy, dry goods, paper and non-alcoholic beverage gives a category to investigate when the percentage moves. Beverage splits into beer, wine, spirits and non-alcoholic for the same reason — pour cost by category is actionable, blended pour cost is not.
Labor detail that supports the payroll work
Front of house and back of house separated, hourly separated from salaried, and tipped wages separated from non-tipped. That last split is not cosmetic: it is what makes the tip credit and the FICA tip credit computable from the ledger rather than reconstructed from payroll reports at year end.
Multi-unit structure
Locations belong in a class, department or location dimension — not in duplicated account numbers. One chart of accounts across every unit is what makes per-unit P&Ls comparable and consolidation mechanical rather than manual. The consolidated group pack shows what that produces.
Hotels and mixed-use properties
For lodging, the same grouping logic is applied inside the USALI departmental structure so that rooms, food and beverage, and other operated departments each carry their own revenue, payroll and expense detail, and undistributed costs sit below. Where a property runs a restaurant open to the public, the outlet keeps restaurant-grade cost detail within the F&B department rather than being flattened into a single departmental line. The hotel reporting pack shows the output.
Frequently asked
How many accounts should a restaurant chart of accounts have?
Enough to answer the questions you actually ask, and no more. A single location is usually well served by something in the region of sixty to eighty active accounts; a multi-unit group with several revenue channels will run higher. The failure mode in both directions is real — too few and the statement cannot explain a variance, too many and nothing gets coded consistently.
Should each location have its own chart of accounts?
No. One chart of accounts, with location carried as a class, department or location dimension. Separate charts per unit make per-unit comparison and group consolidation manual work, and they drift apart within a year.
Where do third-party delivery commissions belong?
As an operating expense, with the gross order value recorded as revenue — not netted against sales. Keeping commission, promotional funding and platform fees in separate accounts is what lets you see the true margin on a delivery order against a dine-in one.
Can I change my chart of accounts mid-year?
Yes, and it is usually worth doing rather than waiting. The requirement is that prior periods are remapped to the new structure so comparatives still work — without that, you gain a better statement and lose your ability to compare it to anything.
Is there a restaurant chart of accounts template in Excel or PDF?
Yes — in Excel and in CSV, both free and both ungated. The workbook holds the same 121 accounts published on this page, with an account type, statement and normal balance against each one so it can be imported rather than retyped, plus a sheet mapping every account range to the line it feeds on the P&L. There is no PDF, because a PDF of an account list cannot be imported into anything. If you want it loaded, mapped and reconciled against your POS rather than done by hand, that is what our restaurant bookkeeping service does.
How do I set up a restaurant chart of accounts in QuickBooks?
Import the account list, then do the two things most setups skip. Order the income and cost of sales accounts so food, beverage and all labor categories sit adjacent, which is what lets prime cost appear as a subtotal rather than a calculation. And carry each location as a class or location dimension rather than duplicating the chart per unit — QuickBooks will consolidate the group automatically once that is set correctly.
What are the main account groups in a chart of accounts?
Five: assets, liabilities and equity on the balance sheet, then revenue and expenses on the income statement. A restaurant chart of accounts splits that last group further — cost of sales, labor, direct operating, occupancy and non-operating are kept apart so prime cost and controllable cost can each be read off the statement directly.
Related: Restaurant accounting services · Restaurant bookkeeping · Prime cost · Food cost percentage · KPI glossary