Restaurant Chart of Accounts: Track Food Cost, Tips, and Delivery Fees

If you run a restaurant, your chart of accounts is the difference between knowing your real food cost percentage and guessing. Most restaurant owners we talk to have one giant "Cost of Goods Sold" line in QuickBooks — which tells them nothing about whether protein costs are eating their margins or if DoorDash commissions are killing their delivery channel.

This guide walks you through setting up a restaurant chart of accounts that actually works.

Why Most Restaurant Charts of Accounts Are Broken

The default QuickBooks chart of accounts is designed for generic businesses. It gives you one COGS line, one payroll line, and a handful of expense categories. For a restaurant, this is like trying to run a kitchen with one knife.

Here's what you actually need to see in your reports:

• Food cost % by category — protein, produce, dairy, dry goods, beverages
• Labor cost split — front-of-house (servers, bartenders, hosts) vs back-of-house (cooks, prep)
• Delivery platform fees — what DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub actually cost you
• Tip handling — tips payable as a liability, credit card tip processing fees
• Revenue by channel — dine-in vs takeout vs delivery vs catering vs bar

Setting Up COGS by Food Category

Instead of one "Food Purchases" account, break it into categories that match how you buy:

| Account | Number | Purpose | |---------|--------|---------| | COGS - Protein | 5000 | Meat, poultry, seafood | | COGS - Produce | 5010 | Fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs | | COGS - Dairy & Eggs | 5020 | Milk, cheese, butter, cream, eggs | | COGS - Dry Goods | 5030 | Flour, rice, pasta, oils, spices | | COGS - Bread & Bakery | 5040 | Bread, rolls, tortillas | | COGS - Beverage (Alcohol) | 5100 | Beer, wine, spirits | | COGS - Beverage (Non-Alcohol) | 5110 | Soft drinks, coffee, tea, juice |

With this structure, you can calculate food cost % for each category and spot problems immediately. If your protein costs jump from 28% to 34%, you know exactly where to look.

Tracking Delivery Platform Fees

Most restaurants dump all delivery fees into one expense account. But DoorDash charges 15-30%, Uber Eats has different commission tiers, and Grubhub has its own fee structure. You need separate accounts:

• DoorDash Commissions (5400)
• Uber Eats Commissions (5410)
• Grubhub Commissions (5420)

This lets you answer the real question: "Is my delivery business actually profitable after platform fees?"

Tip Accounting Done Right

Tips create three accounting needs:

1. Tips Payable (liability) — tips collected on credit cards that you owe to staff
2. Credit Card Tip Processing Fees (expense) — the 2-3% your processor charges on tip amounts
3. Tip pooling records — distributing tips across servers, bartenders, bussers, and kitchen staff per your pooling arrangement

The Tips Payable account should appear in your liabilities. When you pay out tips on the next payroll, the liability zeros out.

FOH vs BOH Labor

Split your labor into front-of-house and back-of-house:

Back-of-house (COGS):

• Kitchen Labor - Cooks (5300)
• Kitchen Payroll Taxes (5310)

Front-of-house (Operating Expenses):

• FOH Wages - Servers (6000)
• FOH Wages - Bartenders (6005)
• FOH Wages - Hosts & Bussers (6008)

This split matters because BOH labor is a direct cost of making food (COGS), while FOH labor is an operating expense. Your labor cost ratio should track both separately.

Revenue by Channel

Don't lump all sales together. Separate by how customers order:

• Dine-in Sales (4000)
• Takeout Sales (4010)
• Delivery Sales (4020)
• Catering Revenue (4030)
• Bar Sales (4040)

Each channel has different margins. Dine-in might run 15% profit, but delivery could be negative after platform fees.

Get Started

Our restaurant chart of accounts template includes all of these accounts pre-configured and ready to import into QuickBooks. It takes 60 seconds to optimize and gives you the reporting structure your business needs.

Try the free demo →