Restaurant Accounting Services
Restaurant Operations Support: Inventory, Recipes & Cost Control
Most accountants only record what already happened. We go inside your restaurant to help you control food cost, labor and waste — while there's still time to act.
Restaurant operations support means going beyond recording numbers to actively control them — reviewing inventory, building and costing recipes, and mapping menu items at the line level inside your accounting software. It's how you control prime cost in real time, and it's the biggest thing that separates FORCS from a traditional accountant or CPA.
What's included
Inventory review & stock counts
Stock-count setup, counting cadence and variance review so you catch shrink, theft and over-ordering.
Recipe creation & costing
We build recipes and sub-recipes with accurate yields so every menu item has a true, current plate cost.
Item-level mapping
Menu items mapped to ingredients and GL accounts inside Restaurant365 or QuickBooks so COGS is precise.
COGS & actual-vs-theoretical (AvT)
We compare what you should have used to what you actually used — and hunt down the difference.
Menu engineering support
Data on which items are high-margin and high-volume so you can price and promote with confidence.
Vendor & purchasing review
Price tracking and vendor comparison so rising food costs don't quietly eat your margin.
How it works
- 01
Map the menu
We build your recipes, yields and item-level mapping so the system knows exactly what each dish costs.
- 02
Set up counts
We structure stock counts and a counting cadence your team can actually maintain.
- 03
Run AvT analysis
Each period we compare theoretical vs. actual usage and surface the variances that cost you money.
- 04
Act on the gaps
We turn the analysis into specific actions — portioning, pricing, purchasing or process fixes.
The difference between an accountant and a partner who controls cost
Ask most accounting firms — or a typical CPA — to help with your food cost and you’ll get a report telling you it was high last month. Useful, but too late. Restaurant operations support is different: it’s the work that actually moves the number. It’s why FORCS exists as more than a bookkeeper.
This is the single biggest thing that sets us apart. Our partner Patrice Leys has 25+ years leading restaurant operations, and our founder controls the books for a 60+ unit group — so we bring both sides: the operations know-how to fix cost, and the accounting rigor to measure it correctly.
Inventory review and stock counts that catch the leaks
We set up your stock counts, define a counting cadence your team can actually keep, and review variances every period. That’s how you catch shrinkage, theft, over-ordering and spoilage — the quiet leaks that never show up on a basic P&L until the margin is already gone.
Recipe creation and true plate cost
We build your recipes and sub-recipes with accurate yields, so every menu item has a real, current plate cost. When a vendor raises the price of chicken, you’ll know instantly which dishes just became unprofitable — and by how much. This is the foundation of real menu engineering.
Item-level mapping inside your accounting software
Here’s the part almost no one else does: we map your menu items to their ingredients and to the right GL accounts inside Restaurant365 or QuickBooks Online. That mapping is what makes your cost of goods sold precise instead of a plug number — and it’s what powers accurate accounting on top.
Actual-vs-theoretical: find the money
Each period we run actual-vs-theoretical (AvT) analysis — comparing what you should have used, based on what you sold, against what you actually used. The gap is real money: waste, over-portioning, receiving errors or theft. We don’t just report the variance; we help you close it with specific portioning, pricing, purchasing and process fixes.
Operations support pairs naturally with our consulting for growth decisions and our automations to keep the data flowing — and it’s available to restaurants nationwide, from NYC to Las Vegas.
Who this is for
Operators tired of finding out about a bad food-cost month after it's over — from independents fighting for every point of margin to multi-unit groups standardizing recipes and cost control across locations.
Related services
Round out your restaurant's finances
Operations — frequently asked questions
How is operations support different from bookkeeping or accounting?
Bookkeeping and accounting record and report what already happened. Operations support helps you change the outcome — by controlling inventory, recipe costs and prime cost while service is still happening. Very few accounting firms offer it because it requires real restaurant operations experience, not just accounting.
What is actual-vs-theoretical (AvT) analysis?
AvT compares the food cost you should have incurred based on what you sold (theoretical) against what you actually spent (actual). The gap reveals waste, over-portioning, theft, spoilage or receiving errors. Closing that gap is often worth several points of margin.
Do you work inside Restaurant365?
Yes. We run full Restaurant365 implementations — item setup, recipe costing, AP automation and multi-entity consolidation — as well as item-level mapping in QuickBooks Online. This is core to how we deliver operations support.
Can you help standardize recipes and cost control across multiple locations?
Yes. For multi-unit and franchise operators we build standardized recipes and mapping so every location measures cost the same way, making per-unit performance genuinely comparable.
Ready to Increase Profit and Take Control of Your Business?
Let's build a stronger, more profitable restaurant — together.