Cash and card reconciliation
Takings from the till, card terminal and delivery platforms brought together and reconciled properly, so the numbers actually add up.
Hospitality & Food
Accounting for hospitality & food businesses.
Cafes, restaurants and small food businesses run on tight margins and a mix of cash, card and delivery-platform income that can be a nightmare to reconcile without the right system behind it. Add staff rotas and payroll into the mix and the books can eat up hours that should be going into the business itself. Buzz gives hospitality owners accounting support that understands where the pressure actually sits.
Margins this tight leave no room for guesswork
When a few percentage points separate a good month from a break-even one, you need to know your real numbers, not a rough idea of them. That means income that's properly reconciled across every payment method, costs that are tracked accurately, and an accountant who understands that a busy till doesn't automatically mean a healthy business.
What food and hospitality businesses need
Support built around how the money actually comes in
Visibility over tight margins
Clear reporting on costs against income, so you can see where the margin is being made or lost, not just what's left at the end of the month.
Staff payroll handled properly
Payroll support for your team, run correctly and on time, whatever the shift pattern looks like.
VAT handled without the stress
VAT returns prepared and filed properly, including the specific complications that come with food and drink sales.
A dedicated accountant
Someone who gets to know your business rather than someone you explain it to fresh every time you call.
One fixed monthly fee
No hidden extras and no surprise bills, however unpredictable trading gets month to month.
FreeAgent included
Less admin at the end of a long shift
FreeAgent is included as part of your package, worth up to £330 a year, so income and expenses are kept in one place instead of scattered across till reports, bank statements and a shoebox of receipts. Less admin at the end of a long day, and a clearer picture of the business whenever you need it.
Who this is for
Built for cafes, restaurants and small food businesses
- Cafes, restaurants and takeaways juggling cash, card and platform income
- Food businesses working with margins too tight for guesswork
- Owners running staff rotas and need payroll handled reliably
- Businesses that want fixed monthly fees, not a surprise bill after a busy quarter
- Anyone who wants an accountant who understands hospitality, not just a generic small business
Frequently asked questions
Common questions from hospitality and food businesses
How much does it cost?
A fixed monthly figure agreed in writing after a 30-minute discovery call. In hospitality the drivers are the number of tills and payment channels to reconcile, staff headcount and pay frequency, whether you take delivery platform income, and whether stock is counted. A single café with one card terminal is a different job from a restaurant with three delivery apps, a bar and twenty staff on rotas. FreeAgent is included, worth up to £330 a year, and questions do not carry an hourly charge.
How do you reconcile till, card and delivery platform income?
By reconciling to the source data rather than the bank deposit, which is where most hospitality books go wrong. Card settlements arrive net of merchant fees, delivery platforms pay net of commission — frequently 20% to 30% — plus their own promotions and refunds, and cash banked rarely matches takings exactly. Booking the payout as revenue understates both sales and costs and produces VAT returns that are wrong. The fix is a daily takings record from the till, matched against each settlement, with fees and commission recorded as costs in their own right.
What VAT rate applies to what we sell?
Hot takeaway food and anything consumed on the premises is standard-rated at 20%. Most cold takeaway food is zero-rated. That means the same sandwich can be zero-rated or standard-rated depending on whether it is heated and where it is eaten, and your till needs to be configured to capture the difference at the point of sale rather than by estimate afterwards. Get this wrong and it compounds every day. Alcohol, confectionery, crisps and soft drinks are standard-rated regardless, which is why a mixed menu needs the till doing the work.
What should I be watching each month?
Four numbers, and none of them is turnover. Gross margin split wet and dry, because they behave differently and a good bar margin can hide a poor kitchen one. Staff cost as a percentage of sales, tracked weekly rather than monthly, because rotas are the fastest lever you have. Wastage. And covers or transactions against the same week last year, which strips out price effects. A busy till does not mean a healthy business, and in hospitality the gap between the two is where most closures happen.
How do we handle tips and service charge?
Carefully, because the rules changed. Under the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act, qualifying tips must be passed to staff in full and fairly, employers cannot make deductions, and a written policy and records must be kept. The tax treatment then depends on how they are distributed: tips paid through payroll are subject to PAYE and generally National Insurance, whereas a properly independent troncmaster arrangement can change the National Insurance position. Getting the structure wrong creates both a tax liability and an employment law problem, so it is worth setting up deliberately.
Can you handle payroll for a rota-based team?
Yes — weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly, with RTI filed every run and auto-enrolment assessed each period. Hospitality payroll has its own recurring problems: high turnover means constant starters and leavers, variable hours mean someone's auto-enrolment status can change from month to month, and holiday pay for irregular hours has to be calculated properly rather than assumed. Send us the changes by an agreed cut-off date and the run goes ahead without further chasing. See payroll and pensions for what is included and how it is priced.
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