Restaurants in Santa Rosa, by the numbers
Sonoma County, home to Santa Rosa, has 1,204 restaurants, cafés, bars and caterers with employees (Census Bureau, 2023).
That's 2% more than in 2018 (1,186).
Another 745 are run by one person with no employees, mostly self-employed owners.
Across California there are 88,778 with employees, so about 1% are in Sonoma County.
Every one of them has books to keep: sales to match to the bank, costs to sort and tax to work out.
Why restaurants need different books
Card sales land a few days later with the processor's fees taken out, cash goes into the till and the bank on its own schedule, tips belong to staff, delivery apps pay you less their commission, and food costs move every week. Getting from all that to a real profit number is a restaurant bookkeeper's whole job.
What a bookkeeper for restaurants in Santa Rosa keeps track of
- Daily sales from your point of sale, split into cash, card and gift cards
- Card payouts net of fees, matched to the day they came from
- Tips owed to staff, kept out of your sales
- Delivery app payouts, split into sales and commission
- Food and drink costs as a share of sales
- Cash counted against what the till says
Taxes for restaurants in California
Restaurant meals in California are taxed at the state's 7.25% plus local tax, and some places add a separate meals tax.
- Restaurant meals are taxable in every state that has a sales tax, and some cities and counties add a meals tax on top.
- Tips aren't your sales, but you report them through payroll, and you may get a tax credit for the Social Security and Medicare you pay on them.
- Delivery apps send you a yearly 1099-K for what they paid you.
What SumSwift does for restaurant and café owners, for $79 a month
- Point of sale reports read from Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, TouchBistro and others, each day split into cash, card, tips and gift cards
- Card payouts matched to their days, with the processor's fees split out
- Uber Eats, DoorDash and SkipTheDishes payout reports split into sales and commission
- Till counts with over or short, and cash deposits matched
- Recipes and food cost, actual against what sales should have used
- Payroll worked out each payday, with the deposit file for your bank and the remittance to send
- Every statement checked against the balances your bank printed, to the cent, with personal spending kept off your profit
Up to 3 accounts included. Prices in USD. Your accountant still files your tax return, with clean books and free access.