Now that the House of Representatives and the Senate are not skewed by the vision of one dominant party after the elections in November 2010, get ready for changes to tax laws, job growth, and hopefully a renewed focus on small businesses in America—including restaurants! It’s that time of year to reset your … More

The recently enacted Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 includes a wide-ranging assortment of tax changes generally affecting businesses—specifically restaurants. Two of the most significant changes allow for faster cost recovery of business property. Here are the details: Enhanced small business expensing (Section 179 expensing): In order to help small businesses quickly recover the cost of … More

Receipts, receipts and more receipts! Which ones do I keep? For how long? Here are the basics and a few scenarios for you to consider: Travel and Entertainment: Amount, time, place, business purpose and business relationship are the five areas in which each expense must be substantiated or kept in order to prove an allowable expense. For travel expenses, track the amount of each separate … More

Owning vs. leasing your restaurant equipment is very similar to the purchase vs. lease options for a vehicle. In either case, cash flow and immediate tax deductions are two areas to focus on. However, first and foremost, always negotiate the best purchase price of the equipment before deciding how to pay for it. For any asset purchases, the … More

Marketing without measurement equals waste! Over the past few weeks, my visits to restaurants included asking simply how they track the benefits of using coupons, such as two-for-one or “buy one get one free” offers. Without exception, there was never a system in place to measure the profits or increased food costs derived from the … More

I was recently asked to represent a restaurant owner in a case against the Internal Revenue Service. The owner operates five restaurants, each in a separate S corporation, with the operations being individually reported on his personal tax return. In addition, he purchased the buildings for each restaurant individually and rents them to his S … More

College interns! Who would have thought that your marketing dollars could be stretched with a huge return on investment year after year? For the past five years, our accounting practice has employed full-time professionals and part-time college students to serve our restaurant owners all year long. We are now moving into the marketing departments of … More

Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to analyze and review the operating manuals of several national chains, cover to cover. This was necessary to determine the proper accounting and tax treatment of financial transactions, consider the franchisor recommendations and compare them to my client’s operating results. While researching, I discovered one operating … More