The 5 Best Restaurant Accounting Software for 2022
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Eric is a staff writer at Fit Small Business focusing on accounting content. He spends most of his time researching and studying to give the best answer to everyone.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
Restaurant management requires an understanding of the components of restaurant operations and back-office management, such as accounting, inventory taking, cost management, and employee scheduling. Restaurant accounting software must address the majority, if not all, of these components to help managers and owners track the financial aspect of the restaurant business without having to transfer to and from different software services.
We’ve chosen the five best restaurant accounting software for managing your restaurant business:
- Restaurant365: Best overall accounting software for restaurants
- MarginEdge: Best restaurant integration for QuickBooks
- Food Service Ace: Best for food trucks and food delivery
- QuickBooks Online: Best for caterers, small restaurants, and startups
- Wave: Best free software for compiling income and expenses after the end of the year
Best Restaurant Accounting Software Compared
 |  |  |  |  | |
Our Rating | |||||
Pricing | $948 to $1,617 per quarter | $300 | Custom Priced | $25 to $180 per month | Free |
Recipe or Food Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | N/A | N/A |
Inventory | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | N/A |
Employee Scheduling | ✔ | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Cost Management & Analysis | ✔ | ✔ | N/A | ✔ | N/A |
Catering Proposals & Management | ✔ | N/A | ✔ | Through project tracking | N/A |
Point-of-Sale (POS) Integration | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | N/A |
Restaurant365: Best Overall Restaurant Accounting Software
Restaurant365
Overall Score: 4.26
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Track income and expenses separately by location
- Integrated payroll and human resources (HR) is available
- Assistance in finding a Restaurant365 Certified Accounting Partner
- Sales forecasting based on past data provides projections for staffing and food requirements
What's Missing
- No monthly billing
- Caterers cannot track project profitability
- Recipe management and employee scheduling is not available in the Core plan
- Expensive for restaurants with many small locations
Restaurant365 Pricing
Billing is either quarterly or annually. Users get a 10% discount under the annual plan:
- Core Operations: $948 quarterly per location
- Core Accounting: $948 quarterly per location
- Essential: $1,332 quarterly per location
- Professional: $1,617 quarterly per location
Features
- Robust integration options with POS systems: Restaurant365 can integrate with seven out of eight of our choices for best restaurant POS systems and with over 90 other popular POS systems. It’s an all-in-one back-office system that restaurants owners and managers can use to stay on top of accounting, inventory tracking, scheduling, and sales.
- Automated bank reconciliation: The R365 Accounting feature of Restaurant365 offers general ledger control, location tracking per account, bank reconciliations, and financial budgets. It even has a fixed asset module to track the lifetime costs of all fixed assets.
- Artificial intelligence (AI): The inventory module of Restaurant365 uses AI to track ingredients with its real-time inventory system. This AI-powered module can help you manage the consumption of raw materials and ensure that they’re used efficiently in operations.
Our Expert Opinion
Restaurant365 is a comprehensive specialty software. The Core Accounting plan comes with an inventory management module, which is vital for restaurants to keep costs down and provide fresh food for their customers. Consider upgrading to the Essential plan to add employee scheduling and real-time recipe costing, among other things.
The downside for Restaurant365 is its pricing. The price points can be expensive for small restaurants, especially those with minimal accounting needs. Instead, we recommend Food Service Ace because of its quote-based and needs-based pricing computation. Alternatively, very small restaurants that won’t benefit from detailed tracking of restaurant costs can choose QuickBooks Online.
MarginEdge: Best Restaurant Integration for QuickBooks
MarginEdge
Overall Score: 4.00
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Integrates with QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, and Xero for general bookkeeping
- Uses the latest invoice prices to recalculate the cost of recipes automatically
- Compares actual ingredient usage to what should have been used given the dishes sold
- Integrates with 6 of 8 Best Restaurant POS Systems
- Straightforward pricing
What's Missing
- Must pay for bookkeeping software, such as QuickBooks Online, in addition to MarginEdge
- Employee scheduling is not available
- Cannot forecast sales and food usage based on prior data
MarginEdge Pricing
MarginEdge charges a monthly flat fee of $300 per location. You can choose monthly billing or annual billing for a 10% discount. A subscription to QuickBooks Online Plus (or other supporting bookkeeping software) is not included.
Features
- Accounting software integration: MarginEdge can integrate with popular accounting software like QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Sage Intacct, and Xero. This integration makes it easier to account for income, expenses, receivables, and payables using accounting assumptions and principles. Though MarginEdge has accounting features, it’s only suitable for tracking restaurant transactions and isn’t a complete accounting solution.
- Variance analysis: MarginEdge derives actual costs from POS data and compares it with budgeted amounts to provide information about how efficient your restaurant is with using resources. You can also generate theoretical reports to show standard usage based on the assumptions or estimates you’ve made.
- Daily controllable profit and loss (P&L): MarginEdge can generate a daily controllable P&L statement that will present you with controllable revenues and expenses. So that you can see the bigger picture, the controllable P&L statement will include a common size value as percentage of sales to show you the impact of different products to total revenues and resource usage to total expenses.
Our Expert Opinion
MarginEdge provides many popular restaurant features as an add-on to QuickBooks or other bookkeeping software. Startup restaurants may choose to begin with QuickBooks Online and then add MarginEdge when they’ve grown enough to utilize some of its more advanced features. The primary advantage of adding MarginEdge to your QuickBooks is the detailed tracking of your food cost and the impact of changes on recipe costs.
There’s no employee scheduling included with MarginEdge, which is a feature larger restaurants will likely miss. If you have complex restaurant operations, Restaurant365 is more suitable for your needs. It has employee scheduling and recipe management in the Essentials plan.
Food Service Ace: Best for Food Trucks and Food Delivery
Food Service Ace
Overall Score: 3.91
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Includes foodservice distribution software that assists with deliveries to customers
- Flexible plans based on your needs
- Manage inventory transfers between commissary and multiple food trucks
- Forecast sales based on prior data and view required inventory purchases
- Purchase food through electronic data interchange (EDI) with vendors
What's Missing
- No upfront pricing
- No employee scheduling
- No payroll features
Food Service Ace Pricing
Pricing is quote-based, payable monthly. The price includes data backup, unlimited users, and 24/7 access to help desk.
Features
- Workflow management: Food Service Ace has workflow management that helps back-office personnel efficiently manage orders, receipts, and inventory.
- Accounting: Food Service Ace has important accounting features like bank reconciliation, accounts payable (A/P), and accounts receivable (A/R). POS data is also imported to general ledger accounts every night.
- Catering management: Food Service Ace has a catering module that enables managers and owners to create proposals to clients. It also accommodates deposits, invoices, and advances. This module can also track inventory and overall catering costs.
Our Expert Opinion
A unique feature of Food Service Ace is its foodservice distribution software. In addition to generating pick lists, packing lists, and invoices, it’ll suggest routes and print driver itineraries with expected delivery times. The mobile apps are ideal for managing inventory in food trucks with no internet connection. While there’s no list of POS integrations, the company will work with you to integrate with your current POS software. There is no payroll feature, so you’ll need to use a third-party payroll provider and import your payroll entries.
Though Food Service Ace is flexible, we recommend QuickBooks Online for very small restaurants that need income and expense tracking, A/R and A/P tracking, basic to advanced (through QuickBooks Payroll) payroll features, and inventory tracking features.
QuickBooks Online: Best for Caterers, Small Restaurants, and Start-ups
QuickBooks Online
Overall Score: 3.47
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Very affordable compared to restaurant-specific software
- Integrates with all of our choices for best restaurant POS systems, as well as QuickBooks POS
- Excellent project accounting for caterers
- Instantly share your books with an external accountant
- Track classes and locations separately
What's Missing
- No recipe costing
- No assistance with employee scheduling
- No assistance purchasing food with EDI
- Lacks restaurant management features in general
QuickBooks Online Pricing
- Simple Start: $25 per month for one user
- Essentials: $50 per month for three users
- Plus: $80 per month for five users
- Advanced: $180 per month for 25 users
Payroll Core is $45 per month plus $4 per employee across all plans31
Features
- Inventory tracking: QuickBooks Online tracks the cost of goods sold in every invoice and determines the cost of ending inventory for reporting. QuickBooks Online’s inventory features can be enough for small restaurants that don’t need comprehensive restaurant features like recipe management and theoretical usage.
- Sales tax tracking: If you sell in different jurisdictions, QuickBooks Online can help you add sales taxes in invoices and track your sales tax liability. However, you can’t file and pay your sales tax using the app.
- Assisted bookkeeping options: QuickBooks Live is a special bookkeeping assistance service of QuickBooks. A Live Bookkeeper will be assigned to clean up your accounts and do your books while subscribed to the plan. QuickBooks Live can help you focus on managing your restaurants and let expert bookkeepers handle the books.
Our Expert Opinion
We rated QuickBooks Online as the best overall small business accounting software. Even without an integration, QuickBooks Online is a solid choice for caterers and small restaurants. For small restaurants, it has good inventory accounting that includes a count of units on hand as well as awaiting delivery. You can set reorder points to receive reminders when items are low. Caterers will love the project accounting features that will let you track the profit or loss from each event, including employee time.
Startup restaurants might choose to use QuickBooks Online until they grow to the point of needing the restaurant-specific features available in other software; then they can add the MarginEdge integration discussed above. However, QuickBooks Online lacks restaurant-specific features like employee scheduling and recipe management. We recommend choosing Restaurant365 for restaurants with complex operations.
Wave: Best Free Software for Compiling Income and Expenses
Wave
Overall Score: 2.31
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Software is free forever
- Connect bank and credit card accounts to transfer activity
- Print basic balance sheet and income statement
What's Missing
- Not sufficient to manage a restaurant
- No inventory accounting
- No tracking by class or location
Wave Pricing
Wave is free forever for accounting and invoicing.
Features
- Free forever: Wave doesn’t have higher paid plans, unlike other free accounting software. It’s a perfect program for tracking income and expenses for free.
- A/R and A/P management: Wave is capable enough for tracking receivables and payables. At a minimum, its invoicing and billing functions can help you account for income and expenses. But since Wave is free software, it lacks advanced and more premium accounting features.
Our Expert Opinion
Since it lacks proper inventory accounting, Wave isn’t sufficient to help manage a restaurant of any size by itself. You’ll need to track your inventory in a spreadsheet or other manual system. However, Wave is a free and easy way to accumulate your income and expenses at tax time. You can connect your bank and credit card accounts so that transactions transfer into Wave automatically, where you can classify them properly. Bank reconciliations are automatic, as long as you don’t have any outstanding checks or deposits.
You might want to use Wave to catch up and then choose another software program that can help you better manage your restaurant going forward. If you want full-featured accounting software, QuickBooks Online is our best recommendation. But if you prefer complex restaurant management features, Restaurant365 is our next best recommendation.
How We Evaluated Restaurant Accounting Software
We evaluated restaurant accounting software based on basic accounting features and reporting, as well as useful restaurant-specific features. It’s extremely important that your accounting system integrates with your point-of-sale (POS) software, so we evaluated whether the software integrates with any of our eight choices for best restaurant POS systems.
20%
Pricing
10%
Ease of Use
20%
General Features
40%
Restaurant Features
10%
Expert Evaluation
20% of Overall Score
Our pricing score not only includes the cost, but also whether month-to-month contracts are available and if there are any limitations on users, transactions, customers, or vendors.
10% of Overall Score
Our ease of use score includes both a subjective evaluation by our accounting expert and the customer support options available. Finally, we consider whether the software has any accounting partners that can offer assisted bookkeeping services.
20% of Overall Score
The general features include accounting features that all industries require, but the weights placed on features are specifically tailored to restaurants. Features particularly important for restaurants are payroll, inventory management, and bill management.
40% of Overall Score
The most heavily weighted restaurant feature is the number of good POS systems available for integration. Other features we considered are the ability to track multiple locations and update the cost of preparing recipes based on daily food prices, employee scheduling, sales forecasting, and electronic data exchange (EDI) with vendors.
10% of Overall Score
The expert evaluation is an overall scoring of the software’s features, mobile app, and reports.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Restaurant365 is complete restaurant management and accounting software in one. It offers affordable upfront pricing, given the comprehensive restaurant features. However, if you’re a current QuickBooks Online user or you want to use QuickBooks to have easy access to their huge network of QuickBooks ProAdvisors, then you can choose the MarginEdge QuickBooks integration so you can have features similar to Restaurant365 while remaining in the QuickBooks Online environment.
