How do I track beverage costs separately from food costs?
Beverage costs and food costs have completely different margin profiles. Bars and drink programs often run 70-80% gross margins while food margins hover around 30-35%. When you track them together, you can’t tell if your drink menu is subsidizing a food program that’s losing money or if both are performing well.
Set up separate cost of goods sold accounts in your chart of accounts. At minimum, create Food COGS and Beverage COGS. Some restaurants break beverage down further into Liquor COGS, Beer COGS, Wine COGS, and Non-Alcoholic Beverage COGS. How detailed you go depends on whether you’ll actually use the granular data to make decisions.
The real work happens when you enter purchases. Every invoice from a vendor needs to be coded to the correct category. Sysco deliveries go to food. Your liquor distributor invoices go to beverage. This takes discipline, but it’s the only way the numbers mean anything at the end of the month.
The tricky part is vendors who sell both. Restaurant supply distributors often carry bar supplies, cleaning products, and to-go containers alongside food items. When you get a mixed invoice, split it into separate line items coded to the correct accounts. A $1,200 invoice might become $950 to Food COGS, $180 to Beverage COGS, and $70 to cleaning supplies. Takes an extra minute when entering the bill but gives you accurate data.
Track non-alcoholic beverages as beverage, not food. Soft drinks, coffee, and tea have beverage-like margins and belong in that category. Mixers used in cocktails should be beverage costs too.
Once you have clean data, run reports comparing your food cost percentage to food sales percentage and do the same for beverages. If food sales are 60% of revenue but food costs are 75% of total COGS, your food program is dragging down the business even if overall margins look acceptable. That’s information you can act on.
A bookkeeper near Gentry who understands restaurant accounting can set up your chart of accounts correctly from the start and train you or your staff on coding invoices properly. The setup takes a few hours. The insight you get every month is worth far more than that initial investment.
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