5 Best Restaurant Accounting Software

The best restaurant accounting software must address most, if not all, of the components of restaurant operations and back-office management, including accounting, inventory checking, cost management, and employee scheduling. 

These capabilities can help managers and owners track the financial aspect of the business without toggling between programs or constantly transferring data between different software. Check out my evaluation of the five best restaurant accounting and bookkeeping software for managing your business.

• Restaurant365: Best overall software for restaurant accounting
• QuickBooks Online: Best accounting software for small restaurants, cafes, and startups
• MarginEdge: Best for accounting software for restaurants with bars
• Wave: Best free accounting software for food trucks and carts
• Food Service Ace: Best for restaurant accounting software for caterers

Best restaurant accounting software compared

	Monthly pricing	Accounting features score	Recipe or food management	Employee scheduling	POS integration
	$499 per location*	4.5/5	✓	✓	✓
	Visit Restaurant365
	$99**	5/5	✕	✕	✓
	Visit QuickBooks Online
	$330 per location	5/5	✓	✕	✓
	Visit MarginEdge
	$0	2.5/5	✕	✕	✕
	Visit Wave
	Custom	3.5/5	✓	✕	✓
	Visit Food Service Ace

*Billed quarterly

**Under the Plus plan

Restaurant365: Best overall software for restaurant accounting

Overall score: 4.4/5

Pricing: 3.30/5

Accounting Features: 4.50/5

Restaurant Features: 5.00/5

Ease of use: 4.40/5

User Reviews: 4.10/5

Pros

• Tracks income and expenses separately by location
• Offers integrated payroll and HR
• Provides assistance finding R365 Certified Accounting Partner
• Provides projections for staffing and food requirements via sales forecasting based on past data
• Manages restaurant fixed assets

Cons

• Lacks monthly billing
• Won’t let caterers track project profitability
• Offers employee scheduling only in the Professional plan
• Is expensive for restaurants with many small locations

Visit Restaurant365

My expert evaluation

Best for:

• Owner-managed restaurants. If you’re heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of your restaurant, you may not need as many restaurant-specific features, making QuickBooks Online a great fit. High-priced restaurant-specific accounting software is great for providing information to owners, but it’s not as necessary when the owner is very hands-on.

• Startup restaurants. QuickBooks can easily provide all the necessary bookkeeping features if your restaurant is in its initial stages. As your restaurant empire grows, you can access hundreds of powerful integrations that scale with you, including great restaurant integrations like MarginEdge, discussed next.
• Restaurant owners who want to outsource bookkeeping. If you want to outsource as much bookkeeping as possible, QuickBooks Online is the obvious choice. You can easily find a ProAdvisor in your area and grant them direct access to your books.

QuickBooks Online is a flexible pick for smaller restaurants, cafes, bistros, and startups. QuickBooks has everything you need to pay your bills, track costs, and produce quality financial statements. It can track income and expenses by project, location, and class. 

For instance, you can easily produce reports separating activity by alcohol, food, and catering across multiple locations. You can also use project tracking to measure the profitability of individual catering jobs or special events.

QuickBooks won’t help you manage your restaurant, but it will integrate with most POS systems that offer helpful restaurant features. You could set up recipes as inventory build items and track your raw materials being turned into dishes, but that would be terribly inefficient. If you like QuickBooks’ flexible accounting features but want restaurant features, I recommend integrating QuickBooks Online with MarginEdge.

QuickBooks Online aced my rubric for accounting features, but it only got a 2.5 for restaurant features. While it won’t help determine the cost of recipes, schedule your employees, or provide EDI with your vendors, it does offer integrations with many great POS systems like Toast. 

One of the things I like most about QuickBooks as a software for restaurant accounting is how easy it is to find help. In addition to its own bookkeeping service, QuickBooks Live, QuickBooks has a huge network of ProAdvisors in the US who are familiar with QuickBooks.

Deciding factors & standout features

Pricing

• Essential: $499 per month and location, billed quarterly
• Professional: $749 per month and location, billed quarterly
• Custom: Priced based on your needs

You must schedule a free demo before purchasing a subscription.

Deployment type

Cloud

Free trial

None

Discount for new customers

None

Customer support

Telephone, live chat, chatbot, community forums, self-help materials

Average user review rating

4.1 out of 5 based on 67 Capterra reviews

• Robust integration options with POS systems: Restaurant365 can integrate with around 90 POS systems, including all eight of my choices for best restaurant POS systems. It’s an all-in-one back-office system that restaurant owners and managers can use to stay on top of accounting, inventory tracking, scheduling, and sales.
• 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.
• Employee scheduling and labor cost management: Employee scheduling is vital to restaurant operations since an understaffed restaurant will impact the quality of service. Restaurant365 integrates employee scheduling to help you plot schedules, manage PTO, and determine employee shifts. Overall, all of this information will lead to the computation of total labor costs.
• A/P automation: Invoice details are automatically captured and a bill is created. The bill is then routed through your customized approval process. Once approved, the bills are paid electronically, eliminating the need for paper checks.
• Inventory management: Reduce food spoilage through tight inventory controls, including simplified inventory counts and efficient item tracking across multiple locations.

QuickBooks Online: Best accounting software for small restaurants, cafes & startups

Overall score: 4.1/5

Pricing: 4.40/5

Accounting Features: 5.00/5

Restaurant Features: 2.50/5

Ease of use: 4.40/5

User Reviews: 4.30/5

Pros

• Is very affordable compared to restaurant-specific software
• Integrates with many top POS systems
• Has excellent project accounting for caterers
• Lets you instantly share your books with an external accountant
• Tracks classes and locations separately

Cons

• Lacks recipe costing
• Doesn’t assist with employee scheduling
• Has no assistance in purchasing food with EDI
• Lacks restaurant management features in general

Visit Intuit QuickBooks

My expert evaluation

Best for:

• Owner-managed restaurants. If you’re heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of your restaurant, you may not need as many restaurant-specific features, making QuickBooks Online a great fit. High-priced restaurant-specific accounting software is great for providing information to owners, but it’s not as necessary when the owner is very hands-on.

• Startup restaurants. QuickBooks can easily provide all the necessary bookkeeping features if your restaurant is in its initial stages. As your restaurant empire grows, you can access hundreds of powerful integrations that scale with you, including great restaurant integrations like MarginEdge, discussed next.
• Restaurant owners who want to outsource bookkeeping. If you want to outsource as much bookkeeping as possible, QuickBooks Online is the obvious choice. You can easily find a ProAdvisor in your area and grant them direct access to your books.

QuickBooks Online is a flexible pick for smaller restaurants, cafes, bistros, and startups. QuickBooks has everything you need to pay your bills, track costs, and produce quality financial statements. It can track income and expenses by project, location, and class. 

For instance, you can easily produce reports separating activity by alcohol, food, and catering across multiple locations. You can also use project tracking to measure the profitability of individual catering jobs or special events.

QuickBooks won’t help you manage your restaurant, but it will integrate with most POS systems that offer helpful restaurant features. You could set up recipes as inventory build items and track your raw materials being turned into dishes, but that would be terribly inefficient. If you like QuickBooks’ flexible accounting features but want restaurant features, I recommend integrating QuickBooks Online with MarginEdge.

QuickBooks Online aced my rubric for accounting features, but it only got a 2.5 for restaurant features. While it won’t help determine the cost of recipes, schedule your employees, or provide EDI with your vendors, it does offer integrations with many great POS systems like Toast. 

One of the things I like most about QuickBooks as a software for restaurant accounting is how easy it is to find help. In addition to its own bookkeeping service, QuickBooks Live, QuickBooks has a huge network of ProAdvisors in the US who are familiar with QuickBooks.

Deciding factors & standout features

Pricing

QuickBooks Online has four plans. For restaurants, I recommend Plus, which includes bill management and inventory, project, location, and class tracking.

• Simple Start: $35 per month for one user
• Essentials: $65 per month for three users
• Plus: $99 per month for five users
• Advanced: $235 per month for 25 users

When subscribing for the first time, you have the option of a free 30-day trial or a 90% discount for three months.

Deployment type

Cloud

Free trial

30 days

Discount for new customers

90% off for three months as of this writing; can’t be combined with a free trial

Customer support

Telephone (support calls you), live chat, chatbot, community forums, self-help material

Average user review rating

4.3 out of 5 based on 8,059 Capterra reviews

• Sales tax tracking: QuickBooks Online can help you add sales taxes in invoices and track your sales tax liability if you sell in different jurisdictions.
  
• 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 you’re on the plan. QuickBooks Live can help you focus on managing your restaurants and let experts handle the books.
  
• Ecommerce integration: If you’re a restaurant that also happens to sell baked goods or DIY food kits online, QuickBooks Online integrates with multiple ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. You easily manage inventory and sales between QuickBooks Online and your chosen ecommerce platform for a more streamlined reporting process for inventory levels and COGS.
  
• Class and location tracking: You can easily define classes and locations to calculate profit separately. For instance, you can see the income and expenses of alcohol sales at your main street location.
  
• Project tracking: Project tracking can be used to determine the profitability of engagements like catering jobs or in-restaurant special events.

MarginEdge: Best accounting software for restaurants with bars

Overall score: 4.3/5

Pricing: 3.90/5

Accounting Features: 5.00/5

Restaurant Features: 3.30/5

Ease of use: 4.60/5

User Reviews: 4.60/5

Pros

• Integrates with QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, and Xero for general bookkeeping
• Measures alcohol poured with the Freepour smart scale
• Compares actual ingredient usage with what should have been used, given the dishes sold
• Has straightforward pricing

Cons

• Requires users to pay for bookkeeping software
• Has no employee scheduling
• Cannot forecast sales and food usage based on prior data

Visit MarginEdge

My expert evaluation

Best for:

• Bars. The Freepour smart scale will pay for itself by catching overpours and drink giveaways. You can quickly and accurately take bar inventory of your alcohol nightly for comparison with hypothetical alcohol usage based on sales. 

• QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage Intacct users. Although MarginEdge has accounting features, it’s only suitable for tracking restaurant transactions and isn’t a complete accounting solution.
  
  So, MarginEdge’s integration with the accounting platforms makes it easier to account for income, expenses, A/R, and A/P using standard bookkeeping procedures. MarginEdge is a great way to add restaurant features without a complicated accounting software conversion if you started your restaurant with solid bookkeeping software and need more. 

MarginEdge is the perfect complement to QuickBooks Online for restaurants. It combines QuickBooks Online’s outstanding accounting features with powerful restaurant features like recipe costing and commissary kitchen support. While I recommend QuickBooks Online as your bookkeeping integration, there are other great software, such as Sage, Xero, AccountEdge, and Microsoft Dynamics GP. 

A great new feature of MarginEdge is the Freepour smart scale for an additional $150 per month. Bar owners (as well as fans of Bar Rescue) know that overpouring can cost you serious cash. The Freepour smart scale allows you to inventory the alcohol left in your open bottles to calculate the actual alcohol poured in an evening and compare it with the theoretical alcohol poured based on sales.

I don’t recommend using MarginEdge without a bookkeeping integration, so I evaluated it while integrated with QuickBooks Online Plus. With the integration, MarginEdge scored perfectly for the accounting features I look for in restaurant accounting software. 

For restaurant features, MarginEdge received better marks than QuickBooks Online alone, but not as good as Restaurant365. A few of the missing restaurant features include employee scheduling, sales forecasting, and EDI with vendors. MarginEdge scored great for customer service since it offers multiple contact methods, including phone, email, and live chat with a human.

Deciding factors & standout features

Pricing

MarginEdge charges a monthly flat fee of $330 per location. However, you’ll need to subscribe separately to a bookkeeping software.

You can add a Freepour smart scale for $150 monthly to track your alcohol on hand for accurate cost and shrinkage.

Deployment type

Cloud

Free trial

None, but a free demo is available

Discount for new customers

None

Customer support

Telephone, live chat, chatbot, community forums, self-help material

Average user review rating

4.6 out of 5 based on 47 Capterra reviews

• Variance analysis: MarginEdge derives actual costs from POS data and compares them with budgeted amounts to provide information about how efficiently your restaurant uses resources. You can also generate theoretical reports to show standard usage based on the assumptions or estimates you’ve made.
• Daily controllable P&L: MarginEdge can generate a daily controllable P&L statement that will present you with controllable revenues and expenses. To help you see the bigger picture, the controllable P&L statement will include a common-size value as a percentage of sales to show you the impact of different products on total revenue and resource usage on total expenses.
• Allergen tracking: Some customers may have food allergies, and MarginEdge’s allergen tracking is useful to help you determine which recipes or dishes contain allergens.
• Bill pay: Track bills and issue unlimited electronic and check payments to suppliers and vendors.

Wave: Best free accounting software for food trucks & carts

Overall score: 3/5

Pricing: 5.00/5

Accounting Features: 2.50/5

Restaurant Features: 0.00/5

Ease of use: 4.60/5

User Reviews: 4.40/5

Pros

• Is free for one user
• Offers unlimited users for $16 monthly
• Lets users connect bank and credit card accounts to transfer activity
• Is solid accounting software for tracking income and expenses

Cons

• Can’t track food-on-hand
• Can’t price recipes
• Has no tracking by class or location

Visit Wave

My expert evaluation

Best for:

• Food carts and trucks with very little food left over at the end of the day. Since Wave doesn’t allow for inventory, it records the expense of food when you purchase it rather than when it’s sold. However, if you have a lot of leftovers, you might be better off with software that includes inventory features to match the cost of the food to the sales revenue.

• Food truck owner-operators. If you own and operate your own food cart, food truck, or similar establishment, you don’t need expensive software to provide insight into what’s happening. You know what’s happening because you’re the one making it happen.

Restaurant accounting software is useful for tracking food on hand, recipe costs, food costs,  and waste. Not every establishment needs these capabilities and will do well with simple software that tracks income and expenses for their tax return. Food trucks, carts, and other very small establishments have little food inventory, so they have little need to track it in detail.

Wave is very affordable and works much like QuickBooks for simple expense tracking. You can connect your bank account (with the Pro plan) and categorize your income and expenses as you import them. If you have catering or larger jobs, you can send professional invoices and track them until you’re paid.

Wave aced my pricing rubric. It offers a free plan, but its paid plan is only $16 per month and includes unlimited users. For comparison, QuickBooks Simple Start offers similar features for $35 per month for a single user.

Wave’s basic accounting features are solid, but it doesn’t have some of the more advanced accounting features sit-down restaurants might like, such as tracking inventory and separating activity by class and location. Check out QuickBooks Online if you don’t want to pay for restaurant features but need good inventory accounting. 

Also, Wave lacks restaurant features, so I only recommend it for very small food establishments where the owner is personally involved and has little food inventory. If you need restaurant features, I recommend Restaurant365.

Deciding factors & standout features

Pricing

• Starter: Free forever for one user
• Pro: $16 a month for one user or $170 per year, billed annually; get unlimited bank connections and receipt capture via mobile app

Deployment type

Cloud

Free trial

None

Discount for new customers

None

Customer support

Telephone, live chat, chatbot, community forums, self-help material

Average user review rating

4.4 out of 5 based on 1,688 Capterra reviews

• Free A/R and A/P management: The free Starter plan includes unlimited invoicing and bill tracking for a single user.
• Expense tracking: Manually input income and expense transactions and classify them into revenue and expenses.
• Financial statements: Wave Starter is a double-entry accounting system, so you can print a balance sheet and an income statement.

The Pro plan adds the following features:

• Bank connections: As with higher-priced software, you can connect your bank account and classify income and expenses as they are automatically imported.
• Receipt scanning: You can easily scan receipts with the mobile app and import the transaction into Wave.
• Unlimited users: The Pro plan includes unlimited users for the base price of $16 monthly.

Food Service Ace: Best restaurant accounting software for Caterers

Overall score: 3.5/5

Pricing: 2.60/5

Accounting Features: 3.50/5

Restaurant Features: 4.30/5

Ease of use: 3.10/5

User Reviews: 0.00/5

Pros

• Includes foodservice distribution software that assists with customer deliveries
• Has flexible plans
• Manages inventory transfers between the commissary and multiple food trucks
• Forecasts sales based on prior data and inventory purchases
• Lets you purchase food through EDI with vendors
• Integrates with third-party or Food Service Ace POS system

Cons

• Lacks upfront pricing
• Has no employee scheduling
• Has no payroll features
• Lacks accounting software integration
• Currently has no user reviews

Visit Food Service Ace

My expert evaluation

Best for:

• Catering businesses and restaurants that want to manage customer orders, create packing slips and pick tickets, and generate itinerary reports to outline expected delivery times and destinations.

I recommend Food Service Ace because of its comprehensive catering software. It helps you plan catering events by forecasting cash flows based on proposals, tracking deposits, organizing event workflow, and issuing final invoices. The other features are similar to those found in Restaurant365, but without upfront pricing.

Food Service Ace scored poorly in pricing because it doesn’t provide any estimate of price on its website. At the very least, it could’ve enumerated the features in its custom pricing model to provide users with a general impression about its custom plan.

I can’t overlook its lack of accounting software integrations either. Although Food Service Ace has built-in accounting features, I believe that access to other third-party software will give users more flexibility and better ease of use, especially for those who need advanced accounting features. MarginEdge is my top recommendation for restaurant software that integrates with accounting software like QuickBooks, Sage, and Xero.

Deciding factors & standout features

Pricing

Pricing is quote-based and paid monthly. The price includes data backup, unlimited users, and 24/7 access to a help desk

Deployment type

Cloud

Free trial

None

Discount for new customers

None

Customer support

Telephone and email

Average user review rating

None

• Catering management: The catering module enables managers and owners to create proposals for clients. It also accommodates deposits, invoices, and advances. This module can even track inventory and overall catering costs.
• 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, A/P, and A/R. POS data imports to the general ledger.

How I evaluated the best restaurant bookkeeping software

I assessed the best restaurant bookkeeping software based on basic accounting features, reporting, and useful restaurant-specific functions. Your accounting system must integrate with your POS solution, so I evaluated whether the tool integrates with any top restaurant POS systems like Toast, SpotOn, and Lightspeed. 

Pricing: 15% of the overall score

My pricing score includes not only the cost but also whether month-to-month contracts are available and if there are any limitations on users, transactions, customers, or vendors.

Accounting features: 25% of the overall score

The general features include accounting features that all industries require, but the weights placed on features are specifically tailored to restaurants. Payroll, inventory management, and bill management are particularly important for restaurants.

Restaurant features: 25% of the overall score

The most heavily weighted restaurant feature is the number of sound POS systems available for integration. Other features I considered include tracking multiple locations and updating the cost of preparing recipes based on daily food prices, employee scheduling, sales forecasting, and EDI with vendors.

Ease of use: 20% of the overall score

My ease of use score includes a subjective evaluation and available customer support options. Finally, I considered whether the software had any accounting partners offering assisted bookkeeping services.

User reviews: 15% of the overall score

In rating user reviews, I checked user review websites to gain user insights and suggestions. I believe that feedback from actual and verified software users provides valuable information about its usability for small businesses.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about restaurant accounting solutions

The last bite

Restaurant365 is complete restaurant management and accounting software on a single platform. While it’s pricier than competitors, it won’t disappoint in terms of restaurant management features. However, if budget is your concern, then MarginEdge plus a QuickBooks Online plan is the best choice for affordability. Food Service Ace is also worth considering if catering is a significant component of your business.