Restaurant accountant in Ottawa

If you also run a catering arm into Gatineau, the Quebec sales tax point below matters. The Ottawa accountant page covers the wider Ontario compliance picture.

Tips, tip pools and the payroll behind them

How tips move through the business decides how they are taxed. Tips the employer controls — card tips paid out through payroll, or a pool the house collects and divides — are generally employment income, with income tax, CPP and EI withheld and remitted like wages. Tips a guest hands directly to a server sit outside payroll and are reported by the employee. Most Ottawa restaurants now take the bulk of tips by card, which pushes more of them into the controlled category than owners expect.

Ontario’s employment standards also limit what an employer can deduct from or keep of employees’ tips, so the pool rules should be written down. The guide to tip reporting on payroll walks through the distinction, and payroll in Ottawa covers remittances, records of employment and T4s.

The point of sale, the cash drawer and the bank

A restaurant produces three versions of each day’s sales: the POS report, the card processor’s deposit, and whatever cash made it to the bank. They never match on their own. The processor deposits net of its fees, delivery apps remit net of commission days later, and cash deposits lag. Reconciling those every week, not every quarter, is what catches a missing deposit or a till that is short on the same shift every week.

Gift cards need their own line. A card is a liability when sold and becomes revenue when redeemed, which matters most around the holiday season when sales spike. We set the chart of accounts up so each source lands separately, and the bank reconciliation guide explains why the weekly habit pays for itself.

Food cost, measured every month

Food and beverage cost is the dial the whole operation is run against, and it only helps if you see it while you can still act. That means supplier invoices coded to the right categories, a physical count at month-end, and menu items costed from current prices rather than last year’s. A count once a year produces a tax number. A count every month produces a management number.

We report food, beverage and labour cost monthly with the Ottawa bookkeeping, and the year-end inventory count guide covers what the count has to support on the return.

HST on the menu, and catering across the river

Prepared food and drinks sold in an Ottawa restaurant carry 13% HST, whoever the customer is. Ontario rebates the provincial part of the HST at the till on some lower-priced prepared food and beverages, so the rate depends on how each item is set up in the POS. Alcohol is taxed at the full rate. A menu category set up wrongly repeats the error on every sale until someone checks.

Catering an event in Gatineau is different. A supply made in Quebec carries GST rather than HST, and regular sales into Quebec can mean registering for Quebec sales tax at 9.975%. If the catering side is growing, read the Quebec accounting page before the next contract. GST/HST filing in Ottawa covers the return.

Seasons, patios and cash between them

Patio months and festival weekends carry the year; January and early spring test it. Rent, payroll and supplier terms do not ease when the covers drop, and HST and source deductions still fall due on their normal dates. The restaurants that come through a slow stretch are the ones that kept tax money separate from operating cash in the good months. The seasonal cash flow guide sets out a simple way to do it.

Growth brings its own obligations. Staff must be covered by WSIB, and once total Ontario payroll passes the exemption, the Employer Health Tax applies; the thresholds are on the Ontario tax facts page. A second location usually crosses both lines sooner than owners expect.

What EverStone handles for you

One CPA, one fixed fee agreed up front:

• T2 corporate return and year-end financial statements
• Payroll with tips treated correctly, ROEs and T4s
• Weekly reconciliation of POS, processor, delivery apps and bank
• Monthly food, beverage and labour cost reporting
• HST set up correctly across the menu
• Employer Health Tax and WSIB kept on the calendar

Fixed fees, fully online

EverStone works with Ottawa restaurants entirely online from Abbotsford. We are three hours behind you, so a question sent after the last table is usually answered before the lunch prep begins. Monthly bookkeeping starts from $300 a month with HST filing included, and a 45-minute Advice Call is a flat $200 + GST if you need one decision made well. See what it costs.

Remote restaurant accounting from Abbotsford

EverStone is a sole practitioner CPA firm at 32615 South Fraser Way in Abbotsford, serving Ottawa businesses entirely online. There is no Ottawa office and no local staff. Meetings are held by video or phone, documents are exchanged securely by email, e-signature and a secure upload link, and no visit is required at any point. Daily sales, tips and food cost are handled from the POS and payroll systems you already run.